He actually did, for about three seconds, although most of what hew showed on the screen were two seaters, trying to compete in a six-seat race for best affordable car. If you live alone, a two seater makes sense. If you have a family, it's not going to be an option. Lot's of people would like to buy a Corvette, although, for most, it would be a second car, as Mom has to take the kids to soccer practice in the station wagon, minivan, or SUV.
@@alanrogers7090 but it's not about two-seater Rambler Metropolitan (actually, 2+2), but regular Rambler, which was 5-seater, introduced in 1950, considered as the first US compact! By 1955 there appeared even 4-door compacts, like Willys Aero, Hudson Jest and bigger Rambler. However, these compact cars might have been ill-timed before 1958, and disappeared by 1956, with an exception of Rambler, which grew larger and competed with full-size cars, still pretending to be a compact car. Then came Studebaker Lark and small Rambler American again.
All we owned was Valiants when I was growing up, we started with a 1956 Plymouth Savoy it kept breaking down, then on to the Valiants in 1962, 1966, and 1970. Those cars were so reliable with their slant six 225 cu. in. engine! I bought a 1963 Falcon Futura convertible in a field for $75.00 in 1979 and I still have it in my garage today.
Yes the A bodies were great cars especially with the slant 6. i owned a 72 duster,61 dart and a 74 dart with the slant (the 61 had amazing power for a 6) and all got 32-35 mpg
My first car was a '65 Corvair. That was the first year of the revised, safer rear axles and proto-Camaro styling. It had four wheel independent suspension and a very low center of gravity, so if you used the correct tire pressures (18 front / 30 rear) it handled way better than any other American car of the era, other than the Corvette. And since a flat six has much better primary and secondary balance than a V8, V6 or inline 4, the engine was remarkably smooth, if not terribly quiet.
Drivers were used to easier to control under steering and with the engine and transmission in the back, the handling could be different under certain circumstances. The chassis design may have made this issue worse. Like the Fiero by the time GM got it right, the public lost confidence in the car and it was toast.
The swing axle on the Corvair could be fixed with a z-bar. The z-bar worked like a sway bar, but in addition to controlling body sway it also limited the camber change with wheel travel. The camber change was what made the car unstable, as it would occur with weight transfer on braking and acceleration. IIRC Chevrolet moved away from the swing axle in 1965 to a more conventional IRS with u-joints at each end of the axle and a control arm arrangement similar to the Corvette. 65 and up Corvairs can be set up to be tremendous sports cars, such as was done with the Yenko Stinger.
Unfortunately build quality sucked as much as the heater was worthless, quite like the VW Beetle which was for a fun time not for a long time. Vair engine and transmissions OTOH were excellent and that car should have been America's Porsche but GM apparently didn't want to cannibalize Vette sales. Being rear-engined made it a deathtrap which ensured it wasn't going to be worth continuing long-term. Nicely styled both early and late, Vair was a "might have been". My bro collected them and we tried to roll one of our engine donors in a parking lot but the tires lacked sufficient grip being old and harder than woodpecker lips. If I wanted one to drive I'd get a '68 and turbo it with a modern turbocharger. We quire enjoyed my bros and it was sort of a baby Camaro.
FYI, The Ford Falcon sold really well in Australia and a variant was made until 2016 and in Argentina until about 1985, and the Valiant brand lasted until about 1982 in Australia
Australia had new generations of falcons. They were sold in Argentina until the 90s and were the ex act same 63 chassis and body panels with only taillight and headlight/ grill upgrades. We had an 88. And those were the large cars of Argentina, their equivalent of a Crown Vic!
@@Onizukachan915 I did see the Argentinian Falcons when I was in Buenos Aires 21 years ago. No Australian Falcons were ever sold there because none were ever made in left hand drive. The Australian falcons from 1972 onwards were unique to Australia and New Zealand
@@johnd8892 The first 18 months'Falcon production in Australia were all recalled to replace the fragile front suspension. The original Falcon was not engineered for the Land of Pies and Flies, but the Ford Australia General Manager hated the (more expensive) Zephyr, which was.
My dad made me buy a 1967 Chrysler crown imperial in1966.didntlikethe car then paid175for it he said to me it's not what it looks like. Guarantee you that you won't get hurt in this car...(smart man)
Gas guzzlers really didn't start until 1971... to about 1993 for last of them... 1950's and 1960's cars weren't that bad on gas... when driven gently... Small European imports usually had the engine puke out by 25K miles... early Honda Civics lasted about 40 - 60K miles...
I love this era and size of car. The Studebaker Lark was a wonderful little car. I drive my 1963 Ford Falcon to work every day and marvel at how well it performs. I would love to have a 1961 Plymouth Valiant.
Have to agree with you. These were a great generation of fundamentally good, practical, simple cars that offered great utility and value. I'd throw the first gen. Chevy II and Rambler American into the mix.
@@michaelweizer7794 Dart was a good car, but not one of the early US compacts. Dart was originally a full sized car. The nameplate migrated down scale to the Valiant platform several years later.
I think those cars styling is underappreciated. I hope that someday there are electric conversion kits that can save cars like that that you can't easily drop a chevy crate motor in.
at least the push button trans. selector worked on the chrysler cars , unlike the "EDSEL", if you parked that land yacht on a hill without setting the parking brake first, you were "STUCK" the servo- motor was not strong enough to get it out of "PARK POSITION", just remember "FORD HAS BETTER IDEAS!!!!!!!!" ( the "O" was a light bulb,, that came to light in their commercials)
I owned several Corvairs. The early ('61 to '64) models had a swing axle that was tricky. Curves with a decreasing radius were dangerous in those early models. Hence the "Unsafe at Any Speed". The '65 to '69 had a different rear suspension and handled very well. I raced my '66. It could maintain over 70 MPH around a 25 MPH cloverleaf.
The NHTSA proved that the early Corvairs were perfectly fine for the era. The cause of any control issues were from a lack of experience driving rear engined cars.
So that's what that accent is! I was trying to pinpoint it. It sounded pretty American but also a little foreign. Now that makes sense. And no, it's not like a NY accent either.
Sorry, your fans are being nice to you. Comet is not Co (long O) met. It is pronounced “Ca (a nasal short O, like a Boston “pak ya car” a. Don’t worry about dictation. Americans aren’t leading the pack in being correctness leaders, lately.
Yesterday, I pulled up alongside a 1961 Ford Falcon Ranchero with a cap that made it look remarkably like the Falcon station wagon of my childhood. My parents came across the bill of sale some years ago. $2,800, loaded. (In 1961, “loaded” meant AM radio, heater, seat belts and Ford-O-Matic transmission.)
the Chevrolet Chevy II was more conventionnal than the Corvair but it was a closer competitor to the Falcon, Valiant, Comet, (Dodge) Lancer, Tempest, F-85, Special and the Rambler American
@@gcfifthgear yes, you are right. But your missing the fact that the falcon being a family car vs the corvair being a specialty car is why the Chevy ii was created. Like the falcon the Chevy ii was easy to work on. The common everyday man could tinker with, where as the corvair was more like a some European cars were more significant knowledge was needed for minor repairs.
@@gcfifthgear It was exotic if exotic means you needed to keep 1 case each of fan belts and oil in the frontrunk. It tended to shed both with impunity; the belt because of its convoluted 90° bend at the back of the engine; the oil because the engine had an oil plate, not an oil pan; even with the engine off the oil was always sitting on a bolted seam. Unless it was torqued properly after an RnR, if the plate bolts were tightened too much, it warped and leaked; too little and it just leaked. What kid uses a torque wrench on an oil pan? Also, a friend who owned one said cornering too quickly ("quickly" was a very subjective description) was like swinging a bucket of sand on a rope around in a circle. The bucket end always keeps going after you stop your end. This was involuntarily demonstrated to me on a number of occasions - we always ended up facing traffic. The car was meant for those who loved to take meticulous care of a car; teens were better off with a Nova or Falcon. I had one of each at separate times, a 21mpg '62 SS 194ci 6 and a 27mpg '63 Ranchero 170ci 6, respectively. Aside from a ≤60-minute head gasket RnR on each one, no major repairs were needed on either, though they both turned more than 200,000 miles when I sold them.
I would've gone into more detail about GM's other compacts, as all of them are worthy of note: - The Buick Special debuted the Buick 215 aluminium V8, which was later sold to BMC and rebranded as the famous Rover 3500. It also got a V6 version of that engine, making the Special one of, if not the, first American production car with a V6 - The Oldsmobile F85 had a special version named Jetfire, which was one of the world's first production turbocharged cars - The Pontiac Tempest could be optioned with the "Trophy 4" 3.2 litre slanted inline 4 engine, which was almost literally a 6.4 litre Trophy V8 cut in half, making it slanted 45 degrees
The Tempest also had a rear transmission and four wheel independent suspension because of it. Quite different compacts from the 4 GM company, with the Chevy II being the most conventional.
I had a '61 Buick Special when I was in high school. Mine had the V8. People always thought it was a Corvair, lol. I loved that thing but the transmission was shot and it had a lot of other problems.
I had a '62 with the 198 V-6. Mine had a 2 speed auto tranny, and reverse was a little iffy sometimes. Owned mine in the 80s, and parts were really hard to find, and very expensive when you could find them. Had to sell it because, back then I didn't have the bucks to do a resto. I did sell it to someone who eventually did restore it, so it ended up good! That was a fun little car when I had it, though!@@MichaelPoage666
@@billyjoejimbob56 '54 Nash metropolitans were common cars around here, Crosley (radio manf) made cars that were tiny enough to fit through dept store doors, 4 cylinder waukeshas. I remember our neighbor doing a quick resto on both those models, he was embarrassed to have them in the garage.
How can you create a video about domestic economy cars and glaringly omit the RAMBLER! Nash kelvinator amc was the epitome of the economy car company with a true economy car
@@1956fordss in 1969 my grandfather bought my grandmother a new rambler coupe because he wouldn’t let her drive his imperial! That rambler was handed down through three generations and then was sold, still running well. In 1995 I bought my brother his first car. It was a 68 rambler four door from the original owner. He hated it at first but it became the favorite of his friends due to its iconic status. They were good inexpensive cars
It's an ironic shame that part of the reason good cars like Rambler, Studebaker, Packard and a couple others folded was because the cars they made lasted too long, so people didn't replace them as frequently.
While I get that the Corvair is an interesting case, the Chevy II / Nova is more in keeping with the general theme - it was designed specifically to compete with the Ford Falcon, was introduced in the 1962 model year (the Corvair was introduced in 1960, of course, but was really designed to compete with the Beetle or Fiat 500).
Compare the size of a tiny Fiat 500 or even a Beetle with the size of a Corvair and you will see that this cannot be correct. You could attache a Fiat on the roof of a Corvair to use it as a Dinghi... It nearly fits under the bonnet :-)
i forgot that, he did miss my favorite chevy compact. the early novas were very nice ( not so much for the mid 70s like i had) 63-73 novas had best styling
@@horseyhorselips3501 Then your Uncle was doing something wrong you wouldn't know a Corvair if it bit you in the butt.😡,You liberal braindead believe anything they tell you Comrade!.
My parents bought a 1961 Corvair. They tried to save money by extending the oil change, and ended up buying a new engine. My mom's mother had a Lark, which she loved (it was her favorite car). December 1964 floods of northern California destroyed it (and her house, and her neighbors' houses, etc.), so my parents gave the Corvair to her. She drove it for many years, and it was a good car. What Nader said in his book was still true, though. The Corvair it had its flaws, just like most cars did back then. GM did fix those flaws, but not before acting like complete asses by harassing Nader (and getting caught.) My father's mother had a 1961 Valiant (black with a red interior - it looked like a Nazi staff car) which she loved, and drove it for decades until she could no longer drive.
We had a corvair coupe when I was a kid. It was sadly totaled when rear ended by an inattentive driver in a large Cadillac, which suffered a dented license plate.
Top level management in GM during this time were quite ignorant as to the potential of the economy car. My father was a Chev/Olds dealer in 1964 and was told by the Canadian head of GM that Japanese cars would never gain more than 5% market share.
Arrogance. The world changed with oil prices, better quality imports and gov't regs. Consumer's tastes changed too. I worked for a big multi billion dollar computer company and it like others were killed by the rise of networked PC's.
@@gmzx3 Same, health insurance company. The Obamacare insurance exchange was being rolled out. Top boys I overhear in the office, the focus of concern over a labor strike (which none of us was whispering about anyways). No, not the chaos of the exchange...
Agree that the Lark was an exceptionally well engineered car for its time. So was the Valiant, although its looks were more than a little polarizing. One additional reason Studebaker was headed for bankruptcy... Its merger with the hemoraging Packard Corporation drained limited resources. When you are drowning, you better flag down a ship that has a life preserver to throw.
I had always heard that AMC was interested in buying studebaker/Packard maybe if they had they would have become the independent version of General Motors
@@barryismygod issue was Packard and Studebaker where both pretty stubborn in not wanting to admit to the reality that they were both circling the drain. They both flat out refused to merge with Nash and Hudson and decided to merge with each other despite neither of them being very solvent. Packard could have been the much needed luxury feather in AMCs cap that they never really had and Studebaker could have been the affordable sporty option.
Actually Packard more or less purchased Studebaker but found out once the sale was finalised that their new acquisition was in worse shape than led to believe. The merged of Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard was a close reality but it's proponent, former Nash-Kelvinator chairman and CEO died before a formal merger could be inked
And maybe because every Corvair engine leaked oil. If you had the Powerglide and kicked it down over 40 mph you’d throw a belt. If you didn’t stop, you’d overheat and further harden those oil seals. Today we have seals that take the heat but they were just messy in their day. Had four in the family. I remember.
@fpeletz Nope! Mustang and Camaro. Chevy was going to drop the Corvair when the Camaro came out, but thought it would look like Ralph made them do it, so it made it through the 1969 model year, and extra there years.
And you somehow totally ignored the cars with the greatest impact on Detroit - the Rambler., which was there long before Studebaker, and had its best year in 1958.
Watch the whole video. 2:41 he mentions the Nash series. Admittedly, it was not much of a mention but the Nash cars were serious cars that had smaller engine advantages. They were not compact cars, unless you consider the Metropolitan. The purpose of this piece is to address the “quirky” answers that the Big Three called “compact” cars. They cannot be compared to the sensible, rather serious AMC cars.
Spot on....My Dad's first "family" car purchase was a Rambler American. Wonderful car that I have fond memories of...My Dad predominantly bought AMC until their demise... Remember the Matador? Yep,my Dad bought one in 1971.
@@robkunkel8833 I couldn't agree more. They should have had a much larger market share given the quality of automobiles they were producing.( American Statesman and the Ambassador) They had certainly secured a niche market,but couldn't increase their market share beyond that. And to change their vision and overall quality of vehicles in their waning years saddens me even more. To devolve from a once great car company to a dying company based on novelty cars (Gremlin,Pacer and Matador) is beyond the pale. Just my 2 cents....
You must be as old as me mate? I think the Rambler American '66 was the ideal car for a young guy just starting out. My uncle had a '61 Rambler Classic, owned it five years and not one minute of trouble. A buddy of mine had a '68 Valiant slant 6 -- unbeatable car, put over 500K MILES before she died!
@@dennischallinor8497 As a teenager, my 1966 Rambler CLASSIC was an ideal car. My friends considered the Rambler to be "an old man's car", but with some luxury interior features and the 287 V8 engine, it met all of my needs. Also, remember that the generously upholstered front seats reclined all the way down to create a wall-to-wall bed. The fathers of daughters did not like Ramblers.
First new car my dad bought was a '56 Bug...Two years before I was born! Said he used to run Volkswagon car rallies, and Volks' drivers would wave and beep at each other when they saw one another. Back in those days, Bugs were still a novelty!
I owned a 1964 Corvair. Like the Volkswagen the engine in the rear caused serious oversteer. In other words if you went into a corner too fast you would go off road rear end first. This was known by GM and corrected In 1964 and beyond with sway bars added to the suspension to prevent this. One advantage the Corvair had was that it had great traction in the snow. If you lived in the “snow belt” you would appreciate the better traction that a rear engine car offered.
The other nice thing about the corvair was that backing into a curb or parking block gave you a chance to crawl under it and repair the exhaust with muffler bandage.
I enjoyed the video. I am 78 and thought I would give an eye witness perspective. Many of the comments of the the others have pointed out the 50s compact cars from Kaiser (Henry J), Hudson(Jet), Nash (Rambler) especially in 1956, and Willys (Aero). !960 was significant was the Big Three were countering imports, and Rambler which was very successful. The suspension of the Corvair was basically the same as VW except Corvair had a much wider wheel making it safer. VW has understeering and Porsche as well. Nader has admitted that Corvair was no worse than its German counterparts. An element for the success of foreign cars was a sizable counter-culture wanted a more practical and cheaper car and disliked the big three as being greedy corporations typical of American in general. The winner was VW which even though at the time, I thought it was a horrible design but had great marketing. Marketing and great quality of fit, a reputation of reliability (overstated) and fit and finish worked in the counter culture. All that made the resell value very good. Think about the popularity of jeans with holes as an example of some folks buying to be cool with their subculture. There was something about being cool if you drove a VW for some people.
Actually the first mass produced American compact car of the post WWII period was the 1955 Nash Rambler, then in 1958 it became the Rambler American, and the first subcompact car was the Nash metropolitan and it came out in 1954 using british Austin parts and if I remember the story correctly the metropolitan was actually made in Britain but almost all of them were sold in the US other than a handful that stayed in the UK. I love studebakers and ramblers but Studebaker was a dying company in 1958 and their little lark didn't hardly make a dent. Rambler actually became number four in sales that year if I remember the story correctly and Detroit wanted to reclaim their narket share, the Plymouth Valiant (my picture is a valiant interior to my Valiant) was the first of the big three to market next was the Ford falcon and the Chevrolet corvair. . On a off note I'm really enjoying your channel keep up the automotive History stuff. It never gets old..
As for the Studebaker: The Lark may not have made a dent in the overall market, but they actually MADE money that year - enough to invest in a new truck [ Champ]. For the first time in years, they were in the Black. They could not keep up with the demand. 📻🙂
The Nash Rambler came out in 1950. Lois Lane (Super Man fame) drove one. The Rambler’s final year was ‘55. That year it featured exposed front wheels and could be had as either a Nash or Hudson. It was re-introduced as the Rambler American in 1958.
3 Toyopet Crown sedans were on offer in Honolulu, arriving 27 Dec. 1957. They were sold in some mainland towns in 1958. Soon enough they were rebranded as "Toyota", and their compact pickups, and bigger than a Jeep Land Cruiser 4x4 sold more than the passenger cars until the 1965 arrival of the Corona RT 43, a bug-sized Galaxie.
The Toyopet Crown of the mid/late 1950s was a huge failure in the U.S. It was both underpowered and geared too low, which caused engine a high percentage of engine failures. A Rambler American could run rings around it, while getting about the same MPG.
The 1965 Corvair had a well designed rear suspension. It was safe enough to race in SCCA competition. The Monza Spyder is now viewed as a valuable collectors car. I briefly drove a 1965 Corvair that my sister owned. The handling was excellent.
The Corvair wasn't killed by Ralph Nader, it was killed by GM's bean-counter driven decision to imitate the Mustang with the Camaro instead of continuing with what was an early sports sedan with the Corvair. The parts bin approach was the path of least resistance but it landed GM in Palookaville about 10 years later, when the pony cars were a bad joke and the sports sedan market (BMW, Audi, etc.) was taking off.
You mention Studebaker, and I'm so glad you did. it was my first car! No, not the Lark, but, a real full size1957 Studebaker with the renound Studebaker V-8. But, you failed to mention the Studebaker comeback car, "Avanti", which pretty much sounded the death knell for Studebaker. But it was a beauty. OK, it's not a compact, but I just thought I'd bring it up, while Studebaker was on the floor, uh, so to speak. THX!
The styling of the Valiant was awful, but the engineering made up for it. The bulletproof "slant 6" engine a true 3 speed automatic (GM & Ford had crappy 2 speed automatics) which made them ponderously slow. The Valiant was the first car with a Alternator while the others had lousy generators.
I think the full size cars had that fake spare thing on the trunk too. Electronic ignition in '72-'73 before GM and Ford. Chrysler was a solid engineering company back then. Remember those ballast resistors on the firewall?
He didn't forget. He mentioned that the "Nash Rambler existed" early on then ignored it. The stupidity of this is that the 1950-55 Nash Rambler is considered the first truly successful American compact. It wasn't the first, but the first with reasonable acceptance, mainly meaning popularity and sales. It got larger and was sold as it's own brand in 55. In 58 the 1955 model was reintroduced as the Rambler American, and this time an economy model. One reason the 50 Nash Rambler was successful was that it was sold as a premium model, not a budget model as all compacts before it. The 58 Rambler American is the ONLY US car ever successfully reintroduced after being out of production for a time. The recession is why AMC did this. They just dusted off the old dies and molds, made some minor changes, and had a cheap to produce proven compact. It helped propel Rambler to the #3 sales position in the US in 1961. That makes ignoring it in an article about American compacts even more stupid.
NO you guys probably weren't around I see all the "Experts" making comments,..ERRONEOUS ONE'S...This little car was the FIRST COMPACT...Sorry. ua-cam.com/video/24tEbmahKRY/v-deo.html
Ralph Nader had nothing to do with the low sales and end of production of the Corvair. GM executives were to blame by attempting to blackmail and strong-arm Nader. They should have just left him alone because in the end they did more harm to the car than Nader and boosted his credentials in the process. Several private studies concluded that it was as safe if not safer than most cars of that date. Full independent suspension was introduced in 1965 and the second generation was beautiful. 1969 was the last year of production of this fuel stingy, sporty little car and just four years later the OPEC embargo had the big three scrambling to build such cars as the Pinto, Gremlin and Vega. GM had the perfect car already designed with most of the bugs worked out but no, they gave us the Vega.
the original 60 valiant was actually a great car. a bit rust-prone but a wonderful little car with wild-assed styling. first year for any manufacturer to use an alternator...first year for the venerable slant-6....torsion bar suspension....way ahead of its time.
Ed, the Corvair issue was created by the aggressiveness of the workshops and tire specialists in inflating the tires as if it were a front-engined car! Just think that even today in 2022 I saw it happen for my BMW I3!!!
In the '60's my Dad drove a new Sunbeam 2 cylinder and then a new VW squareback while my Uncle drove a Renault Dalphine (tiny). I drove at 16 a 57 Chevy PU...ha ha while my Sister had a Ply Fury. Ha ha kids drove V8's!! My grand father drove a 66 Ford Mustang while Grand Ma had a Ford Falcon
I’m curious about the 2 cyl Sunbeam. There were a number of 2 cylinder cars around 1960 but I never heard of a Sunbeam with less than 4 cylinders. What model?
Your videos are entertaining, but your clip art is often off target. If you are going to refer to the typical large American "4-door" sedan of the 1950s, at least find a photo of a 4-door car instead of the 2-door shown!
@@61rampy65 Not sure if it can be considered a gaffe since it occurs multiple times throughout the video. I think it's more of a "running gag" than a gaffe.
The Pontiac Tempest had the same swing axle IRS as the Corvair, as well as a transaxle. It was revised to semi trailing arms with half shafts in 1963. The road racing and autocross crowds knew exactly how to take advantage of the Corvair’s oversteer; not a problem for them.
@@Diap842IV yes, and they pressed the point in marketing, as they should have. I wonder what the weight difference was between the big, iron four and the optional aluminum Buick V8.
‘Swing-axle’ rear suspension wasn’t restricted to just the Corvair,. As a kid it was my first car, a coupe w/ manual transmission.......so it wasn’t like I didn’t drive it HARD as a teen, so I’d know about ‘how it handled’.... as in dangerously. At the time, the SAME rear suspension was found in the VW, the Porsche, the MB sports car, the Triumph Herald.... it was a cheap way to provide an independent rear suspension that was the mark of sophistication in ‘handling car suspensions’ then. Plus, with those cars with rear engines, it was mandatory..... the bulk of a ‘solid rear’ would never work. The second design of the Corvair was much more curvy ‘Italian’ in body style, & with a truly 4-wheel, all-independent suspension.... the ‘swing-axle’ was gone. Like all successful designs, GM improved it to make it competitive, & even today that supple body styling is appealing. Like many young American guys, I improved the performance of my Corvair..... better tires, better ‘shocks’, anti-sway bars front & back..... all aftermarket items readily available & affordable.... .... including scavenging performance parts from wrecks in auto salvage yards. The ‘flat-six’ engine could easily pump out more power than the ‘pedestrian version’ offered in most models. The Corvair was a clever [& copy-cat] car design very much of its time, with lawyer Ralph Nader using it as a scapegoat to make a name for himself as a ‘consumer-protection crusader’.
Fun fact... the Corvair was at on point supposed to be air cooled front wheel drive. Next fact.. the 1965 and up Corvairs handled incredibly well with Corvette style independent suspension. I know because I had one in the late 80's and on.
The Mustang, which today is still a big seller for Ford,and has been the only car to remain on the Ford Platform, while Ford has concentrated on SUVs, trucks.
We had 3 corvairs in our family I liked them. they gave good gas mileage and I never noticed any handling problems. We lived in a small town and never really did any aggressive driving.
When I returned from RVN in '71 I purchased my first car: a '68 Corvair. Sweet coupe, red with white leatherette interior. One winter, driving I25 from Cheyenne to Ft. Collins, in the middle of nowhere, I saw a huge cloud of smoke trailing me. I pulled off at a ramp. When I opened the rear deck I was enveloped by smoke. The belt had broken and knocked off the top of the oil pump. So the oil was being thrown on the engine and not IN the engine. An engine was going to cost more than a car so that was the end of that. But I loved that car while it was alive. By 1968 they had apparently fixed the Ralph issues.
The Pontiac Tempest was interesting because it was rear Transmission (more specifically trans-axle), front engine. A configuration rarely seen in American cars. The engines of the senior compacts: an Aluminum V8 and the cast Iron V6 derived from it (because one GM division thought they could make a better iron 6 out of the V8) are interesting too. The V8 became a popular boat engine, then was bought by Land Rover who continued to put it in cars and SUVs into the 2000s. The V6 got sold to Jeep/AMC until the first US fuel crisis when Buick was looking for more efficient engines and bought the tooling and design back from AMC. That engine found it's way into legendary cars like the Buick Grand National and survived in Gm products into the 2000's too.
The Valiant was always a model, not a marque. It was only sold at Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. And was branded a Plymouth from 1961 on. For 1960 and '61, the Comet was technically a separate marque. It was sold by Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Some states would have allowed it to be registered as make: Mercury; model Comet. some others as just a Comet. And you can't discuss the switch to small cars and 1958 without mentioning AMC/Rambler, the only US automaker with increased sales in recession 1958.
I thought of Rambler too. He touched on Nash (Metropolitan). Nash (Rambler), Hudson, Jeep became AMC. They were mostly small cars but later made full sized ones too.
The Corvair suffered loss of sales due to changing demands. Muscle cars were in and the air cooled engine was HP limited. Even in the turbocharged model it didn't compete with the big blocks.
In 1958, the year I was born, my Dad had a 40-mile one-way commute. In late 1958 he bought a new 1959 Vauxhall. In 30k miles the car had 2 valve jobs (under warranty) due to burnt valves. After the 2nd valve job in late 1959, he traded it to the same dealer that he had bought it from for a brand new 1960 2 door Falcon. He traded it in 1966 for a Fairlane (1964 model that he traded for a 1967 Fairlane about a year later), but the memory of the Falcon remained, and, after a couple of late 50s Simcas for beater cars he bought a 4 door 1960 Falcon as a beater. He sold it and upgraded to a 1962 Falcon Wagon, then again to a 1965 Falcon Wagon. The 1965 Falcon was so "nice" that we took it on a trip instead of the nice family car (a 1969 LTD). My Dad was a Ford man until the 80s. My Grandfather was a Chrysler man, however. He traded his 1955 Desoto in late 1962 for a 1963 Valliant. Traded that for his last car in 1973 - a 1973 Plymouth Valliant. I was never impressed with that "Chrysler engineering". Oh, both had 225 slant 6s and ran like sewing machines, but both leaked. Bad. Both Valliants leaked around the front windshield and in the trunk. The dealership could never fix the leaks in the 63, and the carpet rotted as a result. They got the leak in the windshield in the 73 to stop leaking, but it wasn't until I crawled in the trunk with a flashlight and my Grandad used a garden hose that we found the trunk leak ourselves. We were able to stop it by adjusting the trunk lid, but it was always hard to close and was misaligned on the body panels after that. But it was the only way to stop the leak. Those Valiants had quality issues I never saw in the Fords.
Hi, I agree with Russell Robins. What about Rambler? They was a good seller in the 60's in the compact car segment. Also they are more reliable than the falcons or valiants.
It is a shame that Corvair sales dropped like they did especially since GM corrected the handling problem in 1965 by adding another u-joint to each of the rear axles. Ralph Nadar killed the Corvair, but the handling problem was corrected in 1965. I owned a 1963 model when I was a teenager and it was the best car I owned out of seven cars I owned when I was a teen.
The Nader book, "Unsafe at any speed" may have hurt Corvair sales some but it was the Ford Mustang that killed it. The Chevy II Nova took the economy car sales and the Mustang the sporty car market made popular by the Corvair Monza and Corsa.
Funny enough the independent makers already made compact cars in the early 50's, Nash Rambler, Hudson Jet, Willys Aero, Kaiser's Henry J., and Crosley made only small cars.
Funny, or out of necessity? You are absolutely right. If colliectively they had had some financial critical mass behind them, and survived into the mid 70s, automotive history could be very different today. Woulda, coulda, shoulda?
@@billyjoejimbob56 I know in Kaiser’s case it was not out of necessity but a pet project of Henry Kaiser himself. Some say his stubbornness in making a “people’s car” (the Henry J) vs developing a V8 sunk the company.
In the mid 60s I lived in northern New Jersey. Our neighbour was forever fiddling with his Corvair, which I never saw him driving. After three years my family and I moved and for all I know, his grandchildren may still be trying to get that old car on the road again!
You really shouldn't have ignored Rambler from American Motors. They thrived building and selling compact cars, much more so than Studebaker. In fact, it was the example of Rambler increasing its sales in 1958 that really caught the attention of the Big Three. And Studebaker wasn't sold alongside Chevys or Fords. Studebaker dealers were stand-alone. Except that they also handled an imported car: the Mercedes Benz.
The silhouette of the mustang at the end of this video reminded me of my older half brother, who was 13 years older than me. He bought him a brand new 1965 Ford mustang. I think he was 21 years old at the time and was working full time, but the car ate his lunch so to speak because the $78 a month payment was more than he could handle, lol! It became a choice whether to pay for and drive the mustang, or eat. So he did the sensible thing that a brother would Dave and sold it to his younger sister and it became her problem. 😂 👍🏻
@@michaelfoulkes9502 Yes, they went after the larger profits. Still do and make few cars at all, just SUV's and trucks. I drove domestics for decades but no choice now.
The Henry J, a product of Kaiser automobiles, was introduced in 1950 and ran through 1954. This compact car was offered with four and six cylinder engines and was also sold through Sears as the Allstate. It gets forgotten when American compacts are mentioned. Even earlier was American Austin/American Bantam, which initially sold versions of the Austin 7 built under license in the USA. These sub-1 liter engined cars could return 40 mpg in the early 1930's. Interestingly, American Bantam built the original Jeeps, most of which were sent to Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Dear Ed. T. Y. 4 a delightful romp thru my youth. In the 70’s I had a 63 Plymouth Valiant (3 on-the-tree)You have a fine accent, thanks for coming 2USA. People make USA Great Again!
Great video. My family drove from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois in a borrowed Corvair. I guess the experience made them decide to buy a Ford Falcon a year later.
What's often forgotten is that car's aren't designed with particular engineering objectives in mind, they're engineered to SELL...either of themselves, whether the features are economy, utility, performance, or looks...OR...to get the prospective customers into the showroom, even if they buy something ELSE. How many times did a couple, looking to buy a cheap ride so the breadwinner could commute to work, ended up instead getting the wifey a brand-new "Family Truckster"? IMO, the epitome of adapting a platform to meet a different market with essentially the same vehicle was when Ford developed the Mustang from the Falcon...now, instead of the humdrum "economy" car, you had a "sporty" model with essentially the same engines and drivetrains, on fairly much the same frame, with nearly identical production costs, but you could sell it to some kid just fresh from his stint in the Army or his father, who wanted a car that was good on gas and easier to maneuver and park, but still had some "flash" to it! Chrysler did fairly much the same with their A-body on which the Dart and Valiant were based, but only Plymouth got the fast-backed Barracuda (Dodge would get the Challenger when that line became its own E-body for the 1970 model year). GM actually got away from that with the compacts by 1964, letting Chevy continue with the Corvair even though they'd just introduced the Chevy II (Nova) as their "bread and butter" compact vehicle. None of the other divisions would have a badge-engineered equivalent, though Pontiac , for its now mid-sized Tempest, did get an excellent rework of the basic Chevy Six into an OHC version that had some "giddyap! It wasn't until '73 when the Nova was badge-engineered into redundancy with Buick, Olds, and Pontiac. When Chevy came out with the Camaro in '67, and Pontiac followed shortly later with the Trans Am, it was an entirely different platform meant for "pony" cars only.
The Lark was brilliant. All they did was shorten the wheelbase and lose a lot of heavy, mostly useless overhang. Performance, economy and handling all improved, and useful carrying capacity remained much the same.
I think you need to do a little more research on the response of Ford and GM to the increasing sales of imports. Ford was planning on bringing over the German Ford Taunus as it’s primary import and GM was going to bring over an Opel. After more study, it was decided the easier route was to build US designed cars. The Corvair was a stand-alone design with no siblings designed as their answer to the Beetle. GM decided a more conventional design would be the one shared across the fleet and created the Chevy II with its siblings at Pontiac, Buick, and Olds. The Plymouth Valiant also had a sibling at Dodge called the Lancer.
I went joy riding in my moms corvair when I was 13, did doughnuts and burnouts.....It was a stick and my mom couldn't figure how I learned how to do it on my own.....baffled her....cop pulled me over, knew I was underage and STILL TOLD ME TO DRIVE IT HOME........I was expecting cuffs, and I got an attaboy
My family owned a 1964 Studebaker Cruiser. Best car we owned. We also had a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 but the Ford was much cheaper build quality. When we took trips we took the Studebaker. Comfortable coil spring seats.
I saw a Corvair pull into a parking lot and drop the passenger side front wheel flat on the ground. The whole front suspension failed because the lower arm wore through the bolt and allowed to spring to push the whole assembly flat on the ground with the wheel cover pointing up to the sky. I now knew why Nader was so intent on killing this lemon. Ugh! The woman fell into tears.
Ford was the first of the big three to bring out the Falcon in 1960-this point should be made a bit clearer. I have a 1963 1/2 Falcon V-8 from the factory. The 1963 1/2 was brought out to see if the chassis could take the torque of the V-8 (260cu/in 164hp). Then in 1964 1/2 the Mustang was brought out which was basically a Falcon with different clothes on. The Falcon chassis stayed in the Ford line with Mustang, Torino, Maverick into the 1980's.
Lots of European cars had swing axles. The Corvair only had them thru 1964. The 65 model had a A-arm independent and some of the best mid 60's styling to be found. I did own a 1966 Turbo Spider!
You should have mentioned Rambler. They had a really interesting role in the 1960s compact car history.
Yes. I mean if he was going to mention Studebaker.
He actually did, for about three seconds, although most of what hew showed on the screen were two seaters, trying to compete in a six-seat race for best affordable car. If you live alone, a two seater makes sense. If you have a family, it's not going to be an option. Lot's of people would like to buy a Corvette, although, for most, it would be a second car, as Mom has to take the kids to soccer practice in the station wagon, minivan, or SUV.
@@alanrogers7090 but it's not about two-seater Rambler Metropolitan (actually, 2+2), but regular Rambler, which was 5-seater, introduced in 1950, considered as the first US compact! By 1955 there appeared even 4-door compacts, like Willys Aero, Hudson Jest and bigger Rambler. However, these compact cars might have been ill-timed before 1958, and disappeared by 1956, with an exception of Rambler, which grew larger and competed with full-size cars, still pretending to be a compact car. Then came Studebaker Lark and small Rambler American again.
2:44
The Ramblers really are a neat car. I just bought my first one, that being a 1966 rambler American 440 and it's such a neat and simple little car.
All we owned was Valiants when I was growing up, we started with a 1956 Plymouth Savoy it kept breaking down, then on to the Valiants in 1962, 1966, and 1970. Those cars were so reliable with their slant six 225 cu. in. engine! I bought a 1963 Falcon Futura convertible in a field for $75.00 in 1979 and I still have it in my garage today.
Saw a slant 6 at the Bonneville Salt flats in a 1965 Valiant
Yes the A bodies were great cars especially with the slant 6. i owned a 72 duster,61 dart and a 74 dart with the slant (the 61 had amazing power for a 6) and all got 32-35 mpg
My first car was a '65 Corvair. That was the first year of the revised, safer rear axles and proto-Camaro styling. It had four wheel independent suspension and a very low center of gravity, so if you used the correct tire pressures (18 front / 30 rear) it handled way better than any other American car of the era, other than the Corvette. And since a flat six has much better primary and secondary balance than a V8, V6 or inline 4, the engine was remarkably smooth, if not terribly quiet.
The corvair was way ahead of its time and after it was revamped in 1965 it fixed the styling and axle which made it just as safe as any other car
Drivers were used to easier to control under steering and with the engine and transmission in the back, the handling could be different under certain circumstances. The chassis design may have made this issue worse. Like the Fiero by the time GM got it right, the public lost confidence in the car and it was toast.
After 50 years I still have mine.
The swing axle on the Corvair could be fixed with a z-bar. The z-bar worked like a sway bar, but in addition to controlling body sway it also limited the camber change with wheel travel. The camber change was what made the car unstable, as it would occur with weight transfer on braking and acceleration. IIRC Chevrolet moved away from the swing axle in 1965 to a more conventional IRS with u-joints at each end of the axle and a control arm arrangement similar to the Corvette. 65 and up Corvairs can be set up to be tremendous sports cars, such as was done with the Yenko Stinger.
Americas Porsche 911. 💙 T.E.N.
Unfortunately build quality sucked as much as the heater was worthless, quite like the VW Beetle which was for a fun time not for a long time. Vair engine and transmissions OTOH were excellent and that car should have been America's Porsche but GM apparently didn't want to cannibalize Vette sales.
Being rear-engined made it a deathtrap which ensured it wasn't going to be worth continuing long-term. Nicely styled both early and late, Vair was a "might have been". My bro collected them and we tried to roll one of our engine donors in a parking lot but the tires lacked sufficient grip being old and harder than woodpecker lips.
If I wanted one to drive I'd get a '68 and turbo it with a modern turbocharger. We quire enjoyed my bros and it was sort of a baby Camaro.
FYI, The Ford Falcon sold really well in Australia and a variant was made until 2016 and in Argentina until about 1985, and the Valiant brand lasted until about 1982 in Australia
Australia had new generations of falcons. They were sold in Argentina until the 90s and were the ex act same 63 chassis and body panels with only taillight and headlight/ grill upgrades. We had an 88.
And those were the large cars of Argentina, their equivalent of a Crown Vic!
@@Onizukachan915 I did see the Argentinian Falcons when I was in Buenos Aires 21 years ago. No Australian Falcons were ever sold there because none were ever made in left hand drive. The Australian falcons from 1972 onwards were unique to Australia and New Zealand
Falcons only sold well in Australia when the make or break upgraded XP model did well after 65.
@@johnd8892 The first 18 months'Falcon production in Australia were all recalled to replace the fragile front suspension. The original Falcon was not engineered for the Land of Pies and Flies, but the Ford Australia General Manager hated the (more expensive) Zephyr, which was.
But the aussie Falcon was a different car than the american falcon. I prefer the aussie falcon and my favourite is the XY Falcon GTHO Phase III :)
The photo of your 50’s “comfy cozy 4 door cruiser” is actually a 2 door.
You noticed that 4 dr, is really a 2 door also!
@@unclemarksdiyauto I got a good chuckle out of that one too!
and the fuel pump with gas prizes from 1950`s America is actually German
My dad made me buy a 1967 Chrysler crown imperial in1966.didntlikethe car then paid175for it he said to me it's not what it looks like. Guarantee you that you won't get hurt in this car...(smart man)
Gas guzzlers really didn't start until 1971... to about 1993 for last of them...
1950's and 1960's cars weren't that bad on gas... when driven gently...
Small European imports usually had the engine puke out by 25K miles... early Honda Civics lasted about 40 - 60K miles...
I love this era and size of car. The Studebaker Lark was a wonderful little car. I drive my 1963 Ford Falcon to work every day and marvel at how well it performs. I would love to have a 1961 Plymouth Valiant.
Have to agree with you. These were a great generation of fundamentally good, practical, simple cars that offered great utility and value. I'd throw the first gen. Chevy II and Rambler American into the mix.
@@billyjoejimbob56 Two words Dodge Dart.
@@michaelweizer7794 Dart was a good car, but not one of the early US compacts. Dart was originally a full sized car. The nameplate migrated down scale to the Valiant platform several years later.
i miss my 61 dart. got it in 93 perfect condition , dumb ass 23 yo i was i ruined it within 3 years
My first car in 1972 was a 1961 Valiant - styling by Ghia, spare tire bulge on the trunk lid, push button transmission. Wish I still had it.
Guia had nothing to do with the styling of the Valiant, entirely Virgil exner.
I think those cars styling is underappreciated. I hope that someday there are electric conversion kits that can save cars like that that you can't easily drop a chevy crate motor in.
at least the push button trans. selector worked on the chrysler cars , unlike the "EDSEL", if you parked that land yacht on a hill without setting the parking brake first, you were "STUCK" the servo- motor was not strong enough to get it out of "PARK POSITION", just remember "FORD HAS BETTER IDEAS!!!!!!!!" ( the "O" was a light bulb,, that came to light in their commercials)
Why doesn't this guy have more subs?
Thanks for the compliment! I just started out, but please spread the word!
yea ikr, his videos are so professional. I expect him to grow big. good luck Ed.
Maybe because he can make this video without mentioning the amc rambler??? It’s much more of an economy car than any of them he spoke of
Because he does not know what he is talking about.
Because he concentrates on jokes rather than relevant facts.
I owned several Corvairs. The early ('61 to '64) models had a swing axle that was tricky. Curves with a decreasing radius were dangerous in those early models. Hence the "Unsafe at Any Speed". The '65 to '69 had a different rear suspension and handled very well. I raced my '66. It could maintain over 70 MPH around a 25 MPH cloverleaf.
The NHTSA proved that the early Corvairs were perfectly fine for the era. The cause of any control issues were from a lack of experience driving rear engined cars.
You pronounced comet just fine. Your English is very good . Your dutch accent could even be mistaken for a new York accent. Keep up the great work.
It should. New York was originally called New Amsterdam!
So that's what that accent is! I was trying to pinpoint it. It sounded pretty American but also a little foreign. Now that makes sense. And no, it's not like a NY accent either.
Good English, but a heavy accent. Not American at all if you come from America.
ironic the dutch colonised new york. it was designed by the dutch too making it more dutchlike
Sorry, your fans are being nice to you. Comet is not Co (long O) met. It is pronounced “Ca (a nasal short O, like a Boston “pak ya car” a. Don’t worry about dictation. Americans aren’t leading the pack in being correctness leaders, lately.
Yesterday, I pulled up alongside a 1961 Ford Falcon Ranchero with a cap that made it look remarkably like the Falcon station wagon of my childhood. My parents came across the bill of sale some years ago. $2,800, loaded.
(In 1961, “loaded” meant AM radio, heater, seat belts and Ford-O-Matic transmission.)
Ha ha our 1961 Falcon was a station wagon. And it was, as I said, loaded.
the Chevrolet Chevy II was more conventionnal than the Corvair but it was a closer competitor to the Falcon, Valiant, Comet, (Dodge) Lancer, Tempest, F-85, Special and the Rambler American
Agreed, the Corvair was more of a specialty car. And the Chevy II was their Chevrolet's compact at the time.
@@chuckmoore8668 The Chevy II was rushed to market after the Falcon handily beat the Corvair in its debut year in 1960
@@gcfifthgear yes, you are right. But your missing the fact that the falcon being a family car vs the corvair being a specialty car is why the Chevy ii was created. Like the falcon the Chevy ii was easy to work on. The common everyday man could tinker with, where as the corvair was more like a some European cars were more significant knowledge was needed for minor repairs.
@@chuckmoore8668 we're both right. The Corvair was exotic for American iron, but the Chevy II was much more traditional
@@gcfifthgear It was exotic if exotic means you needed to keep 1 case each of fan belts and oil in the frontrunk. It tended to shed both with impunity; the belt because of its convoluted 90° bend at the back of the engine; the oil because the engine had an oil plate, not an oil pan; even with the engine off the oil was always sitting on a bolted seam. Unless it was torqued properly after an RnR, if the plate bolts were tightened too much, it warped and leaked; too little and it just leaked. What kid uses a torque wrench on an oil pan? Also, a friend who owned one said cornering too quickly ("quickly" was a very subjective description) was like swinging a bucket of sand on a rope around in a circle. The bucket end always keeps going after you stop your end. This was involuntarily demonstrated to me on a number of occasions - we always ended up facing traffic. The car was meant for those who loved to take meticulous care of a car; teens were better off with a Nova or Falcon. I had one of each at separate times, a 21mpg '62 SS 194ci 6 and a 27mpg '63 Ranchero 170ci 6, respectively. Aside from a ≤60-minute head gasket RnR on each one, no major repairs were needed on either, though they both turned more than 200,000 miles when I sold them.
I would've gone into more detail about GM's other compacts, as all of them are worthy of note:
- The Buick Special debuted the Buick 215 aluminium V8, which was later sold to BMC and rebranded as the famous Rover 3500. It also got a V6 version of that engine, making the Special one of, if not the, first American production car with a V6
- The Oldsmobile F85 had a special version named Jetfire, which was one of the world's first production turbocharged cars
- The Pontiac Tempest could be optioned with the "Trophy 4" 3.2 litre slanted inline 4 engine, which was almost literally a 6.4 litre Trophy V8 cut in half, making it slanted 45 degrees
The Tempest also had a rear transmission and four wheel independent suspension because of it. Quite different compacts from the 4 GM company, with the Chevy II being the most conventional.
yup, the "V-6" buick engine was a 60 degree opposing cylinder block, not 90 degrees, like all the engines of the time had been.
I had a '61 Buick Special when I was in high school. Mine had the V8. People always thought it was a Corvair, lol. I loved that thing but the transmission was shot and it had a lot of other problems.
I had a '62 with the 198 V-6. Mine had a 2 speed auto tranny, and reverse was a little iffy sometimes. Owned mine in the 80s, and parts were really hard to find, and very expensive when you could find them. Had to sell it because, back then I didn't have the bucks to do a resto. I did sell it to someone who eventually did restore it, so it ended up good! That was a fun little car when I had it, though!@@MichaelPoage666
I love the fact Ralph Nader doesn't drive. Compliments to you for your research 😁
What is more, he's a car fan (some 90% sure).
That a-hole didn’t even have a driver license.
@@navret1707 yeah but he knew 60-70s era Cars were already unsafe so I mean it's thanks to him cars are required to be more strict in terms of safetly
Nader is the ultimate curmudgeon. A zealot who didn’t care if he wrecked the car industry to make a point.
Actually, the first late '50s compact car was the Rambler American, a rehashed Nash/Hudson Rambler in 1958.
Correct.
@@billyjoejimbob56 And yet they, the Rambler. Wasn't even mentioned!.,
I think it closely resembled the Studebaker Lark. I had front seats that fold flat with the back seats like a bed
@@billyjoejimbob56 '54 Nash metropolitans were common cars around here, Crosley (radio manf) made cars that were tiny enough to fit through dept store doors, 4 cylinder waukeshas. I remember our neighbor doing a quick resto on both those models, he was embarrassed to have them in the garage.
How can you create a video about domestic economy cars and glaringly omit the RAMBLER! Nash kelvinator amc was the epitome of the economy car company with a true economy car
Because he’s not American.
Yep, my mother had Ramblers from '59, '63, 67, 70. I had an '81 AMC Jeep. (wish it'd been a '68 AMX, though)
@@1956fordss in 1969 my grandfather bought my grandmother a new rambler coupe because he wouldn’t let her drive his imperial! That rambler was handed down through three generations and then was sold, still running well. In 1995 I bought my brother his first car. It was a 68 rambler four door from the original owner. He hated it at first but it became the favorite of his friends due to its iconic status. They were good inexpensive cars
2:42
It's an ironic shame that part of the reason good cars like Rambler, Studebaker, Packard and a couple others folded was because the cars they made lasted too long, so people didn't replace them as frequently.
Rambler was a compact and a major success from about 58-59 and, along with Studebaker, pushed the big three
Drove a friend's Lark occasionally.Liked it.
He also left out the Nash Metropolitan.
While I get that the Corvair is an interesting case, the Chevy II / Nova is more in keeping with the general theme - it was designed specifically to compete with the Ford Falcon, was introduced in the 1962 model year (the Corvair was introduced in 1960, of course, but was really designed to compete with the Beetle or Fiat 500).
Compare the size of a tiny Fiat 500 or even a Beetle with the size of a Corvair and you will see that this cannot be correct. You could attache a Fiat on the roof of a Corvair to use it as a Dinghi... It nearly fits under the bonnet :-)
@@heikosteffens1661 - the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant, and Chevrolet Corvair were all originally meant to compete with VW.
i forgot that, he did miss my favorite chevy compact. the early novas were very nice ( not so much for the mid 70s like i had) 63-73 novas had best styling
The Ford Falcon was an American compact car yet a large car in Australia!
To be fair, a compact American is a huge tub of lard in most of the rest of the world. 😉
The falcon It was also build in Argentina, from 62 all the way up to 91
@@ferrofilos
In Australia it went until 2016.
My dad had a 1963 Corvair. Nadar gave the Corvair a bad name. It wasn't as bad as he claimed
My uncle had a Corvair Van and the engine caught fire 🔥 all the time because of the fan belt braking, yes was a very dangerous car,
@@horseyhorselips3501 Then your Uncle was doing something wrong you wouldn't know a Corvair if it bit you in the butt.😡,You liberal braindead believe anything they tell you Comrade!.
My family died in one.
@@jaysgood10 So you are posting from beyond the grave?
Spooky!
My parents bought a 1961 Corvair. They tried to save money by extending the oil change, and ended up buying a new engine. My mom's mother had a Lark, which she loved (it was her favorite car). December 1964 floods of northern California destroyed it (and her house, and her neighbors' houses, etc.), so my parents gave the Corvair to her. She drove it for many years, and it was a good car. What Nader said in his book was still true, though. The Corvair it had its flaws, just like most cars did back then. GM did fix those flaws, but not before acting like complete asses by harassing Nader (and getting caught.)
My father's mother had a 1961 Valiant (black with a red interior - it looked like a Nazi staff car) which she loved, and drove it for decades until she could no longer drive.
We had a corvair coupe when I was a kid. It was sadly totaled when rear ended by an inattentive driver in a large Cadillac, which suffered a dented license plate.
Top level management in GM during this time were quite ignorant as to the potential of the economy car. My father was a Chev/Olds dealer in 1964 and was told by the Canadian head of GM that Japanese cars would never gain more than 5% market share.
Arrogance. The world changed with oil prices, better quality imports and gov't regs. Consumer's tastes changed too. I worked for a big multi billion dollar computer company and it like others were killed by the rise of networked PC's.
@@gmzx3 Same, health insurance company. The Obamacare insurance exchange was being rolled out. Top boys I overhear in the office, the focus of concern over a labor strike (which none of us was whispering about anyways). No, not the chaos of the exchange...
Agree that the Lark was an exceptionally well engineered car for its time. So was the Valiant, although its looks were more than a little polarizing. One additional reason Studebaker was headed for bankruptcy... Its merger with the hemoraging Packard Corporation drained limited resources. When you are drowning, you better flag down a ship that has a life preserver to throw.
I had always heard that AMC was interested in buying studebaker/Packard maybe if they had they would have become the independent version of General Motors
@@barryismygod issue was Packard and Studebaker where both pretty stubborn in not wanting to admit to the reality that they were both circling the drain. They both flat out refused to merge with Nash and Hudson and decided to merge with each other despite neither of them being very solvent. Packard could have been the much needed luxury feather in AMCs cap that they never really had and Studebaker could have been the affordable sporty option.
@@nicholascortez728 Exactly !
@@nicholascortez728 Studebaker also had a good line of trucks as well!.
Actually Packard more or less purchased Studebaker but found out once the sale was finalised that their new acquisition was in worse shape than led to believe. The merged of Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard was a close reality but it's proponent, former Nash-Kelvinator chairman and CEO died before a formal merger could be inked
This channel has to be the most underrated car channel ! Hope the best for it!
A big part of the decline in Corvair's sales was the introduction of the Mustang and Chevy's own Camero.
And maybe because every Corvair engine leaked oil. If you had the Powerglide and kicked it down over 40 mph you’d throw a belt. If you didn’t stop, you’d overheat and further harden those oil seals. Today we have seals that take the heat but they were just messy in their day. Had four in the family. I remember.
@fpeletz Nope! Mustang and Camaro. Chevy was going to drop the Corvair when the Camaro came out, but thought it would look like Ralph made them do it, so it made it through the 1969 model year, and extra there years.
And you somehow totally ignored the cars with the greatest impact on Detroit - the Rambler., which was there long before Studebaker, and had its best year in 1958.
Watch the whole video. 2:41 he mentions the Nash series. Admittedly, it was not much of a mention but the Nash cars were serious cars that had smaller engine advantages. They were not compact cars, unless you consider the Metropolitan. The purpose of this piece is to address the “quirky” answers that the Big Three called “compact” cars. They cannot be compared to the sensible, rather serious AMC cars.
Spot on....My Dad's first "family" car purchase was a Rambler American. Wonderful car that I have fond memories of...My Dad predominantly bought AMC until their demise... Remember the Matador? Yep,my Dad bought one in 1971.
@@robkunkel8833 I couldn't agree more. They should have had a much larger market share given the quality of automobiles they were producing.( American Statesman and the Ambassador) They had certainly secured a niche market,but couldn't increase their market share beyond that. And to change their vision and overall quality of vehicles in their waning years saddens me even more. To devolve from a once great car company to a dying company based on novelty cars (Gremlin,Pacer and Matador) is beyond the pale. Just my 2 cents....
You must be as old as me mate? I think the Rambler American '66 was the ideal car for a young guy just starting out. My uncle had a '61 Rambler Classic, owned it five years and not one minute of trouble. A buddy of mine had a '68 Valiant slant 6 -- unbeatable car, put over 500K MILES before she died!
@@dennischallinor8497 As a teenager, my 1966 Rambler CLASSIC was an ideal car. My friends considered the Rambler to be "an old man's car", but with some luxury interior features and the 287 V8 engine, it met all of my needs. Also, remember that the generously upholstered front seats reclined all the way down to create a wall-to-wall bed. The fathers of daughters did not like Ramblers.
First new car my dad bought was a '56 Bug...Two years before I was born! Said he used to run Volkswagon car rallies, and Volks' drivers would wave and beep at each other when they saw one another. Back in those days, Bugs were still a novelty!
I owned a 1964 Corvair. Like the Volkswagen the engine in the rear caused serious oversteer. In other words if you went into a corner too fast you would go off road rear end first. This was known by GM and corrected In 1964 and beyond with sway bars added to the suspension to prevent this. One advantage the Corvair had was that it had great traction in the snow. If you lived in the “snow belt” you would appreciate the better traction that a rear engine car offered.
The other nice thing about the corvair was that backing into a curb or parking block gave you a chance to crawl under it and repair the exhaust with muffler bandage.
I enjoyed the video. I am 78 and thought I would give an eye witness perspective.
Many of the comments of the the others have pointed out the 50s compact cars from Kaiser (Henry J), Hudson(Jet), Nash (Rambler) especially in 1956, and Willys (Aero). !960 was significant was the Big Three were countering imports, and Rambler which was very successful.
The suspension of the Corvair was basically the same as VW except Corvair had a much wider wheel making it safer. VW has understeering and Porsche as well. Nader has admitted that Corvair was no worse than its German counterparts.
An element for the success of foreign cars was a sizable counter-culture wanted a more practical and cheaper car and disliked the big three as being greedy corporations typical of American in general.
The winner was VW which even though at the time, I thought it was a horrible design but had great marketing. Marketing and great quality of fit, a reputation of reliability (overstated) and fit and finish worked in the counter culture. All that made the resell value very good.
Think about the popularity of jeans with holes as an example of some folks buying to be cool with their subculture. There was something about being cool if you drove a VW for some people.
Don't forget the Crosley
Actually the first mass produced American compact car of the post WWII period was the 1955 Nash Rambler, then in 1958 it became the Rambler American, and the first subcompact car was the Nash metropolitan and it came out in 1954 using british Austin parts and if I remember the story correctly the metropolitan was actually made in Britain but almost all of them were sold in the US other than a handful that stayed in the UK.
I love studebakers and ramblers but Studebaker was a dying company in 1958 and their little lark didn't hardly make a dent. Rambler actually became number four in sales that year if I remember the story correctly and Detroit wanted to reclaim their narket share, the Plymouth Valiant (my picture is a valiant interior to my Valiant) was the first of the big three to market next was the Ford falcon and the Chevrolet corvair.
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On a off note I'm really enjoying your channel keep up the automotive History stuff. It never gets old..
As for the Studebaker:
The Lark may not have made a dent in the overall market, but they actually MADE money that year - enough to invest in a new truck [ Champ]. For the first time in years, they were in the Black.
They could not keep up with the demand.
📻🙂
@fpeletz
I believe you are right.
📻🙂
The Nash Rambler came out in 1950. Lois Lane (Super Man fame) drove one. The Rambler’s final year was ‘55. That year it featured exposed front wheels and could be had as either a Nash or Hudson. It was re-introduced as the Rambler American in 1958.
Let me say that I do appreciate the effort you put into these videos.
3 Toyopet Crown sedans were on offer in Honolulu, arriving 27 Dec. 1957. They were sold in some mainland towns in 1958. Soon enough they were rebranded as "Toyota", and their compact pickups, and bigger than a Jeep Land Cruiser 4x4 sold more than the passenger cars until the 1965 arrival of the Corona RT 43, a bug-sized Galaxie.
The Toyopet Crown of the mid/late 1950s was a huge failure in the U.S. It was both underpowered and geared too low, which caused engine a high percentage of engine failures. A Rambler American could run rings around it, while getting about the same MPG.
I have a 63 Corvair and it’s so much fun to drive!
Thank you for your interesting and entertaining presentations.
I also love your accent it makes it different in a good way. Thanks Ed
The 1965 Corvair had a well designed rear suspension. It was safe enough to race in SCCA competition. The Monza Spyder is now viewed as a valuable collectors car. I briefly drove a 1965 Corvair that my sister owned. The handling was excellent.
My favorite cars are the 62-63 Larks also love the wagons with the retractable roof section!
I really like your humor, both broad and subtle.
The Corvair wasn't killed by Ralph Nader, it was killed by GM's bean-counter driven decision to imitate the Mustang with the Camaro instead of continuing with what was an early sports sedan with the Corvair. The parts bin approach was the path of least resistance but it landed GM in Palookaville about 10 years later, when the pony cars were a bad joke and the sports sedan market (BMW, Audi, etc.) was taking off.
You mention Studebaker, and I'm so glad you did. it was my first car! No, not the Lark, but, a real full size1957 Studebaker with the renound Studebaker V-8. But, you failed to mention the Studebaker comeback car, "Avanti", which pretty much sounded the death knell for Studebaker. But it was a beauty. OK, it's not a compact, but I just thought I'd bring it up, while Studebaker was on the floor, uh, so to speak. THX!
The Valiant may have looked like crap, but at least you got the toilet seat on the rear deck. Thank you, Virgil Exner!
The styling of the Valiant was awful, but the engineering made up for it. The bulletproof "slant 6" engine a true 3 speed automatic (GM & Ford had crappy 2 speed automatics) which made them ponderously slow. The Valiant was the first car with a Alternator while the others had lousy generators.
I think the full size cars had that fake spare thing on the trunk too. Electronic ignition in '72-'73 before GM and Ford. Chrysler was a solid engineering company back then. Remember those ballast resistors on the firewall?
@@4thstooge75 valiant's after that shape I'd imagine would have been designed by Elwood Engel???
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Really appreciate your fact-filled presentation with your humor. Subscribed!
If you don’t mind incorrect facts!
so, why did you forget AMC and the Rambler American, that came out in 1958???
Yeah I was wondering the same thing.
He didn't forget. He mentioned that the "Nash Rambler existed" early on then ignored it. The stupidity of this is that the 1950-55 Nash Rambler is considered the first truly successful American compact. It wasn't the first, but the first with reasonable acceptance, mainly meaning popularity and sales. It got larger and was sold as it's own brand in 55. In 58 the 1955 model was reintroduced as the Rambler American, and this time an economy model. One reason the 50 Nash Rambler was successful was that it was sold as a premium model, not a budget model as all compacts before it. The 58 Rambler American is the ONLY US car ever successfully reintroduced after being out of production for a time. The recession is why AMC did this. They just dusted off the old dies and molds, made some minor changes, and had a cheap to produce proven compact. It helped propel Rambler to the #3 sales position in the US in 1961. That makes ignoring it in an article about American compacts even more stupid.
NO you guys probably weren't around I see all the "Experts" making comments,..ERRONEOUS
ONE'S...This little car was the FIRST COMPACT...Sorry.
ua-cam.com/video/24tEbmahKRY/v-deo.html
The Hudson Jet beat them out by a few years. 1953. Americans hated the small Hudsons.....
@@AMCMag He was focusing on more of "the big 3" and their answer to "compact cars", hence why he didn't focus on the Rambler.
My first car was a 1965 Plymouth valiant with a slant 6 cylinder engine. Great car and extremely durable.
Those Chrysler 6 cyl engines were very reliable, but cold blooded.
General Motor's small car of the same class as the Ford Falcon wasn't the Corvair - it was the Chevy II; later named Nova.
The Chevy II came out 2 or 3 years later.
@@danr1920 2 years later after GM realized the Corvair wasn't selling due to its unconventional design.
@@4thstooge75 A real shame, that. The American public has been too conservative in it's thinking for too long.
Ralph Nader had nothing to do with the low sales and end of production of the Corvair. GM executives were to blame by attempting to blackmail and strong-arm Nader. They should have just left him alone because in the end they did more harm to the car than Nader and boosted his credentials in the process. Several private studies concluded that it was as safe if not safer than most cars of that date. Full independent suspension was introduced in 1965 and the second generation was beautiful. 1969 was the last year of production of this fuel stingy, sporty little car and just four years later the OPEC embargo had the big three scrambling to build such cars as the Pinto, Gremlin and Vega. GM had the perfect car already designed with most of the bugs worked out but no, they gave us the Vega.
the original 60 valiant was actually a great car. a bit rust-prone but a wonderful little car with wild-assed styling. first year for any manufacturer to use an alternator...first year for the venerable slant-6....torsion bar suspension....way ahead of its time.
Love your stuff Edward. Most of all your voice overs are highly entertaining. Carry on.
Ed, the Corvair issue was created by the aggressiveness of the workshops and tire specialists in inflating the tires as if it were a front-engined car! Just think that even today in 2022 I saw it happen for my BMW I3!!!
In the '60's my Dad drove a new Sunbeam 2 cylinder and then a new VW squareback while my Uncle drove a Renault Dalphine (tiny). I drove at 16 a 57 Chevy PU...ha ha while my Sister had a Ply Fury. Ha ha kids drove V8's!! My grand father drove a 66 Ford Mustang while Grand Ma had a Ford Falcon
I’m curious about the 2 cyl Sunbeam. There were a number of 2 cylinder cars around 1960 but I never heard of a Sunbeam with less than 4 cylinders. What model?
Your videos are entertaining, but your clip art is often off target. If you are going to refer to the typical large American "4-door" sedan of the 1950s, at least find a photo of a 4-door car instead of the 2-door shown!
I saw that too, but the insane humor offset that gaffe.
@@61rampy65 Not sure if it can be considered a gaffe since it occurs multiple times throughout the video.
I think it's more of a "running gag" than a gaffe.
The Pontiac Tempest had the same swing axle IRS as the Corvair, as well as a transaxle. It was revised to semi trailing arms with half shafts in 1963. The road racing and autocross crowds knew exactly how to take advantage of the Corvair’s oversteer; not a problem for them.
But the four cylinder engine was up front. Must have had better weight distribution than average for the time.
@@Diap842IV yes, and they pressed the point in marketing, as they should have. I wonder what the weight difference was between the big, iron four and the optional aluminum Buick V8.
‘Swing-axle’ rear suspension wasn’t restricted to just the Corvair,.
As a kid it was my first car, a coupe w/ manual transmission.......so it wasn’t like I didn’t drive it HARD as a teen, so I’d know about ‘how it handled’.... as in dangerously.
At the time, the SAME rear suspension was found in the VW, the Porsche, the MB sports car, the Triumph Herald.... it was a cheap way to provide an independent rear suspension that was the mark of sophistication in ‘handling car suspensions’ then.
Plus, with those cars with rear engines, it was mandatory..... the bulk of a ‘solid rear’ would never work.
The second design of the Corvair was much more curvy ‘Italian’ in body style, & with a truly 4-wheel, all-independent suspension.... the ‘swing-axle’ was gone.
Like all successful designs, GM improved it to make it competitive, & even today that supple body styling is appealing.
Like many young American guys, I improved the performance of my Corvair..... better tires, better ‘shocks’, anti-sway bars front & back..... all aftermarket items readily available & affordable....
.... including scavenging performance parts from wrecks in auto salvage yards. The ‘flat-six’ engine could easily pump out more power than the ‘pedestrian version’ offered in most models.
The Corvair was a clever [& copy-cat] car design very much of its time, with lawyer Ralph Nader using it as a scapegoat to make a name for himself as a ‘consumer-protection crusader’.
My first car was a 1965 Corvair. Still my favorite car I've ever owned. Wish I still had it.
Fun fact... the Corvair was at on point supposed to be air cooled front wheel drive. Next fact.. the 1965 and up Corvairs handled incredibly well with Corvette style independent suspension. I know because I had one in the late 80's and on.
The Mustang, which today is still a big seller for Ford,and has been the only car to remain on the Ford Platform, while Ford has concentrated on SUVs, trucks.
We had 3 corvairs in our family I liked them. they gave good gas mileage and I never noticed any handling problems. We lived in a small town and never really did any aggressive driving.
When I returned from RVN in '71 I purchased my first car: a '68 Corvair. Sweet coupe, red with white leatherette interior. One winter, driving I25 from Cheyenne to Ft. Collins, in the middle of nowhere, I saw a huge cloud of smoke trailing me. I pulled off at a ramp. When I opened the rear deck I was enveloped by smoke. The belt had broken and knocked off the top of the oil pump. So the oil was being thrown on the engine and not IN the engine. An engine was going to cost more than a car so that was the end of that. But I loved that car while it was alive. By 1968 they had apparently fixed the Ralph issues.
The Pontiac Tempest was interesting because it was rear Transmission (more specifically trans-axle), front engine. A configuration rarely seen in American cars.
The engines of the senior compacts: an Aluminum V8 and the cast Iron V6 derived from it (because one GM division thought they could make a better iron 6 out of the V8) are interesting too. The V8 became a popular boat engine, then was bought by Land Rover who continued to put it in cars and SUVs into the 2000s. The V6 got sold to Jeep/AMC until the first US fuel crisis when Buick was looking for more efficient engines and bought the tooling and design back from AMC. That engine found it's way into legendary cars like the Buick Grand National and survived in Gm products into the 2000's too.
Only the '61-'63 Pontiac Tempest had the rear transmissions (Corvair transmissions) The F85 Olds & the Buick Special had conventional transmissions.
@@4thstooge75 correct. I never stated or implied the others had the trans axle, because I know they didn't.
The Valiant was always a model, not a marque. It was only sold at Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. And was branded a Plymouth from 1961 on. For 1960 and '61, the Comet was technically a separate marque. It was sold by Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Some states would have allowed it to be registered as make: Mercury; model Comet. some others as just a Comet.
And you can't discuss the switch to small cars and 1958 without mentioning AMC/Rambler, the only US automaker with increased sales in recession 1958.
I thought of Rambler too. He touched on Nash (Metropolitan). Nash (Rambler), Hudson, Jeep became AMC. They were mostly small cars but later made full sized ones too.
The Corvair suffered loss of sales due to changing demands. Muscle cars were in and the air cooled engine was HP limited. Even in the turbocharged model it didn't compete with the big blocks.
The Camaro, Mustang etc also helped bury it.
In 1958, the year I was born, my Dad had a 40-mile one-way commute. In late 1958 he bought a new 1959 Vauxhall. In 30k miles the car had 2 valve jobs (under warranty) due to burnt valves. After the 2nd valve job in late 1959, he traded it to the same dealer that he had bought it from for a brand new 1960 2 door Falcon. He traded it in 1966 for a Fairlane (1964 model that he traded for a 1967 Fairlane about a year later), but the memory of the Falcon remained, and, after a couple of late 50s Simcas for beater cars he bought a 4 door 1960 Falcon as a beater. He sold it and upgraded to a 1962 Falcon Wagon, then again to a 1965 Falcon Wagon. The 1965 Falcon was so "nice" that we took it on a trip instead of the nice family car (a 1969 LTD). My Dad was a Ford man until the 80s. My Grandfather was a Chrysler man, however. He traded his 1955 Desoto in late 1962 for a 1963 Valliant. Traded that for his last car in 1973 - a 1973 Plymouth Valliant. I was never impressed with that "Chrysler engineering". Oh, both had 225 slant 6s and ran like sewing machines, but both leaked. Bad. Both Valliants leaked around the front windshield and in the trunk. The dealership could never fix the leaks in the 63, and the carpet rotted as a result. They got the leak in the windshield in the 73 to stop leaking, but it wasn't until I crawled in the trunk with a flashlight and my Grandad used a garden hose that we found the trunk leak ourselves. We were able to stop it by adjusting the trunk lid, but it was always hard to close and was misaligned on the body panels after that. But it was the only way to stop the leak. Those Valiants had quality issues I never saw in the Fords.
Where has the man been my whole UA-cam viewing life? Brilliant
Hi, I agree with Russell Robins. What about Rambler? They was a good seller in the 60's in the compact car segment. Also they are more reliable than the falcons or valiants.
It is a shame that Corvair sales dropped like they did especially since GM corrected the handling problem in 1965 by adding another u-joint to each of the rear axles. Ralph Nadar killed the Corvair, but the handling problem was corrected in 1965. I owned a 1963 model when I was a teenager and it was the best car I owned out of seven cars I owned when I was a teen.
The Nader book, "Unsafe at any speed" may have hurt Corvair sales some but it was the Ford Mustang that killed it. The Chevy II Nova took the economy car sales and the Mustang the sporty car market made popular by the Corvair Monza and Corsa.
Funny enough the independent makers already made compact cars in the early 50's, Nash Rambler, Hudson Jet, Willys Aero, Kaiser's Henry J., and Crosley made only small cars.
Funny, or out of necessity? You are absolutely right. If colliectively they had had some financial critical mass behind them, and survived into the mid 70s, automotive history could be very different today. Woulda, coulda, shoulda?
Americans are so affected by marketing....purchasing a cheap car means you don’t have money like your neighbor does...
Yes people forget about them.
@@billyjoejimbob56 I know in Kaiser’s case it was not out of necessity but a pet project of Henry Kaiser himself. Some say his stubbornness in making a “people’s car” (the Henry J) vs developing a V8 sunk the company.
Owned a62 Corsair convertible and love it
In the mid 60s I lived in northern New Jersey. Our neighbour was forever fiddling with his Corvair, which I never saw him driving. After three years my family and I moved and for all I know, his grandchildren may still be trying to get that old car on the road again!
The Valiant was the Chrysler Valiant in Australia.
The Falcon was the Ford Falcon in Australia.
The Corvair,,is 100% identical to my wife and i’s First Car..paid 2300+ auto, Posi, radio, ww, caps,,etc..was truly a great car for us.
My first car was a 1964 Chevy Corvair Monza that looked exactly like the one in the title image for this video. I loved that little car.
I am a cultured man
I see Corvair I like
I own a '65. 😎
You really shouldn't have ignored Rambler from American Motors. They thrived building and selling compact cars, much more so than Studebaker. In fact, it was the example of Rambler increasing its sales in 1958 that really caught the attention of the Big Three. And Studebaker wasn't sold alongside Chevys or Fords. Studebaker dealers were stand-alone. Except that they also handled an imported car: the Mercedes Benz.
Thank you ! This guy's video is terrible, so many mistakes .
My sister had a '63 Corvair. Blue four door. Fun car to drive. Handled well.
The silhouette of the mustang at the end of this video reminded me of my older half brother, who was 13 years older than me. He bought him a brand new 1965 Ford mustang.
I think he was 21 years old at the time and was working full time, but the car ate his lunch so to speak because the $78 a month payment was more than he could handle, lol! It became a choice whether to pay for and drive the mustang, or eat. So he did the sensible thing that a brother would Dave and sold it to his younger sister and it became her problem. 😂 👍🏻
How about an entire video on the Rambler? It seems that a lot of people liked them.
Comment complaints certainly prove that.
I can’t help feeling the US missed a big opportunity in this era
The big 3 never took small cars seriously
@@michaelfoulkes9502 Yes, they went after the larger profits. Still do and make few cars at all, just SUV's and trucks. I drove domestics for decades but no choice now.
The Henry J, a product of Kaiser automobiles, was introduced in 1950 and ran through 1954. This compact car was offered with four and six cylinder engines and was also sold through Sears as the Allstate. It gets forgotten when American compacts are mentioned. Even earlier was American Austin/American Bantam, which initially sold versions of the Austin 7 built under license in the USA. These sub-1 liter engined cars could return 40 mpg in the early 1930's. Interestingly, American Bantam built the original Jeeps, most of which were sent to Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Not to mention the Nash/AMC/Rambler models which were not acknowledged and overlooked
Dear Ed. T. Y. 4 a delightful romp thru my youth. In the 70’s I had a 63 Plymouth Valiant (3 on-the-tree)You have a fine accent, thanks for coming 2USA. People make USA Great Again!
I love the Lark .
Great video. My family drove from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois in a borrowed Corvair. I guess the experience made them decide to buy a Ford Falcon a year later.
At 2:06...that's a two-door coupe. Ah ha! gotcha. But honestly, I am really enjoying your videos. Keep them coming.
What's often forgotten is that car's aren't designed with particular engineering objectives in mind, they're engineered to SELL...either of themselves, whether the features are economy, utility, performance, or looks...OR...to get the prospective customers into the showroom, even if they buy something ELSE. How many times did a couple, looking to buy a cheap ride so the breadwinner could commute to work, ended up instead getting the wifey a brand-new "Family Truckster"? IMO, the epitome of adapting a platform to meet a different market with essentially the same vehicle was when Ford developed the Mustang from the Falcon...now, instead of the humdrum "economy" car, you had a "sporty" model with essentially the same engines and drivetrains, on fairly much the same frame, with nearly identical production costs, but you could sell it to some kid just fresh from his stint in the Army or his father, who wanted a car that was good on gas and easier to maneuver and park, but still had some "flash" to it! Chrysler did fairly much the same with their A-body on which the Dart and Valiant were based, but only Plymouth got the fast-backed Barracuda (Dodge would get the Challenger when that line became its own E-body for the 1970 model year). GM actually got away from that with the compacts by 1964, letting Chevy continue with the Corvair even though they'd just introduced the Chevy II (Nova) as their "bread and butter" compact vehicle. None of the other divisions would have a badge-engineered equivalent, though Pontiac , for its now mid-sized Tempest, did get an excellent rework of the basic Chevy Six into an OHC version that had some "giddyap! It wasn't until '73 when the Nova was badge-engineered into redundancy with Buick, Olds, and Pontiac. When Chevy came out with the Camaro in '67, and Pontiac followed shortly later with the Trans Am, it was an entirely different platform meant for "pony" cars only.
I owned a 1965 Corvair I bought from a friend. The car ran great even though I had to always carry a FEW extra fan belts with me. Lol
The Lark was brilliant. All they did was shorten the wheelbase and lose a lot of heavy, mostly useless overhang. Performance, economy and handling all improved, and useful carrying capacity remained much the same.
I owned a 63 corsair monza, it was awesome! Handled great!
I have a Corvair. They’re great cars, can keep up with the new ones surprisingly well, if you don’t mind the lack of safety features.
I think you need to do a little more research on the response of Ford and GM to the increasing sales of imports. Ford was planning on bringing over the German Ford Taunus as it’s primary import and GM was going to bring over an Opel. After more study, it was decided the easier route was to build US designed cars. The Corvair was a stand-alone design with no siblings designed as their answer to the Beetle. GM decided a more conventional design would be the one shared across the fleet and created the Chevy II with its siblings at Pontiac, Buick, and Olds. The Plymouth Valiant also had a sibling at Dodge called the Lancer.
I went joy riding in my moms corvair when I was 13, did doughnuts and burnouts.....It was a stick and my mom couldn't figure how I learned how to do it on my own.....baffled her....cop pulled me over, knew I was underage and STILL TOLD ME TO DRIVE IT HOME........I was expecting cuffs, and I got an attaboy
My family owned a 1964 Studebaker Cruiser. Best car we owned. We also had a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 but the Ford was much cheaper build quality. When we took trips we took the Studebaker. Comfortable coil spring seats.
I saw a Corvair pull into a parking lot and drop the passenger side front wheel flat on the ground. The whole front suspension failed because the lower arm wore through the bolt and allowed to spring to push the whole assembly flat on the ground with the wheel cover pointing up to the sky. I now knew why Nader was so intent on killing this lemon. Ugh! The woman fell into tears.
1959 Studebaker Lark: I'm the first American compact car!
1958 Rambler American: What am I, chopped liver?!
Ford was the first of the big three to bring out the Falcon in 1960-this point should be made a bit clearer. I have a 1963 1/2 Falcon V-8 from the factory. The 1963 1/2 was brought out to see if the chassis could take the torque of the V-8 (260cu/in 164hp). Then in 1964 1/2 the Mustang was brought out which was basically a Falcon with different clothes on. The Falcon chassis stayed in the Ford line with Mustang, Torino, Maverick into the 1980's.
I loved my 1964 Corvair Monza Turbo Spyder convertible.
My sister had a '63 Corvair 4 door. It was fun to drive and not unsafe at all.
Rambler has been mentioned but you could also buy various compact British and French cars during that time, both in Canada and the US
I love the way you say compact car! And all your videos!
Lots of European cars had swing axles. The Corvair only had them thru 1964. The 65 model had a
A-arm independent and some of the best mid 60's styling to be found. I did own a 1966 Turbo Spider!
love your wit and sense of humor!
I like the fact you give not only a world automotive history but also an American one from a " yuro" perspective