unclescott58

Oh, oh. That second IHOBBY picture in Gerry posting above, shows the '61 Pontiac! I hope this does start the complaining again! Remember. It just a test shot! Scott

I only have one argument with what you said above Gary. And that is your first sentance. Ralph Nader was not looking for publicity for himself or his career. I have met the man. I don't agree with his views on a lot of things. But, he seems to be an honest man trying to do right thing for the public. He did not seek the spot light that Corvair and GM gave him. He wrote a book on car safety that few people read at the time. GM didn't like what he had to say about their Corvair, so they hired private detectives to dig up dirt on the guy. Not only did they not find any dirt, they got caught by a Washington reporter trying to do it. Now if GM is worried about what this Nader guy is saying, there must be some truth behind it. And again, despite my liking the Corvair, there was some. So the Washington reporter looks into into it. And reports on it. This all blows up in GM's face. Nader is partially right. And GM is trying to invade Mr. Nader's private life for nefarious reasons. To top it off, Mr. Nader worked for at that time a powerful U.S. senator. Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut. And he was interested in automobile safety. GM's chairman James Roche gets called into the senate and ends up publicly apologizing to Mr. Nader. Making him into a national figure to be listened to. In the meantime, other companies with swing arm axle vehicles kept their mouths shut. Avoiding the bad publicity. And in the case of Volkswagen selling more Beetles in this country then ever before. In the early 1970's Ralph Nader tried to get all Volkswagen buses, past and present, removed from the roads. He also would have liked to stop the sales of new Beetles. This information appeared in the press. Including a long article in Road & Track at the time. But, still Volkswagen kept their mouths shut. Giving story little to no traction or interest. Nader was not the problem. It was GM and its 1960's arrogance. GM's Goliath challenging Nader's David. And public likes to root for and believe in the little guy. The Davids. Whether the David's facts are 100% correct or not. Scott

Go to YouTube and search for Corvair pickup. When I did it, the second video it offered me was that film. Scary and fun, watching the Econoline pickup brake from only 45 mph! Why didn't we hear more about this? I'd feel a lot safer driving a Corvair. Scott

I wish I knew how to link things up, but I don't. And I'm not sure if Ive seen this video on line. My cousin-in-law Russel, first showed it to me on a video tape he has. But, it was a dealer film talking about the advantages of the Corvair 95 pickup truck over the Econoline pickup. I don't if the vans themselves were as tippy in the nose or not. I'm going to go on YouTube and see if I can find it. Scott

I like it Dave. But, what did we learn? Scott

Has anybody out there joined this club? How is it doing? I have no interest in it for the sames reasons others have stated above. Scott

By the way, it should be noted that Chevrolet built their last Corvair in May of 1969. Ford's big hit, the compact Falcon lasted only until December of 1969. Falcon sales too had been dropping over the second half of the 1960's. In the spring of '69 Ford had their next big hit. The Maverick. Between Maverick sales and the cost of converting Falcon to the locking steering column, required on all cars built starting on January 1, 1970. Ford decided to let Falcon go. They move the Falcon nameplate over to a cheaper version of the Fairlane/Torino mid-size line of cars. But even that was gone by the fall of '70. I find it interesting we look Corvair as failure, and Falcon as success. Yet they both left the market fairly close to each other. At least in The United States. Scott

Jeff, you mention the Chevy video showing the Econoline in a panic stop. That's a fun video. I wonder how many times that really happened on the road. It had to be pretty scary when it did! Before the Econoline vans, Jeep made the similar looking flat nose FC models. I've read that you had to be very careful in using those vehicles off road because of their front end and top heavy weight bias. Also good point on Corvair sales. Corvair was not failure. It just did not sell as well as Falcon, or what Chevrolet had hoped for. It sold well enough for Chevrolet to design a 2nd generation of the car. Sales really did not slump bad until 1967 and introduction of the Camaro. Though you can see some softening of sales on the '66s as the bad press was starting to mount. And your right about Chevelle taking sales from the Chevy II. Americans were not big (pardon the pun) into small cars in the long run. The compact boom was mainly brought about by people tiring of the too big and over styled cars being offered in the late 1950's. Again, Ford figured this out first. As Chevrolet brought out the Chevy II, Ford was introducing their new smaller Fairlane. This new mid-size Ford did not sell as well as either the Falcon or the Chevy II at first. Or even that year's Corvair. But, the product planers and marketers saw that it was what the American public really wanted. For 1964 Chevrolet got their new Chevelle based on the new mid-size A body platform share with the redesigned former BOP compacts. Buick Special/Skylark, Oldsmobile F-85/Cutlass, and Pontiac Tempest/LeMans. As these intermediate size cars started selling, you'll notice all the compact cars start pulling less and less market share. It took a couple of gas crisis in the 1970's to get us to think about smaller car again. And for government CAFE standards to regulate big cars out of existence. Since people can't buy big cars anymore, what do they do? Switch to bigger gas guzzling trucks. Ah, the government and its infinite wisdom. Scott

Interesting thing about the '50 Oldmobile my folks had. It was titled as a '51 Olds. And for years it was talked about as a '51 Olds. Here's where a problem comes in. As I grew older and got to know cars better, I noticed one day that Oldsmobile did not offer a model in 1951 like my folks Olds. Their '51 was an 88 two-door fastback. The last year Oldsmobile offer the 88 in any fastback body style was 1950. When discovered this I asked my dad about it. He said he bought the car from a guy who repaired wrecked cars. So the guy may have put a '51 front clip on a '50, and somehow got the state title the car as a '51. So my folks had a '51 Oldsmobile nobody else had (as far as we know). By the way, up until I asked my dad about it, he always assumed he had a true '51 Oldsmobile. Scott

By the way, one of the things I like about the 2nd generation Corvair is the 4-door hardtop body style. Only compact car built in America that offered that body style. Sporty, good looking, and somewhat practical. What's not to like? Scott

Notice the gas tank just behind the front suspension components. I think it was still left in the car, despite what was said at the beginning of the film. Scott

My folks had two cars in 1957. A 1950 Oldmobiles 88 and '55 Super 88. Again, I'm not so sure this was "normal" in 1957. But it wasn't uncommon either. I think you maybe trying to read too much in to this. Some people had one car 1957. Several had two or more. Some had none. It depended on needs and money. My parents were not rich. My dad had a blue collar job. My mother worked up until I was born. Their first new car was a 1961 Comet. Six years later they replaced that with a 1967 Comet 202. Both Comets were basic, cheap, stipped 2-door sedans. We thought we lived in lap of luxury because the '67 had a radio and carpeting! My dad drove used beaters back and forth to work. Mainly late 50's Fords with no floors in the back because of rust. For safety reasons we weren't allowed to ride in those cars too often. He did have a fairly nice early 60's Studebaker Lark in the late 60's. Then a very nice '63 Beetle. Finally he got a new Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck for himself in 1971. Again, the only option was a radio. In 1975 the '67 Comet was traded in on a new stripped Mercury Monarch. Pop replace the Toyota with a new "stripped" Mustang II in 1977. Oh, the Mustang II did have an automatic transmission, besides a radio and carpet. Boy, we were moving up in luxury now! By when I owned my own cars. My sisters would follow shortly there after. Finally my mother decided in 1980, she wanted something different than a stripped compact Mercury for "her" car. She had been back working for several years by then. So she had me take her out to buy a new car. She like the Oldsmobiles my folks had back in the 50's. So she wanted another big Olds. And she wanted a few goodies. Mainly air conditioning and bucket seats. The local Olds dealer had the perfect car for her. A beautiful new 1980, Delta 88 Holiday coupe. It had power steering and brakes. Air conditioning. And the Holiday package gave the big two-door bucket seats with an automatic transmission on a console. Two-tone gold paint paint on the outside. Gold cloth buckets. Wire wheel covers! But still had hand cranked windows and an AM radio. And no cruise cruise control. But it was a big step up from the Comets and the Monarch. She drove that car for twenty years. And loved it more than any car she had own before or since. Even the 2000 LeSabre, which I now have, that she replaced it with. Her last car. But back to the basic question at hand. What was "normal" in 1957? My over all point is there was no real normal in 1957. Some people had one car. Others had two. Talking with older guys who could drive at the time, their family may had more than two cars. I think rarely did people then or now, have two brand new cars at the same time, of the same year. Scott

Ah Harry, do I have to learn anything here? It's it more fun to spread the wrong information? Scott

Two very nice models of two very cool cars. Scott

Looks very good. I like it. Scott

My mother didn't work when I was young, and we had two cars. It interesting to go back and look at info from before World War II on both car and home ownership in this country. Especially if you lived in a city before the war, you more then likely did not own a car or your own home. Less than 50% of the population of this country before WWII owned a car or a home for that matter. Car and home ownership are really postwar concepts. The government discovered during the war, how important a stable work base was to the war effort. And encouraged things like this after the war with the GI bill and FHA. And notice, with that stable work base the country prospered. To the point that not could a family now own a car, but by the 1960's many families could afford to own two or more cars. Scott

Fun watching the above videos. The first section in the first video, showing them trying to roll a Corvair, my thought was that driving any car in the same maneuver could be a little hairy. By the way the begining of the film, I thought it said the gas tank was removed? When they were manually rolling the car back over, you can see the gas tank is still in the car. The Ford tests. I don't know what to make of those? Corvair is the most misunderstood car in history. Corvair's real problems were economics and the stupidity on GM's part for trying to discredit an unknown, at the time, young lawyer by the name of Ralph Nader. GM and the public never understood Corvair. Ford's convential Falcon out sold the Corvair in way that Chevrolet rushed out its convential designed Chevy II to counter it. In they mean time, the late '60 addition of Corvair Monza showed some signs of life. Lee Iacocca at Ford understood more than the guys at Chevrolet what was going on with the Monza version of Corvair. And a conventional, "cheap" to build, sporty Falcon based Mustang was his answer. Corvair's biggest problem is it shared little to nothing with other GM products. A few parts here and there. But not enough parts to justify its somewhat low sales figures. Camaro which share most its mechanical underpinnings with the upcoming '68 Chevy II/Nova and other GM cars made a lot more sense. Corvair was designed around an aluminum air cooled flat six. At a time when Americans mainly wanted convential V-8 engines in their cars. Eventuly even in their compact cars. It was not economically practical to develop a V-8 powered Corsair without a back seat. People also forget, in the end the government exonerated the Corvair and its handling problems. Most of lawsuits against the Corvair were won by GM. So much for "unsafe at any speed." Scott

Everything I've ever gotten from Tamiya is amazing. I've never been displeased with any of their products. I just wish they made models of American cars. Scott

I'm a child of the year of the Edsel, 1958. In my family we almost always had 2 cars growing up. Nothing fancy, but two cars none the less. My mother always drove the new or newer car. My dad would have an older car just for going back and forth to work. Normal family stuff, even with father driving, would be done in the newer car. But, in the early 60's we seemed to be somewhat of an exception in this. I remember the neigbor lady living behind us never learned how to drive. And not thinking that was odd at the time, even though my mother did. By the mid to late 60's it seemed like everybody had at least 2 cars in there family. Part of it was we moved to slightly more affluent neighborhood in 1966. But, you could see the change going back to the old neighborhood at the time too. By the way, we were very close to the neighbors who lived behind us in that first house, that when my folks built their new house in the new neighborhood, those neighbors built a nearly identical house next door to us. Yet the wife never learned to drive a car, ever. The Volvo commercial shown above, has to be from the early 70's. I have not watched ad yet. But, just looking at the begining still there, you see a couple of GM wagons with the clamshell tailgate. Those cars came out starting in the fall of 1970, as '71 models. Scott

I suspect Bill is right on this. Box art changed to match what JL was offering. Scott

It looks like the '57 Fords one use to a lot of when I was a kid. I like it. Scott

Not my style. But, a great job on the build. Nicely done. Scott

Ian. Unseal them. Build them. Scott

Very nice. The envy of many I'm sure. Including me. Scott

Oh, and by the way Harry. Those were the good ones. I did not include all of the corn jokes from that site. One because it was in bad taste and not family friendly. Scott