Rear Engines, The Beginning

[Subdeacon Joe]

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

Ralph Nader is turning over in his grave!!!

 

[Blackwater 53393]

9 minutes ago, Waxahachie Kid #17017 L said:

Ralph Nader is turning over in his grave!!!

 

 

Ralph Nader was an idiot!!

[Pat Riot]

33 minutes ago, Waxahachie Kid #17017 L said:

Ralph Nader is turning over in his grave!!!

 

Glad it’s available for him. Everyone needs a place to go to unwind. 

[G W Wade]

23 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

 

Ralph Nader was an idiot!!

Apparently he was just ahead of his time      GW

[Blackwater 53393]

3 minutes ago, G W Wade said:

Apparently he was just ahead of his time      GW

 

Yep!!  He was an idiot before idiots were commonplace!!

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

3 hours ago, Waxahachie Kid #17017 L said:

Ralph Nader is turning over in his grave!!!

 

I'm not unhappy about him being in a grave.

 

Was that rude and uncalled for?

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Maybe, inasmuch as he is still alive.

 

And he helped put George W. Bush into the White House, after all....

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

Yep...he's still with us. I was just making a point that he was one of the chief reasons why Chevrolet stopped making the rear engine Corvair. It did have a somewhat dismal safety record, but those were the days of no laws to require us to wear seat belts, plus the seat belts just went around you waist, and not cross your body, like they do now....and of course, there were no air bags. 

Seeing the horse behind the buggy made me think of Ralph, and his crusade to keep us all safe from rear driven vehicles. 

I haven't heard any thing from him in quite a spell. I guess ole bernie has taken up the slack. Not sure Ralph was/is a socialist, like bernie. 

[Blackwater 53393]

Ralph Nader is/was a gadfly!! He made his public bones on an attack on GM and the Corvair, a car which was economical, somewhat unique, it turns out pretty stable, and way ahead of its time!!

 

His attack was based on doing a maneuver that almost any vehicle of the time was not stable in performing and that no sane person would attempt. The other three common rear engine vehicles of that time, the Volkswagen, the entire Porsche line, and the Renault Dauphne were subject to the same possibility, but no mention was EVER made of those. Both the VW and the Porsche retained a version of that suspension and powertrain layout for decades after Nader’s little escapade and he nor any of his cohorts ever made any public mention of them.

 

In later years, he became the butt of many jokes and was seldom taken seriously!!  His runs for public office were ineffective and ludicrous!!  He never stood for election for any other public office that was of any interest to the public or the press and his campaigns were strictly publicity stunts.

 

As to his “getting GW elected”, he only wishes he had that much political clout!!

 

 

[Still hand Bill]

Actually he was somewhat right about the Corvair.  It could be truly unstable.   We studied it during my vehicle dynamics class in engineering school.  It was built as a performance car and thus had true 50/50 weight distribution.  Because of this you had to run tire pressures higher in the rear than the front to ensure the car would not go into true oversteer.  If you didn’t do this, it could become unstable and spin out from a steering input at speed.   Most cars simply won’t do this as the weight bias is so much to the front, no amount of change In tire pressure will get the car into an unstable condition.   The general public had no idea and would not keep on top of tire pressures as was needed. 
 

[Blackwater 53393]

1 hour ago, Still hand Bill said:

Actually he was somewhat right about the Corvair.  It could be truly unstable.   We studied it during my vehicle dynamics class in engineering school.  It was built as a performance car and thus had true 50/50 weight distribution.  Because of this you had to run tire pressures higher in the rear than the front to ensure the car would not go into true oversteer.  If you didn’t do this, it could become unstable and spin out from a steering input at speed.   Most cars simply won’t do this as the weight bias is so much to the front, no amount of change In tire pressure will get the car into an unstable condition.   The general public had no idea and would not keep on top of tire pressures as was needed. 
 

 

And right there is a PERFECT example of the difference between classroom and the real world!!  If you have to drastically alter the parameters to achieve some desired result, you pretty much invalidate the experiment!

 

That same divergence in tire pressures will cause the same results with ANY rear engined vehicle!  In competition, Porsche experienced the same results and to a certain extent you see the same thing evidenced in all levels and types of motor racing!!  And YES!! You DO see the same results in most other cars if subjected to the same maneuvers under the same  exaggerated circumstances!! Perhaps you have to subtract a little more pressure, but ONLY a little and the results will vary as to the bias of each vehicle. 

 

Nader took everything to one or another extreme in order to produce his results, something no right thinking driver/owner would normally do!!  Even in an emergency, those results were and are highly unlikely.

 

On a bet, we took a 1962 Corvair to a track in 1973. We spent an entire day, attempting to reproduce Nader’s results in the real world. NO JOY!!  We finally managed to roll that little car by hanging the right front wheel in a drainage culvert  on an access road to the parking lot!!

 

We won the bet!  The bettor replaced the car with a ‘67 Corvair convertible and we made a dune buggy out of the ‘62!!

 

EDIT!!  The headline/title of Nader’s tome was “Unsafe At Any Speed!”  A BLATANT and misleading LIE that was repeatedly disproved by drivers and owners alike on SCCA and other tracks and on the streets and highways of the world ever since!!!

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

It was an ugly car, though.

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

The very last year the Corvair was produced, it was the best looking, of the designs. I looked at one, in a showroom, at the time, and if I had had the down payment, I would have purchased one. It was a red convertable, stick shift. The earlier versions/designs, to me, were not as nice looking.

I later on purchased a '71 V.W. Beetle, and liked it okay. 

 

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

I have owned three rear engine cars in my lifetime. 

A 1949 VW Bug

A 1972 VW Bug

A 1973 VW bus. 

 

All three were fun to drive automobiles. 

The 1949 bug nearly froze me out but I had a lot of fun in it. Gas tank was the biggest headache, forgetting to turn the lever to full tank after running on fumes for a while. That and no window defrosters. 

 

The 1972 was a bit  better. Had windshield wipers and defrosters. 

 

The 1973Van had it all. 

 

The only real draw back to any rear engine/automobile, is you have no protection in front in case of an accident. 

[Blackwater 53393]

1 hour ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

It was an ugly car, though.

 

The ‘65-‘69 Corvair was a slick looking little car! I had a ‘67 hardtop with C4 Corvette wheels/tires and gas shocks.  That was the extent of any modifications. I DID add a smooth looking low wing spoiler like you’d see on a gen 4 Trans Am and kept the little feller low to the ground.  

 

Wish I had pics!  It was really a nice looking car!!

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

1 hour ago, Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 said:

I have owned three rear engine cars in my lifetime. 

A 1949 VW Bug

A 1972 VW Bug

A 1973 VW bus. 

 

All three were fun to drive automobiles. 

The 1949 bug nearly froze me out but I had a lot of fun in it. Gas tank was the biggest headache, forgetting to turn the lever to full tank after running on fumes for a while. That and no window defrosters. 

 

 

 Man oh man. Our wedding present from my wife's folks in 1967 was a 1963 Bug. Think it cost them $600, which wasn't chopped liver then.

 

It was fun to drive. You did have to remember to put in gas after you kicked over to the reserve tank. When it conked out, you just jumped out the door, pushed it a little, and hopped back in for an easy jump start. Indeed, I did that in the middle of the night on the way to the hospital while my wife was in labor with our first child.

 

But it broke down a lot. When you'd scraped 300 bucks into the savings account, suddenly Dieter und Hans in their little shop would tell you you needed another 'falf chob' and there went the savings. Happened more than once.

 

I was glad to see it go; we sold it and bought a 1964 Chevy Nova station wagon (the small wagon). That became another saga for years that I don't even want to talk about.

[Blackwater 53393]

Just so’s everyone is aware, the 1903 Curved Dash Oldsmobile was the first mass produced automobile!!  It was rear engine!!

[John Barleycorn, SASS #76982]

My first car was a Corvair. 

[watab kid]

dont want to loose a wheel - the hoof prints are gonna leave a mark 

[Four-Eyed Buck,SASS #14795]

A guy I grew up with had a Dauphine for his first car. Interesting problem child. His next was a '65 Corvair Monza. Sharp looking little car. Think it was the 110 HP engine. Wonder how the Yenko Stingers were

[Sedalia Dave]

4 hours ago, Four-Eyed Buck,SASS #14795 said:

A guy I grew up with had a Dauphine for his first car. Interesting problem child. His next was a '65 Corvair Monza. Sharp looking little car. Think it was the 110 HP engine. Wonder how the Yenko Stingers were

 

For those like me that had to look up a Yenko Stinger

 

[Chili Ron]

Howdy,

Everyone should drive a real 911.

Rear engine or not.....wow.

Best

CR

never bought one cause I didnt need the tickets.