The most unsafe car ever?

Viton was not available in 1961.

The corvair's were fantastic cars, one of the best ever. Their minor handling problem could be easily fixed.

The first one I had was a 60. It was unstoppable in mud and water.

My 60 had the optional gas heater. No oil fumes. Hot air 30 seconds after you turned the key no mater how cold it was.

I won't concede that it had a handling problem. But in 65 it was "fixed". Pretty much the best handling of any car on the road.

I still despise Ralph Nader for the hatchet job he did on the Corvair.

I had a '66 with the 4 single barrels. Bought an aftermarket kit to mount a Holly 4 barrel on the car. The Holly normally fed gas through two of the barrels, but when you pressed the gas pedal down the other 2 would kick in. Turned the car into a rocket ship.

Wish I had the money back then to keep those cars running.

Ralph-

Thanks for pointing out the relative cost..... I didn't start driving my 61 corvair until 1970. I bought it from my brother for $25.

I was in high school and only making $2.50 an hour so $15 would have been nearly a day's pay. Plus I only worked ~20 hrs per week.

cheers Bob

Yes, the optional gas heater was great but not very common. But I lived in SoCal so even when it was "cold", I could drive with the window down.

many times we spend many hours worth of pay to fix the ride.. Or we can breathe the smoke.

That wasn't my point. cl used the phrase "in about 1969 they cost all of $15"

When phrased like that, "all of $X" implies "a inexpensive item" - pocket change. At least that's how I interpret "all of $X".

$15 in 2012 dollars sounds pretty cheap (~2.5 hours minimum wage work) but when referring to 1969 dollars, I wouldn't use the phrase "all of" which, to me, makes the item sound inexpensive.

Working for 14 hours to earn enough for the repair may absolutely make sense, but making an item that requires 14 hours worth of work sound inexpensive doesn't.

Actually they must have been well under $15 at that time. Autozone has them for $10.95 today.

My memory of prices isn't real good. They are 10.99 today at autozone. I bought 2 sets a couple of years ago -not including shipping I paid $15 for the 2 sets. They were likely closer to $5 or $7 back "in the day".

Looking a little farther, CPD has the viton set on for $7.35, and Clarks had them listed at $1.65 EACH in 2002

The original factory seal set was about $3.

Now the numbers match a little better. :-)

To earn the cost of a set, it would take a couple of hours of minimum wage work, both now and then - roughly.

Right but I did after I posted above.

Besides the 60 I had a 62 briefly as well as a 65, also briefly. The

Just throw in a few tight turns and all the 442 sees is tail-lights

Decades ago, when I did my 2 month cross-continent motorcycle trip on a Canadian issue Honda Cx650ed,

HeyBub scrit:

Corvair. At any speed.

Nope - the last 5 years of the corvair were as safe as a corvette - same basic rear suspension geometry. Mabee go for a Yugo or some other little crap-box that couldn't get out of it's OWN way, muchless anyone elses.

I owned a Pinto...it was a well built car and I had very little trouble with it. The motor was excellent. ==