Chevrolet Corvair: A $4 Anti-Roll Bar, Ralph Nader and NHTSA's Verdict

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Facing the Volkswagen Beetle and compacts from AMC and Studebaker, Chevrolet general manager Ed Cole launched the Corvair in late 1959 as a 1960 model, and it was named Motor Trend's 1960 Car of the Year. Where the Ford Falcon and Plymouth Valiant simply shrank conventional cars, the Corvair used unibody construction, an air-cooled flat-six with aluminum parts mounted behind the rear wheels, a transaxle, a flat cabin floor and independent suspension at all four wheels, for under $2,000. The Monza trim, added in spring 1960 with bucket seats and later a four-speed floor shifter, made up about half of sales by 1961, nudged Ford toward the Mustang, and in 1962 the Monza Spider became only the second production car with a factory turbocharger.

The first-generation swing axle could let the inside rear wheel tuck under in hard cornering, causing oversteer. Engineers wanted a front anti-roll bar, but management rejected it to save about $4 a car and specified 15 psi front and 26 psi rear tire pressures instead. Ralph Nader's 1965 Unsafe at Any Speed devoted its first chapter to the 1960 to 1963 cars, drawing on documents from more than 100 lawsuits, just as the redesigned 1965 Corvair arrived with Corvette-derived rear suspension that Car and Driver praised. Sales fell by more than half in 1966, GM halted development in favor of the Camaro, and production ended in May 1969 at Willow Run. In 1972 an NHTSA report based on Texas A&M tests found the early cars no more prone to loss of control or rollover than their contemporaries.

• A mechanic topping up soft front tires to 26 psi could unknowingly remove the understeer the pressures were meant to create.
• The Mustang offered V8s up to 271 horsepower against the Corvair's 180-horsepower turbocharged six.
• The final 6,000 Corvairs were built almost by hand in an offline room at the Willow Run plant.
• NHTSA's tests used steering robots on a 1963 Corvair alongside a Falcon, Valiant, Beetle and Renault Dauphine.
• Don Yenko modified 100 Corvairs in a month to create the championship-winning Stinger, and the engine found a second life in experimental aircraft.