car with splayed wheels.

[Scott Dorsey]

Believe me, it's the girls that are dangerous.

--scott

[rbowman]

A white one, '61 I think, appeared in a neighbor's driveway. I was able to confirm a vague memory of the shift being a little vertical lever on the dash. My brother had a rental and that was what I mostly remember about the car. He liked to rent Hertz's stranger selections.

I went to a car auction in the '80s. The sales for fat fender coupes and so forth moved along rapidly until they rolled out a beautifully restored Corvair. The bidding got up to $2000 and lagged. Finally the auctioneer told the owner that he could withdraw the car since it hadn't reached the reserve but that was was all the car was worth. Classic/antique car values are fickle.

[rbowman]

We has a '65 Dodge with vent windows. Later designs had a locking button on the lever but you could easily open the vent with a pocket knife and reach the door handle. After a radio was stolen from the car I demonstrated to the insurance man but he was not impressed. "You must have left it unlocked." I haven't had to deal with insurance in years but at that time there always was a reason why whatever it was wasn't covered.

[Snag]

I think it more likely it was a '63 based on a limited sampling . The Pontiac Tempest used the same transaxle , I had a '62 with standard floor shift , a neighbor had a '63 with automatic , and hers was on the dash . Of course that dash shift feature may have been on the '61's too , I don't know . Dad bought a Corvair from his brother , I don't recall the year . That thing MOVED ! I recall one time we were rolling down the freeway in a rain storm , Dad all at once for no apparent reason backed way out of the throttle and grabbed the emergency brake - didn't pull it but was ready to . The front wheels were hyrdoplaning at 70 MPH . I don't recall ever seeing Dad that particular shade of gray before that , or after .

[Leonard Blaisdell]

I had a '62 Corvair Spyder. It had a long, skinny gearshift that I put a machined T-handle on. It got rear-ended in 1967 and was totaled. The best place to hit a Corvair was the rear end. You could probably run over someone with the front wheels without damaging them too much. All the weight was in the rear.

[Xeno]

Not on this side of the world it doesn't. That's the version in common use here, don't blame us for your need to simplify words.

[The Real Bev]

:-) That would be the bottom side, then? Aussies use FRENCH spelling?

[Xeno]

It went from the French, adopted by the English, then *transported* to Aus.

[The Real Bev]

PLEASE don't tell me you pronounce it with the accent on the second syllable...

[Xeno]

Ok, I won't tell you.

[micky]

I would have thought a poser is someone who poses for pictures and a poseur, with the stress on the second syllable, is someone who pretends to be what he's not.

[Xeno]

That's pretty much the way we see it on this side of the Pacific.

[rbowman]

My first definition of poser would be a difficult question like 'why is there something rather than nothing?'

[micky]

Never heard for that. Sounds great.

[The Real Bev]

OK, real question: Do those idiots swap sides when the inner edge wears sufficiently?

You and I are on the same side of the Pacific; poser and poseur are the same thing; the 'posing for pictures' definition is in reality also the same thing.

[Xeno]

Well, you would need to swap the tyre on the rim first, for a start. And then, even if the tyre was swapped, it still wouldn't be legal as the tread requires a *minimum depth* right across the entire tread and any mileage done with a ridiculous camber like those I've seen will definitely wear the one shoulder right off. Camber angles like that defy logic.

[AMuzi]

Some of our fellow citizens (OK, maybe merely people among us) have decidedly different 'logic':

[micky]

Somehow you remind me that my roommate went away for a couple weeks and for some reason I was supposed to move his car, or maybe I drove it to work about 5 blocks away once. At any rate, sometimes the stick would dislocate from the transmission and it would only run in reverse, and indeed, I had to back 3 or 4 blocks to get home one time. He knew how to put it back in its socket, but I didn't and I don't think I drove it after that.

[micky]

Don't just to bad conclusions. Of course not. I look mostly for 20-25 y.o.

The most I've done is 110 and I'll never do that again. 1967, middle of southern michigan just after dawn.

[Clare Snyder]

I've done over 120 MPH a few times - when I was still young, foolish and invincible. Wouldn't mind doing it on a closed track some day with a more capable vehicle on better tires.