Have there been any studies to document just how dangerous the Chevrolet Corvair actually was, due to the problems described in Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed”?
I’m hoping for a comparison of the accident rates or fatality rates per mile driven of Corvairs vs. other sports cars of that era.
Thanks.
I think the thing that made the Corvair dangerous was that it used air from the engine to work the heater, allowing carbon monoxide to fill the passenger compartment. I’m not sure if that shows up on fatality rates, or even if it actually caused any fatalities.
Admittedly a bit of a partisan site but here is a list of the details of Nader’s charges and the rebuttal. Not a bad read. Just a side note, my friend’s mother used to have one and she loved it.
rear engine = tail heavy.
The first Corvairs were tricky because…
… it was most drivers first encounter with a rear engine car
…those who bought it expected ‘sporty’, were younger and were more likely to push the envelope handling-wise, when all they ever knew previously was straightline acceleration
…the edge of the envelope was sudden and unforgiving because it was rear wheel drive…oversteer suddenly meaning the tail goes out
…GM caught up a few years later and improved the handling
…Nader should have worked to improve safety in the bathtub
In addition to the rear-drive, a key point to Nader’s charges was the swing-axle design used for the rear end, which he claimed made it prone to flipping.
Nader was, depending on your point of view, either making exagerrated charges or completely talking out of his ass. But GM made a tactical mistake - rather than taking on the charges, they attempted to discredit Nader himself, eventually resulting in Nader winning a lawsuit stemming the illegal investigations GM launched trying to dig up dirt on him. This, of course, just made people tend to believe Nader.
The Corvair probably wasn’t the safest car on the road, but it wasn’t grossly out of line with other small cars of the era.
Also, IIRC, the front hood was poorly designed and weakly connected to the frame via the hinges, so that in a front ender, the hood came through the passenger compartment. Made a pretty good guillotine, from what I remember.
The typical problem I remember with the heating system was oil, not carbon monoxide. When the pushrod tube seals got leaky, smelly oil vapor would be in the hot air. In bad cases, it would coat the inside of the windshield from the defroster.
While I don’t know that it was impossible to get engine exhaust (with its carbon monoxide) through the heating system, I don’t remember ever hearing about people dying inside the car from that, or even about folks falling asleep from it. Seems to me if it had happened, there would have been a HUGE uproar.
Sigh. Nader’s book was not about the Corvair, and the Corvair fan Hobie cited completely misses the point, as did the quoted NHTSA report exonerating the Corvair. The NHTSA states that the Corvair was no worse than competing cars. Nader’s book, however, was an indictment of the entire automobile industry’s practice of designing unsafe cars. Nader felt that the Corvair was the most egregious of a bad bunch, and comparing it to other cars is a bit like saying “arsenic is no worse than many other poisons, and better than some”; yeah, so?
The lack of very cheap modifications is what Naders book was all about.
Mnay drivers were dying in survivable crashes through penny pinching of the meanest order.
Drivers would die on impact with the steering wheel column, yet the use of collapsible ones added very little to the total cost of manufacture.
The Corvair lacked a $15 dollar part which would have helped enormously in cornering stability, a roll bar, which keeps the wheels vertical as the car leans.Footage shows the Corvair leaning and the wheels tucking under, causing serious handling problems. There were crashes caused by Corsair drivers having to make fairly routine avoiding manoeuvers and the cars would break traction and slide, just for lack of the roll bar.
It’s also worth noting that the Corvair’s advertisements emphasized the versatility and fun of the car’s suspension. Some commercials even showed the vehicle trundling along offroad through terrain one wouldn’t take a modern SUV. Okay, one wouldn’t take a modern SUV through the kids’ sandbox, but you see where I’m going, here.
It’s worth noting as well that the GM ripped off a lot of design features from the VW Beetle. However, GM didn’t put enough R&D into making aircooled engines, and as a result they had cooling problems, and didn’t last too long.
I grew up when the Corvair was popular. (“Corv” from Corvette and “air” from air-cooled, I believe.) My first car was a 1966 Corvair Monza “110,” a designation based on the rated horsepower output of its six-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine. Around the same time, my father drove a '65 Monza. All in all, both were remarkably good cars, in our experience.
I believe the Corvair was an early example of what GM called “unibody construction,” a term that meant essentially that there was no traditional heavy steel-tubing frame. Instead, the individual sheet metal body panels were spot-welded together to create the “unibody.” I personally went through two front-end collisions in my '66, and suffered no injury. Certainly the “front hood” (actually the trunk lid) didn’t detach or become a “guillotine.”
The only engine overheating problem I ever had was when the single fanbelt (which also drove the alternator) snapped one night while I was driving my babe-of-the-moment home from a high school football game. Being mechanically inclined and one to prepare, I had the requisite kit with me – a new belt, a 1/2" drive breaker bar, and a 9/16" socket. Within ten minutes, we were on our way.
Carbon monoxide? Nope. Oil fumes? Never. Handling problems? My Corvair handled better than most of the cars on the road at the time. In fact, with the weight distribution so heavily resting on the drive wheels, my Corvair would go in the snow when everyone else was stranded. With a pair of studded snow tires, it would practically climb trees…
Mine was a '62. Four years older than me, and a real beauty; white with a red interior. IIRC it was the possibility of the rear suspension folding up under the car that was Nader’s complaint. Brackets attached to the chassis to keep the axles from dropping too far were the cure.
[hijack]
In Lawrence, KS, circa 1995, I saw a Corvair with the personalized license plate:
UNSAFE
[/hijack]
IIRC, the Corvair was the first American car offered with an optional turbocharger.
I had a 1966 red Corvair convertible, it handled great, and looked great.
As far as I am concerned, the later Corvair was as safe as the current small cars are today.
However, any small car is unsafe, compared to a bigger and heavier and higher Astro van. If you get in a wreck, the person with the the lightest, smallest, and lowest car usually loses.
I am no fan of Nader(who did not even know how to drive and never even had a drivers license) but the early Corvair was unsafe because it was too heavy in the rear of the car, and it killed Ernie Kovacks.
I really miss those!!! Do you know where I can get some? (I dont think the young cops of today would even know what they are)
Yeah, in Montana and Colorado I used to run them on the VW Beetle I had in those days. Curiously, I’ve used the exact same expression describing the capabilities of of the Beetle. That, and referring to it as “a poor man’s jeep”. At that time, studded snows were legal in those states, but there was some date they had to be removed by.
I had a '61 “Monza”, red with red interior (including red interior light). Called it “Betsy”. Had to get rid of “Betsy” when I got married, since my wife couldn’t figure out how to shift into “reverse”.
So, it seems it was not extraordinarily dangerous, but that the average piece of Detroit Iron in general at the time was anyway much less safe than it could have been, and it was just the Corvair’s dumb luck that it was taken as “poster child” for the issue.
As for the Nader side – what surprises me is that to this day corporations insist on the tactic of attacking the critic to shut him up/disgrace him, rather than simply proving him wrong. Is it really that much more cost-effective?