www.swankpad.orgRear-engine
cars are fun to drive and even more fun to crash. While rear-engine
packaging offers enormous advantages, putting the vehicle's heaviest
component behind the rear axle gives cars a distinct tendency to spin
out, sort of like an arrow weighted at the end. During World War II,
Nazi officers in occupied Czechoslovakia were banned from driving the
speedy rear-engined Tatras because so many had been killed behind the
wheel. Chevrolet execs knew the Corvair — a lithe and lovely car with an
air-cooled, flat-six in the back, a la the VW Beetle — was a handful,
but they declined to spend the few dollars per car to make the
swing-axle rear suspension more manageable. Ohhh, they came to regret
that. Ralph Nader put the smackdown on GM in his book Unsafe at Any Speed,
also noting that the Corvair's single-piece steering column could
impale the driver in a front collision. Ouch! Meanwhile, the Corvair had
other problems. It leaked oil like a derelict tanker. Its heating
system tended to pump noxious fumes into the cabin. It was offered for a
while with a gasoline-burner heater located in the front "trunk," a
common but dangerously dumb accessory at the time. Even so, my family
had a Corvair, white with red interior, and we loved it.
