From the viewpoint of a mechanic, not necessarily the driving public, a Corvair was the spawn of Satan! They were notorious for developing hard to fix oil leaks- - - -prone to overheating when run for long distances at highway speed, and the only thing worse than keeping the dual carbs synchronized was attempting to get four carbs on the Spyder version playing nice with each other. Then there was the incredibly hard-shifting 2-speed automatic transmission, or the 4-speed manual model with a shifter that felt like a piece of limp spaghetti. As was mentioned above, just a few pounds of wrong tire pressure turned the things into a death trap. A cross leaf spring called a "camber compensator" usually kept the things from getting up on their tiptoes in a hard turn. Following an non-compensated Corvair into a high speed turn or a slalom was at least as frightening to the guy in the back as it was to the driver. One of the guys in the Okinawa Sports Car Club insisted on campaigning one in the autocrosses we ran, and it was entertaining to watch his elbows flailing as he muscled the thing around some of the traffic cone courses we laid out.
Jerry
