I know we’ve run this before years ago, but it’s Corvair gold. Note how the driver counter-steers to compensate for the oversteer in the curves at Lime Rock Raceway. And the Corvair’s off-roading abilities impressive; hope they put a little skid plate under the gas tank.
Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt.
Were they trying to see how it ran with a water-cooled engine?
All that testing, and they didn’t quite get all the kinks out of the suspension.
I wonder if the demise of the floaty ride had more to do with fear of lawsuits than changing American tastes.
Don’t forget that one of the early model’s issues was GM required low pressure in the front tires and a higher pressure in the rear tires to control it’s tendency to do bad things like rollover. The Corvair clubs figured out how to tame the suspension a little with some bolt on goodies like a left to right leaf spring under the swing axles to limit movement in hard maneuvering. GM knew about this but chose not to include them for cost reasons (I’ve read). A dollar saved is a dollar earned until someone gets killed – right?
Anyhow uninformed persons – like gas station jockeys for example – would put the same pressure in all four tires leading to potential unsafe handling.
The ’64 and later cars had a different suspension that eliminated much of the risk. My favorite Corvair is the ’64 bc it had the early looks and the late suspension. I also liked the later cars too b/c of their good looks. Good looks relative to other low cost vehicles of the era.
The 1964 models had the improvement of a camber-compensator transverse leaf spring as you described, but it was still a single-pivot swing axle like the other first generation cars. This website has an excellent explanation:
https://www.corvaircorsa.com/handling02.html
The lower air pressure in the front tires was done to achieve the proper tread contact with the pavement for proper steering and traction. Really didn’t have anything to do with roll over. Don’t forget, the National Highway Safety Administration conclusively proved that the Corvair had no “RISK” as compared to other cars from that same era, of roll over. The 64 Corvair had the same rear suspension as the 1960 Corvair, not the “late suspension”. The 64 added a camber compensator spring which improved the handling. Similar to any conventional car that adds a rear sway bar for improved handling. Doesn’t mean that the early Corvair suspension caused the car to automatically flip upside down, as Nader falsely proclaimed.
The next time I want to drive 20 miles along a river, I will be sure to do it in a Corvair.
Some serious off-roading there. I’m surprised GM didn’t equip the Corvair with an Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun and market it to the Army.
Only the .30 caliber was available on the option list. 😊
They did:
https://www.fourwheeler.com/features/1601-backward-glances-an-experimental-military-amphibious-chevy-corvair/
A lot of “sawing” on the steering wheel while taking the curves at 1:35.
Corvairs, like almost all American cars from that era, had horridly slow steering ratios. There were aftermarket quick steering arms available for Corvairs.
Actually ;
Corvairs had over steer when most American cars had under steer, part of why they flipped so often ~ average Americans were not accustomed to cars with quick “Tip In” and so turned too sharply and over loaded the rear tires / wheels, bis ply tires once on the edge of the treads, tended to tuck under pretty easily .
Unlike most I was there and owned a Corvair and drove plenty of them, at speed and never flipped nor spun one out, another common occurance .
I liked the early body style the best .
Great cars IMO .
-Nate
That’s some impressive off roading. I wish my Honda Insight could do that
not that far from Lime Rock is the “best pub in the US”, according to the late Sean Connery
https://www.whitehorsecountrypub.com/
also the Great Falls are nearby
Living in Ontario, first winter driving in my mother’s 66 Corvair with snow tires on the rear. It was snowing quite hard, I backed out of our drive and the started down the street. Great traction, accelerated fairly hard. About 100 feet there was a fairly gentle curve to the right. This was when I discovered understeer. Fortunately I did not actually go into the ditch, but it was close. I now have much more respect for deep snow.
One needs to go back to the era that the Corvair was introduced into. One road tester said that after driving a Corvair, every other car on the road was like driving a dump truck in comparison. The Corvair handled and steered so much better than anything else on the road at that time, that many drivers did drive the Corvair right to it’s limits, Chevrolet continually worked to improve the design, leading up to the 1965 Corvair that had the best suspension design of any American car, and better than most Foreign cars as well.
A little river action, that’s nice.
How about the Darien Gap? Settle in for multi-scary offroad excitement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghgRH9m2fOI
If you liked that 1960s air cooled sedan, take a look at this 12 minute video where they put a Tatra T2-603 thru far more insidious tests, and do watch it all the way to the end for a surprise ending! I’ve owned 2 of these cars, and I can attest to their handling abilities. What you see in this video is amazing. While driven by professional Tatra test drivers, the car is 100% stock.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/video/cc-video-happy-journey-in-a-tatra-603/