Ralph Nader: Hillary Clinton a “corporatist” and “militarist”

[jmowreader]

99. All rear-engine cars have the same problem Corvairs have

And that is, A car with the engine behind the driver needs more tire in the back than it does in the front. You can get there two ways: by putting bigger tires in the back (as you see with top fuel dragsters, rear-engine Porsches, and Lamborghinis) or by inflating the rear tires to higher PSI than the front ones, like aircooled VWs and Corvairs. The problem was, no one who dealt with Corvairs knew that - they said to do it in the owner's manual but a lot of people ignored it. Volkswagen was different: when the car came out, they gave their dealers very specific instructions to tell their customers just how critical this was. Volkswagen Bugs are just as capable of killing their passengers as Corvairs are if you fuck up the air pressure, but Volkswagen's leadership in this held down the carnage to a reasonable amount.

Seriously guys, I could never figure out what the product development people at GM were thinking when they invented the Corvair. I can understand the impetus: the Germans were eating GM's lunch with the Beetle. Problem is, the customer was buying Beetles because they are:

* cheap to buy
* cheap to run
* easy to fix
* fun to own

and GM thought the customer was buying Beetles because:

* engine is in the back

A lot of people claim the Edsel was Detroit's Greatest Marketing Blunder. Nope, it was the Corvair. A car like the Nova, but with a cast-iron engine in it, would have been better than the Corvair.