The sometimes-treacherous handling of the early Chevrolet Corvair has been a subject of controversy since soon after the Corvair debuted in late 1959. In this revealing 1960 article from a now-forgotten magazine called Foreign Cars Illustrated, racing driver Jerry TItus set out to analyze the Corvair’s handling issues and came to a surprising conclusion.
If you’ve read a lot of ’60s car magazines or followed sedan racing during that period, you may recall the name Jerry Titus. He was technical editor of Sports Car Graphic throughout the decade, later becoming that magazine’s lead editor. However, Titus was not just a magazine hack. He’d been a racing mechanic — he serviced Maseratis for Bill Frick Motors — and a GM service engineer, and then became a very successful racing driver. A few years after this article was written, he won a series of SCCA national championships, and then drove in the SCCA Trans-Ams series for Carroll Shelby and later Terry Godsall. (Titus was killed in a crash at Road America in August 1970.)
Jerry Titus (1928–1970) / Motorsports Hall of Fame of America
All this is to say that Titus was well-qualified to analyze handling dynamics — both from an engineering standpoint and from the perspective of a highly skilled driver who was not intimidated by terminal oversteer. He also held no particular grudge against the Corvair, regarding the early models’ handling issues as an unfortunate quirk rather than an incipient scandal.
This article, published in April 1960, appeared in the final issue of a short-lived magazine called Foreign Cars Illustrated, which was apparently a predecessor of Sports Car Graphic. FCI had previously tested the 1960 Corvair, which Titus had generally enjoyed and called “a first-class and very likeable car.” However, he noted that “under certain conditions the tail end ‘comes out’ like a shot.” The object of this follow-up article was to analyze why. Titus wrote:
The rather weird way in which the car “wagged its tail”—as described in last issue’s test—set us to thinking. The test vehicle’s overall balance was otherwise fine; there was no other indication that the weight distribution between front and rear might be a problem. The tail moved outward only after a corner was entered at well above “normal” velocity.
Our suspicions were confirmed by a photo taken of a Corvair being pressed hard into a turn. The picture showed clearly that both tire roll-under and positive camber of the “outside” rear wheel were excessive. Further, the body was high above the wheel.
From this evidence we derived a rather complicated theory. The next step was to procure another test car, set out to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and if possible come up with a solution.
Titus obtained a second Corvair sedan and put it through its paces on a track. He found that it oversteered even more than the car he’d driven before, and not just at the limit. “On this one,” he said, “the tail-wagging occurred during cornering within the limits of normal velocity.”
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
Interestingly, he found that the Corvair was reasonably well-behaved in the wet. “As might be imagined, the car oversteers on slick surfaces,” he said. “But the effect isn’t as violent as you’d expect after cornering on a dry surface.”
He decided to conduct further tests, first using Chevrolet’s recommended tire pressures, 15 psi in front and 26 psi in back:
[W]e selected a smooth, high-speed, high-adhesion corner, setting 55 mph as the velocity to be maintained through it. This proved ample to bring the tail out considerably. Our first run was made with only one person aboard, and with factory-recommended tire pressures. We had our hands full maintaining control. Instead of the tail staying out, as you’d normally expect, it would grab a new bite as soon as we corrected, then repeat the pattern, so that three distinct corrections were required before the turn was negotiated. This was not exactly a happy situation!
Here’s a photo of one of those runs:
The caption reads “During the first series of runs, recommended tire pressures were used. Note excessive camber, and the tail ‘way out.”
Titus then explained how the early Corvair rear suspension created this behavior. His explanation would have benefited from some additional illustrations, so I’ll add some to make things clearer.
As most people who’ve heard of the Corvair probably know, the early Corvair had a swing-axle rear suspension. Each rear wheel was carried on an angled, A-shaped lower control arm, with a coil spring acting between the A-arm and a crossmember bolted to the body structure. Here’s a factory illustration of the early Corvair rear suspension:
Here’s a photo of the individual components when removed from the car:
Early Corvair suspension components / Brad Bodie — Corvair Forum
Unlike the semi-trailing arm suspensions later used by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, et al, the Corvair’s rear driveshafts had universal joints only on the inner (differential) ends, with the outer ends fixed to the brake backing plate of each rear wheel. This had several important effects, which Titus explained like this:
First, swing axle camber must change with axle movement. Second, centrifugal forces acting upon the sprung mass must pass through the same horizontal plane as that of the inner U-joint of the half-shaft. Looking at the latter point conversely, cornering forces on the rear wheel have to exert themselves at this same pivot point. Further, with a swing axle, slight positive camber is desirable to obtain maximum tire life, and this feature Chevy has included.
None of this is detrimental in itself. The hitch lies in the roll center, which appears to be only slightly above the inner axle centers. As a matter of fact, almost all of the vehicle’s major weight masses—engine, transmission, differential, seats and gas tank—are located about the same distance above the ground.
I happen to have suspension geometry specs for the early Corvair sedan, which list a rear static roll center height of 13.6 inches and give the sedan’s vertical center of gravity as 19.4 inches. With standard tires, the unladen height of the rear axle center was about 12.4 inches, so Titus’s rough calculations were pretty accurate.
Early Corvair suspension geometry / Car Life, March 1963
Titus continued:
With all this in mind, let’s examine what seems to happen when the Corvair goes into a comer.
As centrifugal loading builds up, slight tire roll-under is incurred by the rear wheel on the outside of the turn. In a more conventional car, some vertical weight-loading would take place simultaneously, as the body and chassis started to lean or pivot. But this doesn’t happen in the Corvair because of that low [sic] roll center—and positive wheel camber quickly induces more severe roll-under.
Up to a certain point, the latter phenomenon gives the tire a good bite, so that the car holds well at moderate velocities. As centrifugal loading increases, however, the roll-under becomes excessive and reduces the effective tire contact area until the rubber shears and the tail goes out all of a sudden.
I want to note here what I think is a minor editorial error: When Titus referred to the Corvair’s “low roll center,” I think he meant to say “high roll center.” Body roll is to some extent dependent on the height of the vehicle’s center of gravity relative to the height of the roll axis, so for any given roll center, raising the vehicle’s center of gravity (e.g., by attached a heavy car carrier to the roof) will tend to make the vehicle lean more in corners. Conversely, a higher roll center will tend to produce less body lean for a given vertical center of gravity.
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
In any case, as Titus went on to explain, there was a second factor at work:
The resistance forces are transferred back into the chassis at hub level, through transverse arms in the same plane. As the [wheel] roll-under increases, the distance from the axle center to the ground decreases and the anchor point of the arms moves above the hub center. The axle and the arms become, in effect, a lever which prevents chassis-roll onto the suspension. What happens instead is quite the reverse: with the weight mass concentrated on this inner pivot point, the chassis can move in only one direction—upward!
This explanation will be easier to decipher with reference to the sketch of this relationship that appears on a following page:
Although Titus didn’t use the term, the effect he described here is called jacking, and it’s a common issue with swing axles and some other types of independent suspension. Other swing-axle cars, such as the Volkswagen Beetle, Porsche 356, and Mercedes-Benz 300SL coupe, suffered similar issues for the same reasons.
Yes, “verticle” is misspelled in the caption of the bottom illustration
Early Corvair handling problems are often attributed to owners failing to maintain the unusual, unequal recommended tire pressures. However, Titus said that a Chevrolet engineering representative he spoke with recommended that he increase the front tire pressures to 26 psi:
This, we were told, was supposed to improve handling, although the only way it could do so would be by increasing the slip angle of the front to compensate for the wild one in the rear. It did help a little, making the break-away less violent, but it was far from a complete answer.
Here’s a photo of one of his runs with equal tire pressures front and rear:
The caption reads, “With front tire pressure raised to 26 pounds, oversteer was still considerable but more controllable than before.”
After this experiment, Titus said:
… we started working on weights: adding passengers, moving them to different positions, placing a 100-pound sack of sand in the front. Some things helped a little, others didn’t. One experiment, and only one, netted any real improvement—increasing the weight in the rear! That’s right, we took a car that already has 60% of its weight in the rear, added more there, and came up with an almost 40% increase in controllability through corners.
As he went on to explain, the added weight (which further compressed the rear springs) lowered the U-joint pivot relative to the wheel center, so that the hub was “uphill” from the differential rather than “downhill.” This seemingly minor change had a dramatic effect:
Camber became just a hair negative instead of excessively positive. With this setup, lateral forces no longer “locked” the suspension, and tread contact was good. The result: a smooth, fast, and controllable cornering effect.
Here’s a photo of one of these runs:
The caption reads, “With higher front tire pressures and almost 200 pounds of weight directly behind driver, car held its line well.”
If you compare that photo to the previous example, you’ll notice that the Corvair is still oversteering, but much less, and the outside rear tire is nearly vertical, without the positive camber in the preceding photos.
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
What else could be done about this rear geometry issue, short of Chevrolet adopting a low-pivot rear axle like Mercedes-Benz? Titus had several ideas:
First, installing high-strength, high-adhesion tires such as Michelin X on the rear wheels would improve tread bite with no other changes. More effective, however, would be a de-cambering job. As this would lower the rear and move more weight in that direction, the front should be lowered to match. Sure, tires would wear faster but we’d rather have the improved handling. Wouldn’t you?
Finally, there’s another way: extend the support arms downward about an inch and a half at the point where they bolt to the frame. This could be accomplished with blocks and longer mounting bolts. Since lowering the pivots would also extend the springs, the latter would have to be shimmed almost an inch to bring the chassis back up to its original level. Such a modification would lower the pivot point without affecting the roll center, and would also produce a slight negative camber in the rear wheels.
The optional suspension package Chevrolet offered for the 1962 and 1963 Corvair de-cambered the rear suspension by using shorter rear springs, as well as adding limiter straps to control rear wheel tuck-under. This had much the same effect as Titus’s sandbag experiment, although for owners who regularly carried a full load of passengers and cargo, the heavy-duty suspension package would mean rapid tire wear due to excessive negative camber.
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
“To sum it up,” Titus concluded, we think the Corvair is a fine little car and wouldn’t mind owning one personally, but we feel that correction of the oversteer tendency is essential if fast cornering is contemplated.”
This strikes me as a bit too much of a softball — the rash of sometimes fatal accidents that made the early Corvair somewhat infamous were often among drivers who were not “contemplating fast cornering,” but rather were caught out by their cars’ unexpectedly erratic behavior. However, I think Titus correctly identified the root cause of the Corvair’s handling problems. (As I’ve discussed at greater length elsewhere, it’s also important for understanding the results of the 1972 NHTSA report that supposedly exonerated the Corvair of unsafe handling characteristics.)
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
Maybe the most important takeaway is that the principal cause of those handling faults WASN’T any of the usual suspects — it wasn’t the rear weight bias caused by the rear engine, it wasn’t improper tire pressures, and it wasn’t the absence of a front anti-roll bar. Titus doesn’t mention the latter, but, like the higher front tire pressures, the most a front anti-roll bar would have done was to increase the front slip angles. All else being equal, that would tend to reduce oversteer, but oversteer wasn’t the real problem. Also, 1961–1963 Pontiac Tempest, which also had a swing-axle rear suspension derived from the Corvair, got a front anti-roll bar midway through 1961, and its handling remained just as bad as the Corvair’s.
Transverse leaf spring added to the rear suspension of the 1964 Corvair allowed rear roll stiffness to be substantially reduced while limiting wheel tuck-under / Brad Bodie — Corvair Forum
Chevrolet was able to provide a more workable compromise for 1964 (which still had swing axles, but used much softer rear coil springs, along with a transverse rear leaf spring and a front anti-roll bar), but the real answer was the new fully independent rear suspension introduced on the second-generation Corvair. This had both inner and outer universal joints for each axle half-shaft, giving a much longer effective swing-arm length that cut rear camber changes almost in half despite increased wheel travel. The second-generation Corvair also had a slightly lower center of gravity and a wider track, and it both rode and handled better.
1960 Chevrolet Corvair 700 sedan / Midwest Car Exchange
By then, however, the damage had been done, and the Corvair’s moment had passed. It’s never really lived down its early reputation, although both its defenders and its critics often have a distorted understanding of the early car’s handling weaknesses and their causes.
Related Reading
Reconsidering the 1972 NHTSA Report on the Corvair (at Ate Up With Motor)
Automotive History: 1960-1963 Chevrolet Corvair – GM’s Deadliest Sin? (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1960 Corvair Monza Club Coupe – How Some Auto Show Attendees Created The Most Influential Car Of The Decade (by Paul N)
Vintage Reviews: 1960 Chevrolet Corvair – Motor Life and Road & Track Test Versions With Powerglide, 3-Speed and 4-Speed Manuals (by Paul N)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1961 Corvair Monza 98 HP 4-Speed – The Poor Man’s Porsche?
Vintage Review: 1964 Corvair Monza 110 HP, 4-Speed – Now Even More Of A “Poor Man’s Porsche” – And Finally An Explanation For Its Handling Exoneration By NHTSA (by Paul N)
Vintage Review: Motor Trend Tests the 1965 Corvair Corsa – Superb Handling, Comfort, And Performance (by Paul N)
Interesting that adding weight to the rear of the car seemed to help the handling. I wonder what the extra weight would have done at the limits of adhesion, make the snap oversteer even more sudden?
I have sort of addressed the issue on my 63 VW in the same way, the rear suspension is a bit sacked out and I haven’t adjusted the torsion bars to bring the height back up. Lowering the car lowers the pivot point.
I still haven’t seen a good force diagram of how a camber compensator works, other than stiffening the rear suspension.
I don’t get how the transverse spring works either, though I know it does work. Anti-roll bar, maybe?
In layman’s terms, as I understand it, the transverse leaf spring keeps the tuck-under from becoming excessive, by tying the two sides of the swing axle together. It works like an anti-roll (or “sway”) bar by using the compression on one side to limit the extension of the other side, and vice-versa. In the real world, it appears to be more of a “fix” than a “solution”.
A proper independent rear suspension keeps the wheel camber minimized through its suspension travel (meaning it stays upright and vertical when looked at from the back or the front of the car and all you see is the tread), rather than being a “wheel at the end of a stick” that tucks under when the stick is raised at the non-wheel end. It appears that it is actually the combination of tuck-under and “bite” when the rubber of the tire “grabs” the pavement that creates the issue. IRS technology now typically uses suspension arm motion that keeps the tire mostly vertical at all points in its up and down travel versus the body/chassis of the car. That’s the “solution” to the problem. Negative static wheel camber, transverse leaf springs, and camber compensator devices, by themselves, were all “fixes” done to minimize the tuck-under problem, but not to solve it entirely by keeping the tire from tucking under at extreme suspension movements.
The basic compensator spring primarily limits the downward travel (positive camber or tuck under) of the rear wheels. It does not work as a classic anti-roll bar, because it is fixed in the middle, so what happens on one side does not affect the other side, as in an anti-roll bar.
The compensator is a bit primitive in that regard; a better solution for most applications is a Z-bar, like VW started installing in 1967. It has links on the end, so that it does not affect upward motion, but only downward motion (tuck under).
The Z bar is a better solution for street use, but racers, especially straight line racers, will often prefer the compensator spring as it eliminates the free travel of the Z bar links before the spring becomes effective.
There’s a good discussion of both of these devices and their adjustment at this forum:
https://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=122567
Thanks for the correction and the link. I have never worked on anything other than live axle cars. Now that I think about it, a pivoting center mount on a transverse spring would actually make the tuck-under problem worse, not better, given the geometry of the movement of the spring around a center pivot. So the transverse spring, rigidly mounted at the center, serves only as a inhibitor-to-stopper to axle droop and tire tuck under, at whatever axle/tire angle it is set to do it.
So basically ignore my first paragraph and let the second one stand.
This will be easier to grasp with reference to the illustration (which unfortunately has been upscaled — not by me — and is rather aliased). The leaf spring resists vertical deflection, as show in figures A, B, and D, but because it’s pivoted on the bottom of the differential, it doesn’t compress in roll (figure C) because the pivot mount allows it to rock sideways. So, it doesn’t add to rear roll stiffness at all, the exact opposite of an anti-roll bar, but it does resist vertical deflection (including tuck-under.)
At the same time, because the rear leaf spring helps to support the weight of the tail, the rear coils can be softer, resulting in a net decrease to rear roll stiffness.
The transverse spring in the 1964 Corvair is mounted so that it is NOT compressed by body roll. Thus, it supports part of the weight of the tail without adding to the rear roll stiffness. This in turn allowed the rear coils to be softened, reducing the rear roll couple.
It shouldn’t be assumed that transverse leaf springs categorically don’t increase roll stiffness. Indeed, on a Fiat transverse front leaf spring, it could be made significantly stiffer in roll than vertically, to eliminate the need for an anti-roll bar. In this case, Chevrolet deliberately arranged the spring to do the opposite.
Hello Justy Baum,
The photo above – the one showing the transverse spring – shows that the spring was mounted in the center of the differential with a clamp and a rubber bushing. The spring is not hard-bolted to the diff. This means the transverse spring offered very little if any roll resistance – just the opposite of a typical anti-roll bar.
You may be wondering why any engineer would ever want to promote roll. The idea was to combine the transverse spring with softer coil springs, and with this combination, prevent jacking.
Note that stiff coil springs tend to push a car upward when weight transfers off the same end of the car, and that in turn, results in jacking on a car with swing axles. The transverse spring doesn’t do that.
The transverse spring had the same purpose as a Z-bar, although conceptually a Z-bar is even more effective in promoting roll.
As far as keeping the body level through a turn, that was the purpose of the front anti-roll bar on 1964 Corvairs. Note that we want the suspension to roll, not the body.
I’m not sure my explanation is wholely accurate, but having been around Corvairs for many years, I think that’s how it works!
From what I’ve read, lowering the rear of the Beetle *helps* handling. Of course, this ruins that elusive thing called “stance.” I will install camber compensators (transverse leaf spring) as well as rear suspension control bars on both my Beetle projects.
I’m not familiar with the control bars. You might want to also research an aftermarket Z bar, which is what VW started installing in 1967. Its links can be adjusted, depending on how aggressive one wants them. See the link in my comment above.
Yes, static negative camber helps too; I did that to one of my Beetles. But a proper compensator or z bar should be more than adequate if you don’t want to change the car’s stance.
Thanks for that link, Paul. I have the EMPI camber compensator (with straps). I found this comment interesting at that link: “All I can tell you is that my Bug handles a whole LOT better with the Z-bar removed and a CB camber compensator installed. It’s a night and day difference. I couldn’t believe it.” The follow-on comments are good as well.
I’ll have to do some research to see if the z-bar can even be retrofitted to my cars, but it’s not likely I’d “change horses” at this point. I actually had just dug out one of the compensators to offer up to my ’63 transaxle last night. I’m almost done getting the running gear installed on that car’s pan.
The opposite — that was the whole point: The extra weight compressed the rear springs, which reduced the camber of the rear wheels, while also lowering the pivot point enough to avoid the jacking effect that was causing the abrupt, violent “unloading” of the rear wheels. With that done, the Corvair would still oversteer strongly at the limits of adhesion, but it would do so in a much smoother, more linear way that could be managed by backing off on the steering, without requiring sudden corrective maneuvers.
The thing I find most fascinating is that the Corvair’s recommended front tire pressures of 15 psi were unusually low, and that many blame owners’ failure to follow that recommendation as a cause of the instability. But if Bob at the gas station increased front tire pressures to the 24-26 pounds that was considered normal in those days, that only took pressures to what the GM factory engineers recommended to Titus for these tests – which actually improved handling (a little). It is not often that you have corporate engineers go so far in the opposite direction from specs on an issue that was so significant.
That’s an interesting question. My guess is that the lower front air pressure induced more understeer generally, in more typical driving conditions, even if it didn’t help at the high limits they were working at here. This test is pretty narrowly focused on just a high speed curve.
The important thing to emphasize in this regard is that “handling” is not a singular concept. Specifying lower front tire pressures was an attempt to tip the car’s cornering balance towards understeer despite the substantial rear weight bias and rear roll stiffness, which would normally cause a strong propensity for terminal oversteer. The idea was that reducing the tire pressures (and thus slip angles) of the front wheels would cause the front end to run out of grip before the rears.
However, the issues Titus was noticing were not a matter of excessive oversteer, but rather of abrupt and hard-to-correct “unloading” of the rear suspension due to “jacking” and tuck-under of the rear wheels, which was a rear suspension geometry issue. The front tire pressures did nothing to alter the geometrical problems that caused that (although increasing the front pressures may have made it slightly easier to catch when it did occur). Adding weight to the rear mitigated the jacking, but not the oversteer, which Titus didn’t consider a problem so long as there was a smooth, predictable transition.
Excellent piece.
The Corvair is an endlessly fascinating car, and story, but it remains that for non-enthusiasts – the vast majority of buyers – it was negligent to release it onto the road in this form. Keep in mind that this tester is an expert at handling cars, a racing driver, and HE is saying it’s “not exactly a happy situation” and not “kosher.”
This is a key point that I think bears emphasis. There’s a tendency among Corvair defenders to dismiss the complaints about its handling as a problem of inexperienced drivers and uneducated consumer champions, but Titus was a professional racing driver of considerable skill, and he still found it to be a handful.
Another interesting piece of information that adds to the controversy about this troubled car. For whatever reasons, early Corvairs had unpredictable and potentially dangerous handling characteristics in situations everyday drivers could stumble into. GM knew this prior to the car being introduced. GM test track videos show Corvairs flipping in modest handling maneuvers and according to John Delorean, chief engineer Frank Winchell even flipped one in early testing. Delorean, then head of Pontiac, was so concerned about the Corvair that he nixed production of the Polaris, its Pontiac twin.
The sin here is the hubris of Ed Cole, who pushed to get his pride and joy into production on time and at all costs. Faced with higher than predicted production costs, he eliminated suspension modifications (like a camber compensating spring, etc.) to save money. It’s one thing to decontent some trim pieces, quite another to foist a car on the public that they knew could be a fatal handful in certain situations everyday drivers might encounter. This is not an instance of a problem making itself known after a year or so of sales, but prior to introduction. GM knew, and went ahead anyway. Unforgivable.
Ironically, the Tempest ended up having many or all of the same nasty handling qualities. It turned out (as proved by adding more weight to the rear in this test) that the rear weight bias wasn’t the most critical element; it was the uncontrolled swing axles that allowed so much positive camber and tuck-under.
The compensator spring was first used by Porsche in 1959, just before the Corvair went into production. There’s no evidence the Cole or Chevrolet had even known about the compensator spring or deleted it for cost purposes in 1960. But yes, if they had spent more time really researching the issue, they might well have found a similar solution.
Very informative, Aaron. Thanks for posting.
Wondering why the Gen 2 IRS wasn’t used from the beginning. Was it a cost issue? Did the industry’s knowledge increase in the early Sixties? Something else?
The gen2 IRS was taken directly from the 1963 Corvette. That had not been yet been developed when the Corvair was developed in the late ’50s.
Swing axles were still very common in Europe at the time, although some were starting to move away from it. The Fiat 600, which came out in 1955, already had a trailing arm rear suspension and double jointed axle shafts.
Seems like all swing axle suspensions have issues. They can be corrected. Just that GM has a history of releasing a design that still needs work. They usually get it right by the 2nd iteration, but by then the bean counters move in and cancel the car.
They usually get it right by the 2nd iteration, but by then the bean counters move in and cancel the car.
The Pontiac Fiero comes to mind.
Here’s what gets me… from what I understand, the 1960 Corvair was and almost completely new car, sharing not much more than a bushel full of parts from the Chevy/GM bins. That can only mean that Chevrolet was willing to spend a LOT of money on engineering, design, and development.
But then, somewhere in between design and production, the gushing fire hydrant of money got dialed back into a trickle. As CPJ points out in his comment above, the 1st generation Corvair *could* have been an amazing car if the fire hydrant of money hadn’t been turned off at that moment.
The Corvair was intended to be a very low-cost economy car, and when it was developed in the late ’50s, swing axles were still almost universal in rear engine cars and some front engine cars (Mercedes, and others).
Yes, they might well have at least been able to come up with something like the compensator spring to reduce tuck under, although that was first pioneered by Porsche in 1959, by which time it might have been a bit late to properly integrate that in the Corvair.
I do not think that Ed Cole chose swing axles because they were “cheap”, but because that was just the norm at the time in the late ’50s. The only exception on a mass-produced rear engine car was the Fiat 600, but I assume that wasn’t checked out carefully . Porsche 356s were used as prototype mules for the Corvair.
But sure, profit pressure on an all-new low-end car at GM was going to be a real issue.
I do not know for certain whether my ’63 Monza had the optional sport suspension, as I just do not remember if the travel limiting straps were there or not. It was my first car, given to me, and although I knew a fair amount about the Corvair, I did not know the specifics of the optional suspension.
But it clearly had a bit of negative camber at rest, or maybe zero camber, unlike the slight positive camber the standard suspension had. That may have been because the coil springs were already getting a bit soft? Or maybe it did have the sport suspension.
What’s interesting about this test, finding out that additional weight improved handling, is that on my 600 mile brisk run down Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, where I took a lot of fast curves, I had a fair bit of weight in the back seat, which was folded down. My cooler, camping gear, drinking water, and other gear for a month long trip; it might well have weighed some 200 lbs! So maybe that was one of the reasons why I never experienced tuck-under. That and maybe it did have the limiting straps.
This has been a very fascinating look at the specific issues that caused the snap oversteer in these.
This is the first time I’ve heard of Foreign Cars Illustrated, though quickly perusing eBay I see there’s several issues still out there including the one with this article. Reading the Corvair article, I wonder how many amongst the general populace, or even amongst car enthusiasts, could understand and appreciate all the the technical issues dealt with here, even though it seems old car magazine reviews from the ’50s and ’60s had more technical detail than later ones did, the latter often just describe the basics of the drivetrain, steering, and suspension. Also curious that a Corvair was featured in a magazine about foreign cars (I’m guessing they never tested a Falcon, much less had an elaborate detailing of its handling). Obviously the Corvair had unique appeal to import enthusiasts that no other American car had, from the get-go.
From what I can determine, Foreign Cars Illustrated was an earlier effort by many of the same people who founded Sports Car Graphic later in the year; this article appeared in what I think was the final issue of FCI. I gather from that that it took some trial and error to find the right formula for a viable magazine, although SCG was fairly successful for quite a few years.
I also found several magazines from ’59-’60 titled “Foreign Cars Illustrated and Auto Sport”, maybe a different name for FCI they were testing out? Contents appear to be the same; here’s the one with the Corvair handling article:
Most of what little information I’ve seen on the magazine is from R.H. Carroll’s site, which is a good reference to more obscure older car magazines: http://99wspeedshop.com/foreigncarsillustrated.html
Swing spin.
The cheeky bastards! But I’ve got to admire the brilliance of them yet again turning another Beetle oddity – well, massive flaw, more like – into a virtue.
I could see how the rear end breaking loose could be a scary thing since one doesn’t expect and wouldn’t know how to counter. I know one day I was out in the Ambassador wagon and exited the freeway where at the bottom I could go right with no stop. I did at maybe 20-25 mph and in a split second the rear of the car was passing me on the left. Managed to turn the wheel to the left to barely counter and rode straight into the curb and dead stop. Then the lower radiator hose blew off and what a mess that day was.
I didn’t realize till I was told something obvious, which is that the extra weight a big wagon carries is all way out back and crucially, up high. I too have been caught out exactly like you in a 2004-odd Commodore wagon (116 inch wheelbase, 17 ft long, about 1.9 tons), which the sedans of it that I’d driven never showed any sign of doing. It was a nasty shock, and would’ve been a crash if anyone had been coming the other way. Sudden or clumsy oversteer is not a welcome thing!
Removing some leaves and lowering the ride height works on Triumph Heralds, I had one stock yeah it did the jacking thing when pushed too hard on a bend, I scored a coupe model years later that was lowered, had camber and cornered flat,rust bucket. radial tyres helped them a lot too,
Lowering helps VWs remain upright, so adding weight to the rear which drops ride height is kinda obvious.
Very rare cars here, brochures arrived at Chevrolet dealers, my dad showed me them very cool, but no cars, used imports began here decades before the ex JDM racket so Corvairs did turn up I saw a nice blue over white convertible recently, RHD and black plates so its been here a very long time.
Given the Michelin X’s reputation for sudden break away, I’m surprised to see them recommended. To me, Pirelli Cinturados would be a better option.
Chris:
I had Cinturatos on my 2010 Honda Accord. Did everything well
People complain about them being “rough riding” or “noisy”. Inflating passenger tires to 40 or 50psi can do that!
I am guessing that Chris in Australia’s comment refers to the radial tires available in the 1960’s. The Michelin X was one of the few (only?) steel belted radials, and had a reputation for being more abrupt handling than contemporary fabric belted European radials like Pirelli or Semperit.
Did any of the auto magazines ever do road test comparison between a 1st gen Corvair, Porsche 356 and VW Beetle under varying road conditions to see how all three compared?
What were the results? Was the Porsche and VW better behaved?
Was Ralph Nader equally critical of the rear-engined Porsche and VW as he was of the Corvair? It’s interesting that Porsche and VW didn’t seem to suffer any collateral damage from the Corvair fallout.
Nader did go after VW and it’s been covered here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/road-track-takes-on-ralph-nader-nader-vs-volkswagen-a-rt-report-rebuttal-is-more-like-it/
Have I missed a bit?
IIRC, the Corvair was intended to have the compensator link from the off, but GM’s beancounters threw it out over 25c or something as daft.
Though not giving it semi-trailing arms like a Seicento or the VW Automat does seem like poor design. Semi-swing axles can be treacherous too (BMW…), but less so on a wide, low design like that, than a narrow, upright thing like a Null Zwo.
The Corvair was originally supposed to have a front anti-roll bar, which was dropped fairly late in the development cycle for cost reasons. I now think that the anti-roll bar alone wouldn’t have made much difference in the behavior Titus was talking about. It would have promoted more understeer, but it wouldn’t have done anything for the jacking and tuck-under that made the early Corvair treacherous.
The surest evidence to that effect is the 1961–1962 Pontiac Tempest. The ’61 and ’62 Tempest had substantially the same suspension as the Corvair (the 1963 got reshaped rear control arms, still with swing axles). Not only did they have a lot more weight up front, Tempests also got a front anti-roll bar about midway through 1961, but they still had basically the same handling problems as the early Corvair.
There is a group of guys who enter their Corvairs in vintage racing throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Most of them drive Yenko Stinger Corvairs, which were based on the second-series Corvair with it’s Corvette-based fully-articulated rear suspension.
But Mr. Mike Levine is an exception. He does quite well in his class with his 1964 Corvair, complete with its original swing axle rear suspension.
Of course, Mike’s car is track-prepared, but it just goes to show that a swing axle vehicle can be made to handle with the proper modifications.
I mean, all early Porsches had swing axles, so this is not exactly a startling revelation, and even considering only the Corvair, the 1964 was a somewhat different animal from the early cars.
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for your reply. You are absolutely correct. And your comment about swing axle Porsches supports my observation about Mike Levine’s track Corvair, which is basically that a swing-axle car – especially a model with a reputation for tricky handling – can be made to handle well with certain modifications.
Odd though it may seem, Mike claims that he removed the transverse rear spring that was unique to the ’64 Corvair and he’s not using a rear anti-roll bar either. But he is using very stiff rear springs, lots of negative rear camber and the biggest racing tires that he can fit.
If the rear suspension is sufficiently de-cambered, as is likely for a track car, jacking is probably not an issue. The point of the transverse leaf spring was to limit jacking and tuck-under without substantial de-cambering, which wasn’t desirable for street cars that were likely to actually carry passengers and cargo because the additional load would result in excessive negative camber and premature tire wear.