Tim Blair

and the incident was slightly sauteed (with just a hint of garlic and taragon) into his memory...

That ain't no ordinary homeless guy, he's a secret service agent in disguise! And he almost tripped him over!

Sometimes it seems like you've read every page on the Net; you find yourself typing r-o-a-d-t-o-s-u-r-f...

Invariably followed by a sense of shame and self loathing.

Tim, Democrats DO drive SUVs. They just don't want anyone else to drive them.

I'd say that poor old Ralph was (groans inwardly)... unsafe at any speed.

Don't worry. Now that Nader's onto them, the evil jew-zionist oppressors will no doubt have him eliminated.

I read 'Unsafe At Any Speed' as a teeenager, when it was published. I couldn't work why if swing axles were so bad Nader wasn't also complaining about the Beetle. A rear view of a a Beetle cornering vigorously shows the axles tucking in nicely - looked none too safe at the time. 'Unsafe' struck me at the time as selective.

I believe the Corsair has since been rehabilitated as was never as bad as Nader claimed. Can anyone back that up?

I used to own a lime green Corvair in the early 70's. It had a Rebel flag painted on the roof long before the Dukes of Hazzard writers ripped me off.

The Covair was and remain a POS, but not nearly as dangerous as St. Ralph made it out to be.

I think Chevrolet fixed the problem in the later model Corvairs. Nader did his thing in 61 (?), but Chevy didn't drop the Corvair until after 65 model year (? -- not positive of these dates). Supposedly (from what I've read) sales never recovered from the hit from Nader.

However, this was the era of the first American compact cars (to compete with the Euro ones such as the VW). Again from what I've read, these first American compacts were generally decreed to be flops in terms of sales. Gasoline remained incredibly cheap in the US (vs Europe; even as a kid I can remember how expensive gasoline was "over there"). And the masses wanted V8 power.

So maybe the Corvair wouldn't have made it anyway. But Nader always gets the credit for killing it.

I seem to recall that the "fix" was a thick leather strap to limit the arc of movement of the swing axle.

Also, I don't think the Corvair had a V8 - only air cooled (straight - not boxer?) sixes.

The Tatra is the only vehicle in history to have an air-cooled V8 in the rear, which was in production until the last 10 years or so, in the Glorious Worker's Paradise.

Nader's real crime was to burn the resale values of both the Ford Corsair and the Chevrolet Corvair.

What? Nader killed off an economical compact and low-gasoline consuming vehicle? Was he so green back then as to value human life over environmental considerations? Or was he not Green enough in his younger days?

"...these first American compacts were generally decreed to be flops in terms of sales."

Ah, but the Falcon, in a pretty new dress and a nice bow, lives on as the Mustang.

"Or was he not Green enough in his younger days?"

Nah, Ralph Nadir started out as a safety Nazi, and turned green as he turned grey.

The Covair was actually produced up until 1969. Starting in 1964 you could buy one with a turbocharged 150hp engine, pretty peppy in that day and time. By the end of the run in 1969 the output had increased to 180hp.

The engine was a air-cooled flat opposed six.

The Bug wasn't covered in "Unsafe at Any Speed" because Nader did a hatchet job on it in another book.

The Corvair, as originally designed, was a pretty good handling car...then the bean counters got their hands on it.

Most of the bits that kept the rear suspension working well went out to save costs.

The Corsa version, IIRC, had the full suspension set up, and was a different car to drive.

The first generation Corvair (boxy body) had the swing axle rear suspension. I don't recall that there was any camber control from the factory, but if there were, it would not have been leather.

The second generation Corvair (sleeker body) had a more expensive full independant suspension, regardless of model. The Corsa had the addition of an anti-roll bar (most cars do, nowadays; it has nothing to do with Nader's hoax) but even the base model handled pretty well for that era if the tires were pumped up correctly.

The suspension engineer who wrote for Car and Driver magazine back then did an analysis of Nader's charges. In order for the car to roll over due to hard cornering, you either had to have a suspension component fail or have the car hit a curb. Even with swing axle jacking, the center of gravity was simply too low.

Well, the car was exonerated to enough to support an international club with many chapters. Heck, there might be more worlwide support for the car than there is for Ralph.

It would certainly be easier to repair a Corvair than to fix Ralph...