Class and Controversy: Chevrolet Corvair

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It is difficult to separate the Chevrolet Corvair from its reputation as a dangerous, ill-handling disaster. The truth, however, is much less dramatic but certainly more interesting.

The Corvair was, quite simply, the most technologically interesting mass-produced American car of the postwar era. Whilst a few independent manufacturers had dabbled with shaking up the idea of what an American car should be, none had had any success. The Corvair was the first instance of one of the Big Three really challenging the preconceived notions of American cars – corpulent, rear-wheel-drive, with an enormous, slow-revving inline six or V8 motor up front.

Instead, Chevrolet took a European approach to design, placing an aluminium flat-six engine where the luggage would normally be. The styling was clean, unadorned and uncluttered, and the interior was Spartan. By US standards, it was small, too, but despite compact dimensions and a low roofline, cabin space was excellent, with a flat floor and no centre console.

In the car's 10-year lifespan some 1.7 million were sold, so it couldn't have been that bad, right? In the latest issue of The Automobile, which you can buy here, Karl Ludvigsen fights the corner for Chevrolet's unfairly maligned family car.

Photographs by Stefan Marjoram 

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