Chevrolet Corvair

Corgi are really getting stuck into the US cars now. Again they are choosing technologically advanced or non mainline products. Putting a flat six in the back of the car when the norm was a big, simple V8 up front was a brave move for Chevrolet and they persisted with it for some time. You can see that their auto-stylists were trying all sorts of new ideas - here making front and back look similar. Our extra Corgi feature here is a Venetian blind in the back window.

The Corvair though was a controversial car. The management at Chevrolet decided to overrule their engineers and go for a cheaper suspension solution, you can find the full details on Wikipedia, This cheaper solution affected the handling of the car very badly, road safety campaigner Ralph Nader described it to a Congressional hearing as "the leading candidate for the un-safest-car title" and made it the subject of his book 'Unsafe At Any Speed'. There were eventually more than 100 lawsuits against GM regarding this car.

The Chevy Corvair was introduced in June 1961 and remained in production for five years. You will find it in pale blue or mid blue and in the Golden Guinea Gift Set where it was vacuum plated in gold. All versions are valued at a similar rate with a slight premium for the gold car. It is seen with both turned and spun hubs.