Chevrolet Corvair
Brave and revolutionary by contemporary North American standards, the Chevrolet Corvair (released in late 1959 for the 1960 Model Year) was General Motors’ response to the then influx of smaller, affordable imported cars, such as the Volkswagen Beetle and Renault Dauphine, both of which sold in large numbers in the USA at the time. Like these European imports, the Corvair adopted a rear-engined layout with clean and distinctive ‘high-waisted’ styling that strongly influenced later rear-engined Euro boxes such as the Hillman Imp, NSU Prinz, Simca 1,000, and so on.
GM’s fellow domestic competitors also reacted to the glut of cheaper imports with a whole new segment of compact 1959-released American models like the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant, Studebaker Lark and pioneering Rambler American, all of which stuck rigidly to the tried and trusted front engine/rear-drive format, making the daring Corvair something of an exception.
The Chevrolet’s unconventional layout was ambitious, but ultimately lead to the Corvair’s premature demise due to supposed handling concerns caused by owners not regularly checking tyre (tire) pressures. This contributed towards the consumer rights and safety campaigner Ralph Nader’s best-selling book Unsafe at Any Speed, which slated the Volkswagen Beetle, but really went for the jugular of the Corvair, killing off many potential sales of the model. GM addressed most of Nader’s alleged issues with the tidier second-generation Corvair, not a bad car at all in its own right, but denied the chance to ever fully recover from the early safety fears. Chevrolet laid the model to rest sooner than originally planned in 1969. [Note how the car spins out of control during the above ad at 1:49, just after the voice over says “just watch how the Corvair stays under control in this situation…”]