Obama is over-taxed says his telepromter hypno-disk
Chief Egalitarian
Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
'over-taxed'
by Anne E. Kornblut
CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he
gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.
Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced
battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the
president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the
health care" package.
"We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.
Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an
area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to
have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the
misapprehensions that people have," the president said.
He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a
daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from
topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules
passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste,
COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages
(he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He
talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said).
He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare
(referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").
Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care -- twice.
"Number one is that we are the only -- we have been, up until last week, the
only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any
health insurance," he said.
A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar
to the first. "Number two, you don't know who might end up being in that
situation," he said, then carried on explaining further still.
"Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating,
even if you've got health insurance you don't always know what you got,
because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you're not lucky
enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is
almost a self-insurer, then what's happening is, is you're going out on the
marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you're covered, but then
when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it,"
Obama continued, winding on with the answer.
Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.
But Obama wasn't finished. He had a "final point," before starting again
with another list -- of three points.
"What we said is, number one, we'll have the basic principle that everybody
gets coverage," he said, before launching into the next two points, for a
grand total of seven.
His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren't being billed as the
chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill
remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into
the country to persuade wary citizens that it will work for them in the long
run.
It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday's event. The audience
sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.
Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He
apologized -- in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice.
"Boy, that was a long answer. I'm sorry," he said, drawing nervous laughter
that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.
But, he said: "I hope I answered your question."
Lewis Hartswick
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html
>
>
> Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
> 'over-taxed'
>
the alloted time without answering any difficult questions.
...lew...
Larry Jaques
<lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
He used a Shrubism, too. "Misapprehensions".
--
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are
needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And
they must have a sense of success in it.
-- John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, 1850
Chief Egalitarian
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
news:nf0ir55vqchmmdu6u...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 07:47:47 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
> <lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>
>>Chief Egalitarian wrote:
>>> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html
>>>
>>>
>>> Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
>>> 'over-taxed'
>>>
>>Probably a planted question to enable him to take up all
>>the alloted time without answering any difficult questions.
>> ...lew...
>
> He used a Shrubism, too. "Misapprehensions".
Of course. The most he could ever aspire to is to be like Bush. We had hope,
oh well.
William Wixon
AP / Carolyn Kaster
Apr 5, 2010
By Chris Hedges
Ralph Nader's descent from being one of the most respected and powerful men
in the country to being a pariah illustrates the totality of the corporate
coup. Nader's marginalization was not accidental. It was orchestrated to
thwart the legislation that Nader and his allies-who once consisted of many
in the Democratic Party-enacted to prevent corporate abuse, fraud and
control. He was targeted to be destroyed. And by the time he was shut out of
the political process with the election of Ronald Reagan, the government was
in the hands of corporations. Nader's fate mirrors our own.
"The press discovered citizen investigators around the mid-1960s," Nader
told me when we spoke a few days ago. "I was one of them. I would go down
with the press releases, the findings, the story suggestions and the
internal documents and give it to a variety of reporters. I would go to
Congress and generate hearings. Oftentimes I would be the lead witness. What
was interesting was the novelty; the press gravitates to novelty. They
achieved great things. There was collaboration. We provided the newsworthy
material. They covered it. The legislation passed. Regulations were issued.
Lives were saved. Other civic movements began to flower."
Nader was singled out for destruction, as Henriette Mantel and Stephen
Skrovan point out in their engaging documentary movie on Nader, "An
Unreasonable Man." General Motors had him followed in an attempt to
blackmail him. It sent an attractive woman to his neighborhood Safeway
supermarket in a bid to meet him while he was shopping and then seduce him;
the attempt failed, and GM, when exposed, had to issue a public apology.
But far from ending their effort to destroy Nader, corporations unleashed a
much more sophisticated and well-funded attack. In 1971, the corporate
lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote an
eight-page memo, titled "Attack on American Free Enterprise System," in
which he named Nader as the chief nemesis of corporations. It became the
blueprint for corporate resurgence. Powell's memo led to the establishment
of the Business Roundtable, which amassed enough money and power to direct
government policy and mold public opinion. The Powell memo outlined ways
corporations could shut out those who, in "the college campus, the pulpit,
the media, the intellectual and literary journals," were hostile to
corporate interests. Powell called for the establishment of lavishly funded
think tanks and conservative institutes to churn out ideological tracts that
attacked government regulation and environmental protection. His memo led to
the successful effort to place corporate-friendly academics and economists
in universities and on the airwaves, as well as drive out those in the
public sphere who questioned the rise of unchecked corporate power and
deregulation. It saw the establishment of organizations to monitor and
pressure the media to report favorably on issues that furthered corporate
interests. And it led to the building of legal organizations to promote
corporate interests in the courts and appointment of sympathetic judges to
the bench.
"It was off to the races," Nader said. "You could hardly keep count of the
number of right-wing corporate-funded think tanks. These think tanks
specialized, especially against the tort system. We struggled through the
Nixon and early Ford years, when inflation was a big issue. Nixon did things
that horrified conservatives. He signed into law OSHA, the Environmental
Protection Agency and air and water pollution acts because he was afraid of
the people from the rumble that came out of the 1960s. He was the last
Republican president to be afraid of liberals."
The corporations carefully studied and emulated the tactics of the consumer
advocate they wanted to destroy. "Ralph Nader came along and did serious
journalism; that is what his early stuff was, such as 'Unsafe at Any Speed, " the investigative journalist David Cay Johnston told me. "The big books they [Nader and associates] put out were serious, first-rate journalism. Corporate America was terrified by this. They went to school on Nader. They said, 'We see how you do this.' You gather material, you get people who are articulate, you hone how you present this and the corporations copy-catted him with one big difference-they had no regard for the truth. Nader may have had a consumer ideology, but he was not trying to sell you a product. He is trying to tell the truth as best as he can determine it. It does not mean it is the truth. It means it is the truth as best as he and his people can determine the truth. And he told you where he was coming from."
The Congress, between 1966 and 1973, passed 25 pieces of consumer
legislation, nearly all of which Nader had a hand in authoring. The auto and
highway safety laws, the meat and poultry inspection laws, the oil pipeline
safety laws, the product safety laws, the update on flammable fabric laws,
the air pollution control act, the water pollution control act, the EPA,
OSHA and the Environmental Council in the White House transformed the
political landscape. Nader by 1973 was named the fourth most influential
person in the country after Richard Nixon, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren
and the labor leader George Meany.
"Then something very interesting happened," Nader said. "The pressure of
these meetings by the corporations like General Motors, the oil companies
and the drug companies with the editorial people, and probably with the
publishers, coincided with the emergence of the most destructive force to
the citizen movement-Abe Rosenthal, the editor of The New York Times.
Rosenthal was a right-winger from Canada who hated communism, came here and
hated progressivism. The Times was not doing that well at the time.
Rosenthal was commissioned to expand his suburban sections, which required a
lot of advertising. He was very receptive to the entreaties of corporations,
and he did not like me. I would give material to Jack Morris in the
Washington bureau and it would not get in the paper."
Rosenthal, who banned social critics such as Noam Chomsky from being quoted
in the paper and met frequently for lunch with conservative icon William F.
Buckley, demanded that no story built around Nader's research could be
published unless there was a corporate response. Corporations, informed of
Rosenthal's dictate, refused to comment on Nader's research. This tactic
meant the stories were never published. The authority of the Times set the
agenda for national news coverage. Once Nader disappeared from the Times,
other major papers and the networks did not feel compelled to report on his
investigations. It was harder and harder to be heard.
"There was, before we were silenced, a brief, golden age of journalism,"
Nader lamented. "We worked with the press to expose corporate abuse on
behalf of the public. We saved lives. This is what journalism should be
about; it should be about making the world a better and safer place for our
families and our children, but then it ended and we were shut out."
"We were thrown on the defensive, and once we were on the defensive it was
difficult to recover," Nader said. "The break came in 1979 when they
deregulated natural gas. Our last national stand was for the Consumer
Protection Agency. We put everything we had on that. We would pass it during
the 1970s in the House on one year, then the Senate during the next session,
then the House later on. It ping-ponged. Each time we would lose ground. We
lost it because Carter, although he campaigned on it, did not lift a finger
compared to what he did to deregulate natural gas. We lost it by 20 votes in
the House, although we had a two-thirds majority in the Senate waiting for
it. That was the real beginning of the decline. Then Reagan was elected. We
tried to be the watchdog. We put out investigative reports. They would not
be covered."
"The press in the 1980s would say 'why should we cover you?' " Nader went
on. " 'Who is your base in Congress?' I used to be known as someone who
could trigger a congressional hearing pretty fast in the House and Senate.
They started looking towards the neoliberals and neocons and the
deregulation mania. We put out two reports on the benefits of regulation and
they too disappeared. They did not get covered at all. This was about the
same the time that [former U.S. Rep.] Tony Coelho taught the Democrats,
starting in 1979 when he was head of the House Campaign Finance Committee,
to start raising big-time money from corporate interests. And they did. It
had a magical influence. It is the best example I have of the impact of
money. The more money they raised the less interested they were in any of
these popular issues. They made more money when they screwed up the tax
system. There were a few little gains here and there; we got the Freedom of
Information law through in 1974. And even in the 1980s we would get some
things done, GSA, buying air bag-equipped cars, the drive for standardized
air bags. We would defeat some things here and there, block a tax loophole
and defeat a deregulatory move. We were successful in staunching some of the
deregulatory efforts."
Nader, locked out of the legislative process, decided to send a message to
the Democrats. He went to New Hampshire and Massachusetts during the 1992
primaries and ran as "none of the above." In 1996 he allowed the Green Party
to put his name on the ballot before running hard in 2000 in an effort that
spooked the Democratic Party. The Democrats, fearful of his grass-roots
campaign, blamed him for the election of George W. Bush, an absurdity that
found fertile ground among those who had abandoned rational inquiry for the
thought-terminating clichés of television.
Nader's status as a pariah corresponded with an unchecked assault by
corporations on the working class. The long-term unemployment rate, which in
reality is close to 20 percent, the millions of foreclosures, the crippling
personal debts that plague households, the personal bankruptcies, Wall
Street's looting of the U.S. Treasury, the evaporation of savings and
retirement accounts and the crumbling of the country's vital infrastructure
are taking place as billions in taxpayer subsidies, obscene profits, bonuses
and compensation are enjoyed by the corporate overlords. We will soon be
forced to buy the defective products of the government-subsidized drug and
health insurance companies, which will remain free to raise co-payments and
premiums, especially if policyholders get seriously ill. The oil, gas, coal
and nuclear power companies have made a mockery of Barack Obama's promises
to promote clean, renewal energy. And we are rapidly becoming a third-world
country, cannibalized by corporations, with two-thirds of the population
facing financial difficulty and poverty.
The system is broken. And the consumer advocate who represented the best of
our democracy was broken with it. As Nader pointed out after he published
"Unsafe at Any Speed" in 1965, it took nine months to federally regulate the
auto industry for safety and fuel efficiency. Two years after the collapse
of Bear Stearns there is still no financial reform. The large hedge funds
and banks are using billions in taxpayer subsidies to once again engage in
the speculative games that triggered the first financial crisis and will
almost certainly trigger a second. The corporate press, which abets our vast
historical amnesia, does nothing to remind us how we got here. It speaks in
the hollow and empty slogans handed to it by public relations firms, its
corporate paymasters and the sound-bite society.
"If you organize 1 percent of the people in this country along progressive
lines you can turn the country around, as long as you give them
infrastructure," Nader said. "They represent a large percentage of the
population. Take all the conservatives who work in Wal-Mart: How many would
be against a living wage? Take all the conservatives who have pre-existing
conditions: How many would be for single-payer not-for-profit health
insurance? When you get down to the concrete, when you have an active
movement that is visible and media-savvy, when you have a community, a lot
of people will join. And lots more will support it. The problem is that most
liberals are estranged from the working class. They largely have the good
jobs. They are not hurting."
"The real tragedy is that citizens' movements should not have to rely on the
commercial media, and public television and radio are disgraceful-if
anything they are worse," Nader said. "In 30-some years [Bill] Moyers has
had me on [only] twice. We can't rely on the public media. We do what we can
with Amy [Goodman] on "Democracy Now!" and Pacifica stations. When I go to
local areas I get very good press, TV and newspapers, but that doesn't have
the impact, even locally. The national press has enormous impact on the
issues. It is not pleasant having to say this. You don't want to telegraph
that you have been blacked out, but on the other hand you can't keep it
quiet. The right wing has won through intimidation."
Gunner Asch
<wwi...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>Ralph Nader's descent from being one of the most respected and powerful men
>in the country to being a pariah illustrates the totality of the corporate
>coup.
Nader was/is a loon. It wasnt the corps that determined that..it was the
voters.
Gunner
"First Law of Leftist Debate
The more you present a leftist with factual evidence
that is counter to his preconceived world view and the
more difficult it becomes for him to refute it without
losing face the chance of him calling you a racist, bigot,
homophobe approaches infinity.
This is despite the thread you are in having not mentioned
race or sexual preference in any way that is relevant to
the subject." Grey Ghost
Lewis Hartswick
is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
What a load of BS.
...lew...
Larry Jaques
<lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
almost daily practice.
--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir
Dave__67
Maybe, or maybe not, but in regards to the corporatization of America
and corporate control of the gov't, it's pretty accurate.
Dave
Gunner Asch
But the part about them turning the loon into a pariah was a lie.
And that was the gest of the article.
Gunner
>
>
>Dave
rangerssuck
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 07:47:47 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
>
> >Chief Egalitarian wrote:
> >>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-wor...
>
> >> Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
> >> 'over-taxed'
>
> >Probably a planted question to enable him to take up all
> >the alloted time without answering any difficult questions.
> > ...lew...
>
> He used a Shrubism, too. "Misapprehensions".
>
Perhaps one of the cases where Bush spoke over your head. It's a
perfectly acceptable word.
mis·ap·pre·hend (mĭs-āp'rĭ-hěnd')
tr.v. mis·ap·pre·hend·ed, mis·ap·pre·hend·ing, mis·ap·pre·hends
To apprehend incorrectly; misunderstand.
mis·ap'pre·hen'sion (-hěn'shən) n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
Chief Egalitarian
"rangerssuck" <range...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:44b3b30d-7652-4807...@x2g2000vbe.googlegroups.com...
No doubt just one of many cases.
RAM³
> On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
> <lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>
>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
>>What a load of BS.
>
> Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
> the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
> extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
> almost daily practice.
>
Yahbut he hadn't bought his Momma a VW!
He'd bought her a Corvair and refused to abide by the tire pressure
requirements as specified in the Owner's Manual. This resulted in poor
control of the vehicle since the "30 Pounds All Around" didn't work with
the '60-'64 'Vairs.
John R. Carroll
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 07:47:47 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
> <lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>
>> Chief Egalitarian wrote:
>>>
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html
>>>
>>>
>>> Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
>>> 'over-taxed'
>>>
>> Probably a planted question to enable him to take up all
>> the alloted time without answering any difficult questions.
>> ...lew...
>
> He used a Shrubism, too. "Misapprehensions".
The "Shrubism" was "missunderesimate".
"Misapprehensions" is a word.
--
John R. Carroll
Joe Pfeiffer
He also wrote "Small -- On Safety", an equally ridiculous indictment of
the Beetle.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)
RAM³
news:1bwrwhc...@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net:
> He also wrote "Small -- On Safety", an equally ridiculous indictment of
> the Beetle.
Having written him off as a cheap shyster for his defamation of the 'Vair,
forever after I've been unable to understand why anyone would ever give him
any credence whatsoever.
In fact, he's continued to lower himself in my estimation.
Ed Huntress
"Lewis Hartswick" <lhart...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:z8qdnS91-8xkeCDW...@earthlink.com...
Did you ever read it, Lew? Or did you read *about* it?
--
Ed Huntress
John
<lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
><lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>
>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
>>What a load of BS.
>
>Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
>the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
>extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
>almost daily practice.
No that is not correct. Nader wrote Unsafe at any Speed, which was
pretty much a hatchet job to the extent that totally incorrect
statements were made and even a sketch of how a swing axle works was
deliberately drawn showing the outside wheel in a turn tipping inward
at the bottom, "tuck under" as Nader preferred to it when in fact it
does exactly the opposite, although if you do not understand how the
suspension works it might appear to be correct.
Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
was a dead duck.
Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
the Corvair.
Since then I haven't heard much about Nader, but of course I haven't
been looking to :-)
Cheers,
John D.
(jdslocombatgmail)
Ed Huntress
"John" <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:k82ur5dm3ukaoqqug...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:29:27 -0700, Larry Jaques
> <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
>><lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>>
>>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
>>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
>>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
>>>What a load of BS.
>>
>>Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
>>the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
>>extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
>>almost daily practice.
>
> No that is not correct. Nader wrote Unsafe at any Speed, which was
> pretty much a hatchet job to the extent that totally incorrect
> statements were made and even a sketch of how a swing axle works was
> deliberately drawn showing the outside wheel in a turn tipping inward
> at the bottom, "tuck under" as Nader preferred to it when in fact it
> does exactly the opposite, although if you do not understand how the
> suspension works it might appear to be correct.
Ah, John, no. I hesitate to interfere with your trashing of Nader <g>, but
he was correct. It was commonly called "jacking" among the sports car
fraternity. Anyone who drove an early VW, Corvair, Triumph Spitfire, or
box-stock Porsche 356 (including the original Speedster) will be glad to
relate some horror stories about it for you. d8-)
Some older chassis books can explain and illustrate the same thing. If you
were actively driving sports cars around, say, 1965, you were very familiar
with it.
>
> Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
> competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
> worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
> was a dead duck.
Um, the early Corvair was not really competitive. I drove my '63 Monza with
full John Fitch conversion in my first SCCA driver's school, at Lime Rock
Park, in '69. I quickly switched to my other car -- an Alfa Romeo.
You may be thinking of the Yenko Stinger, which was a highly modified
*later* Corvair, which did not have the swing axles.
Joseph Gwinn
"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
> "John" <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
> news:k82ur5dm3ukaoqqug...@4ax.com...
> > On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:29:27 -0700, Larry Jaques
> > <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
> >><lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
> >>
> >>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
> >>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
> >>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
> >>>What a load of BS.
> >>
> >>Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
> >>the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
> >>extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
> >>almost daily practice.
> >
> > No that is not correct. Nader wrote Unsafe at any Speed, which was
> > pretty much a hatchet job to the extent that totally incorrect
> > statements were made and even a sketch of how a swing axle works was
> > deliberately drawn showing the outside wheel in a turn tipping inward
> > at the bottom, "tuck under" as Nader preferred to it when in fact it
> > does exactly the opposite, although if you do not understand how the
> > suspension works it might appear to be correct.
That's correct. I had an auto-mechanic friend in the 1970s who loved Corvairs,
and he had experienced the tuck-under phenomena. The solution was to install
the standard "sports package", which cost a few hundred dollars and included
some kind of torsion or stabilizer bar between the front wheels.
He was of mixed mind on Unsafe at Any Speed. On the one hand, he considered the
book to be wrong. On the other hand, it drove the cost of Corvairs down,
allowing him to buy more than one.
> Ah, John, no. I hesitate to interfere with your trashing of Nader <g>, but
> he was correct. It was commonly called "jacking" among the sports car
> fraternity. Anyone who drove an early VW, Corvair, Triumph Spitfire, or
> box-stock Porsche 356 (including the original Speedster) will be glad to
> relate some horror stories about it for you. d8-)
>
> Some older chassis books can explain and illustrate the same thing. If you
> were actively driving sports cars around, say, 1965, you were very familiar
> with it.
I recall reading these explanations, but no longer recall the details. I don't
recall that it was called "jacking", though. My friend didn't call it that, if
I recall.
Joe Gwinn
Larry Jaques
<jdsl...@invalid.com> scrawled the following:
>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:29:27 -0700, Larry Jaques
><lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
>><lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>>
>>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
>>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
>>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
>>>What a load of BS.
>>
>>Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
>>the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
>>extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
>>almost daily practice.
>
>No that is not correct. Nader wrote Unsafe at any Speed, which was
>pretty much a hatchet job to the extent that totally incorrect
>statements were made and even a sketch of how a swing axle works was
>deliberately drawn showing the outside wheel in a turn tipping inward
>at the bottom, "tuck under" as Nader preferred to it when in fact it
>does exactly the opposite, although if you do not understand how the
>suspension works it might appear to be correct.
>
>Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
>competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
>worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
>was a dead duck.
But corvairs did tend to toggle from understeer to oversteer without
warning, and my friend proved it to me (after fifteen "SLOW DOWN"
warnings) while I necked in the back seat with sweet Carmen. He spun
us a full 360 and sent my convertible into a 50 degree tip against a
small bank directly in line with a telephone pole. If he'd been going
just a few miles per hour faster, it probably would have killed all 4
of us. (Phil Dumbucks, you were a jerk!) Needless to say, he never
drove my vehicles again. I continued to haul ass in my 'Vair, but I
knew her limits.
I had glasspacks on the first one (bright red) and would drive up to
within 30' of friends and pedestrians, shut the key off, then turn the
inition key ON when I got next to them. All the raw gas going into the
cylinder and out into the exhause would cause an explosion within the
mufflers which would scare the hell out of 'em. The Corvair M-80. I
bought it from a CHP officer who had put 100lbs of sand in the trunk
to stabilize it and had really kept her up. She was quieter on the
freeway at 90mph than Mom's '63 Lincoln Continental, though I
preferred borrowing the Lincoln for the drive-in movies. You could put
the front seat all the way back and put your feet up on the dash (for
warmups), and it was wide enough to lay all the way down in. 4 kids
could horizontally bop in one. Ah, to be 19 again...
>Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
>tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
>time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
>rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
>Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
>N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
>picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
>was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
>the Corvair.
<g> I hadn't heard about the VW book.
>Since then I haven't heard much about Nader, but of course I haven't
>been looking to :-)
You don't read the ballot sheets, eh? He ran for the POTUS position.
Joe Pfeiffer
>
> Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
> tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
> time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
> rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
> Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
> N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
> picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
> was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
> the Corvair.
Not quite -- the rebuttals were well-reasoned and factual.
RBnDFW
Camber Compensator at the back limited the droop of the rear wheels
> He was of mixed mind on Unsafe at Any Speed. On the one hand, he considered the
> book to be wrong. On the other hand, it drove the cost of Corvairs down,
> allowing him to buy more than one.
the other big problem, according to the book, was the steering column
and steering box extended far in front of the front axle. In a frontal
crash, the column drove the steering wheel back and up into the driver's
chest.
Ed Huntress
"Joseph Gwinn" <joeg...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:joegwinn-3A61D9...@news.giganews.com...
The front stabilizer would limit oversteer (by inducing understeer), but it
didn't prevent jacking. For that, you needed the rear stabilizer bar, and/or
shorter rear springs to decamber the rear end.
I conquered it on my '63 with a combination of a stiff rear stabilizer and
the John Fitch decambering springs (negative 2-1/2 degrees.; it ate a set of
tires in a month or two, no kidding). But the stiff rear bar induced
oversteer. It was a tradeoff: I knew the rear end was coming around, but the
trade was that I could predict *when* it was coming around. When a
swing-axle car jacks, it's a violent transition, often with little warning.
>
> He was of mixed mind on Unsafe at Any Speed. On the one hand, he
> considered the
> book to be wrong. On the other hand, it drove the cost of Corvairs down,
> allowing him to buy more than one.
>
>
>> Ah, John, no. I hesitate to interfere with your trashing of Nader <g>,
>> but
>> he was correct. It was commonly called "jacking" among the sports car
>> fraternity. Anyone who drove an early VW, Corvair, Triumph Spitfire, or
>> box-stock Porsche 356 (including the original Speedster) will be glad to
>> relate some horror stories about it for you. d8-)
>>
>> Some older chassis books can explain and illustrate the same thing. If
>> you
>> were actively driving sports cars around, say, 1965, you were very
>> familiar
>> with it.
>
> I recall reading these explanations, but no longer recall the details. I
> don't
> recall that it was called "jacking", though. My friend didn't call it
> that, if
> I recall.
>
> Joe Gwinn
There's a force couple which, all by itself, would make the outside wheel
tuck under into positive camber, every time you went around a corner. It's
partly offset by body roll, which makes the outer spring compress and
induces negative camber. The transition from one to the other can occur
suddenly and it can be severe.
The better your tires, the worse the problem. Radial tires killed swing
axles; with Michelins on a stock-suspension Corvair, you could jack the
ass-end of the car up in the air with the greatest of ease.
--
Ed Huntress
Lewis Hartswick
...lew...
Wes
>> Did you ever read it, Lew? Or did you read *about* it?
>>
>I read some of it. Couldn't stand to do the rest.
> ...lew...
I read it, the latter Corvairs were safer, too late to save the brand. Compared to today,
the 60's cars are death traps for the most part.
Wes
Ed Huntress
"Wes" <clu...@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:cTOvn.164824$Bs1.1...@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com...
The pre-'65s were the ones with the swing axles, and a frame that had
serious weaknesses in the central bay. The swing axle was just fine for
moderate driving. But, pressed hard, the car was a wild thing that took some
experience to handle. On the racetrack it absolutely needed heavy
modifications. (I spun mine at Old Bridge Speedway in NJ, even with a bunch
of modifications, because, en extremis, the rearward weight bias took over
and that was all she wrote). In '64, there was a factory-installed
transverse spring that had the same effect as a stabilizer bar -- it reduced
the tendency for the suspension to jack.
Starting in '65, the car had a better unibody and they went to a four-link
rear suspension that was functionally the same as double wishbones. At the
time, it was the most advanced suspension on any US-built car, along with
the Corvette.
But GM screwed the pooch by putting up so much resistance to Nader's
assault, particularly by trying to entrap him with a prostitute and some
other underhanded things. I think the Corvair could have weathered it all,
but trust in the company was shot to hell.
--
Ed Huntress
Bill McKee
"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:4bbfbd97$0$31282$607e...@cv.net...
Corvair was never going to survive "unsafe at any speed". Nader found an
easy target and hit a bull's-eye. Same suspension on the original VW bug.
And the Bug was top heavy. But the bug was loved, and Nader would have shot
himself writing the same book about the VW. VW and Corvair finally added
the same thing Empi had been furnishing for years. The Camber Compensator.
Don Yenco and the Corvair Stinger did very well at speed. But by then there
was the 4 wheel indepent suspension similar to the Corvette. Corvair was
always going to oversteer. Nature of the rear engine, just like a front
engine car will always understeer. At least without judicious power
application. As to spinning on a race track. Only way to prevent that is
not to push a cars limits. My B Production Vette did a few spins over the
years. Mostly my trying to go 5 mph faster than physics allowed. :>)
Hawke
> Chief Egalitarian wrote:
>> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html
>>
>>
>> Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being
>> 'over-taxed'
>>
> Probably a planted question to enable him to take up all
> the alloted time without answering any difficult questions.
> ...lew...
I doubt it. That's a trick Bush would have done but Obama doesn't need
to pull that kind of stunt because he's got the answers to the
questions. What he should have done when presented with such a
simplistic and ignorant question is just said no, Americans aren't
overtaxed. Anyone who has seen a list of where countries rank in regard
to taxation would already know that the U.S. is on of the least taxed
countries in the industrial world.
I happened to be watching that event and heard the whole thing myself.
What really happened was that Obama just used that woman's question as a
springboard to go into a mini speech about a subject that he wanted to
present to the audience. He went into great detail about a number of
different issues besides whether we are taxed too much or not. If you
had seen it in person it wasn't like he was taking 17 minutes to answer
that simple question. He just took that question and went into detail in
a number of different directions. But if all you are doing islooking for
a way to criticize Obama and you didn't see it yourself, then I guess
this was a good opportunity for you.
Hawke
Wes
>> I read it, the latter Corvairs were safer, too late to save the brand.
>> Compared to today,
>> the 60's cars are death traps for the most part.
>>
>> Wes
>
>The pre-'65s were the ones with the swing axles, and a frame that had
>serious weaknesses in the central bay. The swing axle was just fine for
>moderate driving. But, pressed hard, the car was a wild thing that took some
>experience to handle. On the racetrack it absolutely needed heavy
>modifications. (I spun mine at Old Bridge Speedway in NJ, even with a bunch
>of modifications, because, en extremis, the rearward weight bias took over
>and that was all she wrote). In '64, there was a factory-installed
>transverse spring that had the same effect as a stabilizer bar -- it reduced
>the tendency for the suspension to jack.
Okay, going for a rewrite on this reply, you will never see my first attempt ;)
Racing tends to uncover handling qualities that Joe Blow only learns about when something
on the roadway causes him to explore the limits of his vehicle with no prior experience.
I *still* haven't got used to driving a front wheel drive though mentally I can force
myself to perform the counter intuitive 'right' response when I find myself at the edges
of the envelope. I *DON'T* like it though.
>
>Starting in '65, the car had a better unibody and they went to a four-link
>rear suspension that was functionally the same as double wishbones. At the
>time, it was the most advanced suspension on any US-built car, along with
>the Corvette.
GM did get it right at the end. I still like the looks of that car. A VeeDub on steroids
:)
>
>But GM screwed the pooch by putting up so much resistance to Nader's
>assault, particularly by trying to entrap him with a prostitute and some
>other underhanded things. I think the Corvair could have weathered it all,
>but trust in the company was shot to hell.
Company or the car?
I don't care much for GM vehicles, I know, I drive a Saturn but that was from the Spring
Hill days. Everyone that my family has owned for an extended period of time has had brake
lines rust out and burst. How hard is that to correct? Sir would you like to pay 5 bucks
more for decent plating?
Nader isn't my cup of tea though when he gets a shot on the news programs, I'll give him a
listen. He seems to have a bit of corporate hatred while having invested his income
streams in the market and doing okay. Ralph isn't poor. Sometimes I think him a bit
hypocritical but that is my opinion.
Wes
Hawke
> John<jdsl...@invalid.com> writes:
>>
>> Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
>> tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
>> time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
>> rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
>> Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
>> N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
>> picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
>> was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
>> the Corvair.
>
> Not quite -- the rebuttals were well-reasoned and factual.
This is the same thing that has gone on for decades. You criticize
business at your own peril. They play for keeps. Nader's criticisms of
American car makers were right on the button. They made unsafe cars and
couldn't care less. They wouldn't even put seat belts in cars until the
government made them. You go up against the business world and they will
destroy you. Ask the guy who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry.
Now they've gotten rid of the number one consumer protector.
It's just like with this coal mine disaster. The company running it
has been violating safety rules left and right and now 29 guys are dead.
I heard a mine safety expert today explain that in the last few years
about fifty miners have been killed in 5 different coal mine accidents.
But guess what? All the mines where the deaths happened were
nonunionized mines. Try going up against them and see what happens to
you. Nothing has changed. Businesses have been getting workers killed
and maimed for years and if you try to get in their way like Nader did,
or anyone else tries to do, they will get you. The mine expert also said
that coal mining was not dangerous anymore, at least in union mines, and
that the year before was the safest on record...if your company had a
union. If not, fifty dead in five years. Those non union coal companies
really look out for their workers, don't they? Just like the auto
companies really cared about drivers' safety? Yeah, like not at all.
Hawke
F. George McDuffee
<bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
<snip>
>Corvair was never going to survive "unsafe at any speed". Nader found an
>easy target and hit a bull's-eye. Same suspension on the original VW bug.
>And the Bug was top heavy. But the bug was loved, and Nader would have shot
>himself writing the same book about the VW.
=======
True, but the VW was never sold as a sport scar or with a factory
installed turbo. Corvair Engine power ranged from 80 to 180 HP,
while VW ranged from 25 to 54.
In hindsight, it was a corporate cost cutting move to save 6.00$
by eliminating the front anti-roll bar that doomed the Corvair,
although its marketing as some sort of inexpensive
performance/sportscar, ala Porsche and its targeted sale to
younger first time [more sporty] drivers was also a considerable
contributing factor.
A major Corvair design flaw was the factory inclusion of far too
powerful an engine for the chassis, suspension and brakes,
compounded with skimping on materials such as heat resistant
engine o-rings. While GMC may have saved a few up-front dollars,
this cost the new Corvair owners dearly, and ultimately trashed
what had the potential to be a long running money maker.
It appears that even at this early date [c. 1962-64], internal
sabotage was rife at GM, and absolutely nothing was learned about
"penny wise, pound foolish" cost savings from the Corvair
debacle. The Vega [*NOT* designed by Chevrolet] is an example of
this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Vega
<snip>
Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions were working separately on small
cars in the early and mid '60s. Ed Cole, who was GM executive
vice-president of operating staffs, was working on his own
small-car project using the corporate engineering and design
staffs. He presented the program to GM's president in 1967. When
the corporation started seriously talking about a mini-car,
Cole's version was chosen with the proposals from Chevy and
Pontiac rejected, and Cole's new mini-car was given to Chevrolet
to sell. Not only did corporate management make the decision to
enter the mini-car market, it also decided to develop the car
itself. It was a corporate car, not a divisional one.
<snip>
Opel was commissioned to tool up a new 3-speed derivative of
their production 4-speed manual transmission. Opel had a 4-speed
available that was in high-volume production, but the GM finance
department insisted that the base transmission be a low-cost
3-speed, with the traditional profit-generating 4-speed as an
extra-cost option. Opel did just that, and tooled up a new
3-speed from scratch, just for the Vega application, whose actual
cost was higher than the optional 4-speed due to the tooling
investment and low production volume. Both transmissions came by
ship from Germany 100 transmissions to a crate, and arrived in
shipments of thousands of transmissions at a time.[14]
<snip>
Although the optional L-11 engine with 2-barrel Weber carburetor
became a mainstream part of the program in December, 1968 (and
ran at a 75% level in production), the Chevrolet engine group had
an intense dislike for the tall iron cylinder head with its
unusual tappet arrangement and side-flow “Heron” combustion
chamber design that had been thrust on them from engineering
staff, and set out to design their own. The design evolved
rapidly as a “crossflow” aluminum head with a single
centrally-mounted overhead camshaft and roller rocker arms
operating intake valves on one side and exhaust valves on the
other, remarkably similar to the Ferrari V-12 cylinder head
design of that period; it was almost 4” lower than the production
head, was a lot lighter, had true “hemi” chambers with big
valves, and made excellent power. Numerous prototypes were
built, and manufacturing tooling was started in anticipation of
approval for production. The real story never came out, but some
combination of corporate politics (“You don’t need another
cylinder head – mine will work just fine”) and additional program
investment killed the program. Had it gone to production, it
would not have had the differential expansion head gasket
problems that plagued the iron-head engine, and would have
provided significantly higher performance than the optional L-11
engine.[14]
<snip>
Jerry L Brockstein, assistant to Henry Haga, head of the
Camaro/Corvette studio where the Vega prototype was restyled,
recalls finalizing the Vega bodies: "Chevrolet was trying to
build this car as cheaply as possible and wanted us to take a lot
of money out of it. At first the metal was so thin on the
Kammback wagon that in the test facilty it kept buckling under
its own weight, as Fisher Body had to come back and put
stiffening ribs in the roof." The prototype wagon body being less
rigid than the coupes.[94] John DeLorean stated: N.B. ==>"The
first prototype was sent to the GM proving grounds for
durability testing. After only eight miles on the Belgian blocks,
it broke in two.<== {emphasis added}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvair
<snip>
The base 95 hp (71 kW) and optional 110 hp (82 kW) engines were
carried forward from 1964. The previous 150 hp (112 kW) Spyder
engine was replaced by the normally-aspirated 140 hp (104 kW) for
the new Corsa. The engine was unusual in offering four
single-throat carburetors, to which were added larger valves and
a dual exhaust system; The 180 hp (134 kW) turbocharged engine
was optional on the Corsa, which offered either standard
three-speed or optional (US$92) four-speed manual
transmissions.[12] The 140 hp (104 kW) engine was optional on
500 and Monza models with manual or Powerglide transmissions.
<snip>
Although the Corvair was a competent handling vehicle as
delivered from the factory, "the average buyer more accustomed to
front-engined cars, did not take [into] account the car's
different handling characteristics."[18] Due to the swing axle
design the rear tires would undergo large camber changes during
fast cornering. These characteristics were quite similar to many
imported cars, such as Mercedes and Volkswagen, which also used
swing axle rear suspensions with similar handling attributes.
The criticism of the 1960-'63 Corvair handling was not entirely
groundless as some cost-cutting was applied to these early
Corvair models, specifically, in the lack of an anti-roll bar.
Chevrolet had considered adding a front anti-roll bar for the
original 1960 car, which would have shifted a significant part of
the weight transfer to the front outboard tire and reduced the
rear slip angles considerably in severe cornering.
N.B. ==>Unfortunately, Chevrolet decided that the extra cost ($6
per car is often cited), with the confidence in tire pressures
adequately compensating for the inclination for oversteer- led
them to delete the front anti–roll bar from production models.<==
{emphasis added} They used different recommended low front and
high rear tire pressures to combat the oversteer. As the Corvair
was designed to avoid terminal oversteer by using very low air
pressure in the front tires, typically 15 to 19 pounds per square
inch (100 to 130 kPa), so that they would begin to understeer
(increase slip angles faster than the rear) before the swing axle
oversteer would come into play, this pressure was quite adequate
for the very light-weight Corvair front end on the relatively
wide (6.50-13) tires. However owners and mechanics, either
through ignorance of the necessity for this pressure differential
between front and rear or thinking that the pressure was too low
for the front, would frequently inflate the front tires to
current "average" pressures. If this pressure difference was not
maintained, in very hard cornering, the rear slip angles would
exceed the front slip angles, and could lead to oversteer at high
speeds. The anti–roll bar did become available as an option in
1962, and was finally made standard in 1964.
1964 swing axle with transverse leaf spring & 1965 four link
fully-independent suspension
Although much is said about jacking (tendency for swing axle
suspensions to go into very severe positive camber in extreme
corners), the bias ply tires used at the time were very
insensitive to camber and did not significantly reduce cornering
grip (unlike radial tires).Although Nader arguably overstated the
severity of these handling problems, as was later claimed by U.S.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
investigators. Part of Nader’s evidence against the Corvair was a
promotional film created by Ford Motor Company, in which a Ford
test driver purposely turned the Corvair in a way to make it
appear unstable.
<snip>
Compare and contrast with the VW Beatle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle
"Its success owed much to its extremely high build quality, and
innovative, eye-catching advertising. "
<snip>
The car was designed to be as simple as possible mechanically, so
that there was less to go wrong; the aircooled 25 hp (19 kW) 995
cc (60.7 cu in)[12] motors proved especially effective in
actions of the German Afrika Korps in Africa's desert heat.
<snip>
The Volkswagen Beetle underwent significant changes for the 1967
model. While the car appeared similar to earlier models, much of
the drivetrain was noticeably upgraded. Some of the changes to
the Beetle included a bigger engine for the second year in a row.
Horsepower had been increased to 37 kW (50 hp) the previous year,
and for 1967 it was increased even more, to 40 kW (54 hp).
<snip>
-----------
It should be apparent that while Ralph N. may have shot GM in the
butt, it was GM itself that put one in both of their feet, and
ultimately put one in their own head [with the taxpayers on the
hook for life support].
Unka George (George McDuffee)
..............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
Larry Jaques
<joeg...@comcast.net> scrawled the following:
>I recall reading these explanations, but no longer recall the details. I don't
>recall that it was called "jacking", though. My friend didn't call it that, if
>I recall.
I dare you to find it when googling "car jacking". ;)
Larry Jaques
<bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> scrawled the following:
>Corvair was never going to survive "unsafe at any speed". Nader found an
>easy target and hit a bull's-eye. Same suspension on the original VW bug.
Bzzzzzzzzt! The easy target you mention was the Corvair only when
owned by idiots who couldn't drive (they could barely _steer_ a car)
AND who never checked their air pressure AND who allowed the tire
pressure to become far too low, increasing any tendency for the car to
swap ends.
My buddy swapped ends on mine even though I optimized air pressure and
had the f/r weights balanced.
>And the Bug was top heavy. But the bug was loved,
Ptui! Gawdawful whistling old bitches.
>My B Production Vette did a few spins over the
>years. Mostly my trying to go 5 mph faster than physics allowed. :>)
A truly honorable employment, sir. Curves are made for fun, whether
on a woman or a road. I drive a pickup now (miss that Javelin and the
2 Corvair convertibles I had) and can't believe how much better the
new '07 Tundra handles compared to the old '90 F-150; night and day.
The Tundra reminds me more of the Javelin than a pickemup.
Ed Huntress
"Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:zLSdnZ-62YhrXSLW...@earthlink.com...
Well, they were about the same at the rear. The VW bug had trailing-arm
front suspension. So did the Porsche 356. The Corvair was double-wishbone at
the front.
> And the Bug was top heavy. But the bug was loved, and Nader would have
> shot himself writing the same book about the VW.
How do you know what he was thinking, Bill? I owned both cars (a '63 Corvair
and a '64 Beetle), and you could have picked either one to illustrate
obsolete safety engineering. As a Corvair lover at the time, I despised what
Nader was saying, and I felt the same way as you about why he chose the
Corvair to attack, rather than the VW. But years later I realized he was
attacking the safety-be-damned mindset at the Big Three (then four) and he
would have had no point in attacking a 30-year-old import design that was
known to be a ludicrous anachronism.
> VW and Corvair finally added the same thing Empi had been furnishing for
> years. The Camber Compensator. Don Yenco and the Corvair Stinger did very
> well at speed.
Bill, the Yenko Stinger was based on a '65 and after Corvair. It did not
have swing-axle rear suspension, even as it came from the factory. It was
A-arm and single-link, effectively the same as a double-wishbone suspension,
in terms of geometry. And physically it was very similar to the Stingray and
later Corvettes.
The different suspension produced an entirely different car. The post-'64
Corvair's suspension was advanced and very capable of good handling.
> But by then there was the 4 wheel indepent suspension similar to the
> Corvette. Corvair was always going to oversteer. Nature of the rear
> engine, just like a front engine car will always understeer.
Yes and no. We don't want to get into this one. <g>
> At least without judicious power application. As to spinning on a race
> track. Only way to prevent that is not to push a cars limits. My B
> Production Vette did a few spins over the years. Mostly my trying to go 5
> mph faster than physics allowed. :>)
If you drove a B production Corvette (I assume a pre-'63), then you know
what anachronisms are all about. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
> "Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>> I read it, the latter Corvairs were safer, too late to save the brand.
>>> Compared to today,
>>> the 60's cars are death traps for the most part.
>>>
>>> Wes
>>
>>The pre-'65s were the ones with the swing axles, and a frame that had
>>serious weaknesses in the central bay. The swing axle was just fine for
>>moderate driving. But, pressed hard, the car was a wild thing that took
>>some
>>experience to handle. On the racetrack it absolutely needed heavy
>>modifications. (I spun mine at Old Bridge Speedway in NJ, even with a
>>bunch
>>of modifications, because, en extremis, the rearward weight bias took over
>>and that was all she wrote). In '64, there was a factory-installed
>>transverse spring that had the same effect as a stabilizer bar -- it
>>reduced
>>the tendency for the suspension to jack.
>
> Okay, going for a rewrite on this reply, you will never see my first
> attempt ;)
>
> Racing tends to uncover handling qualities that Joe Blow only learns about
> when something
> on the roadway causes him to explore the limits of his vehicle with no
> prior experience.
Sure. Or coming into an exit ramp off a highway that's far tighter than he
realized, or couldn't see. That's probably what put most Corvairs off the
road.
>
> I *still* haven't got used to driving a front wheel drive though mentally
> I can force
> myself to perform the counter intuitive 'right' response when I find
> myself at the edges
> of the envelope. I *DON'T* like it though.
>
>>
>>Starting in '65, the car had a better unibody and they went to a four-link
>>rear suspension that was functionally the same as double wishbones. At the
>>time, it was the most advanced suspension on any US-built car, along with
>>the Corvette.
>
> GM did get it right at the end. I still like the looks of that car. A
> VeeDub on steroids
> :)
>
>>
>>But GM screwed the pooch by putting up so much resistance to Nader's
>>assault, particularly by trying to entrap him with a prostitute and some
>>other underhanded things. I think the Corvair could have weathered it all,
>>but trust in the company was shot to hell.
>
> Company or the car?
Both. It was thoroughly screwed. I remember it well. People began to ask why
I drove that "death trap." It made me furious. But it was a good question,
actually.
>
> I don't care much for GM vehicles, I know, I drive a Saturn but that was
> from the Spring
> Hill days. Everyone that my family has owned for an extended period of
> time has had brake
> lines rust out and burst. How hard is that to correct? Sir would you
> like to pay 5 bucks
> more for decent plating?
>
> Nader isn't my cup of tea though when he gets a shot on the news programs,
> I'll give him a
> listen. He seems to have a bit of corporate hatred while having invested
> his income
> streams in the market and doing okay. Ralph isn't poor. Sometimes I
> think him a bit
> hypocritical but that is my opinion.
>
>
> Wes
Nader bought five pairs of shoes on sale after he graduated from college and
wore them for over 20 years. For decades, all of his money went into his
causes.
We may disagree with his causes but he remains one of the few men involved
in politics and policy who has genuine integrity.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
news:mcovr5dahulv3u470...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:07:57 -0400, the infamous Joseph Gwinn
> <joeg...@comcast.net> scrawled the following:
>
>>I recall reading these explanations, but no longer recall the details. I
>>don't
>>recall that it was called "jacking", though. My friend didn't call it
>>that, if
>>I recall.
>
> I dare you to find it when googling "car jacking". ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_axle
http://www.corvaircorsa.com/wright.html
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Chevrolet_Corvair?t=4.
http://everything2.com/title/Chevrolet+Corvair
Anyone involved with sports car racing in the '60s knew it as jacking. If
you talk to someone who claims to have been there and who doesn't know
immediately what you mean by "jacking," in reference to Corvairs, VW's,
Porsches, Formula V's, Triumph Spitfires, or even pre-'64 Pontiac Tempests
<g>, then he wasn't really there.
--
Ed Huntress
David R.Birch
In the summer of '68, I was a pump jockey at Wayne's Standard &
U-Haul, right next to Ernie von Schleidorn's Buick & Pontiac
dealership in Menomonee Falls, Wi.
Our mechanic was Louie, a guy renowned locally as a Corvair whiz. We
usually had 2-3 Corvairs or Corvans parked on the lot, usually with an
oil puddle underneath. Louie knew them inside and out, how to make
them run and how to make them run FAST.
He was always careful driving them into the bays because he didn't
know what he'd find when he had them in the air. The only ones he
wouldn't drive were the convertibles. Too flexible and he didn't trust
the suspension to keep the rubber down and the canvas up. THIS WAS IN
THE STATION LOT WHERE WE NEVER GOT OVER 5 MPH.
Damn.
David
Ed Huntress
"David R.Birch" <dbi...@wi.rr.com> wrote in message
news:hpotb...@news1.newsguy.com...
<g> He's right that the convertible was a flexible flyer. That's what I had.
The passenger bay was inherently weak and the coupe did NOT provide enough
stiffness to overcome it. The convertible was much worse -- it had
reinforcement in the rocker area, but it wasn't enough.
That's one reason I drove the car in only one SCCA drivers' school -- it was
flaky as hell. But your friend overstated the case more than a little. I had
my '63 Fitch Corvair up over 100 mph at Old Bridge and certainly higher at
Lime Rock. It was vague, but no flakier than an out-of-the-box-stock Porsche
Speedster.
It was just a different kind of flakiness. With the Corvair, you would steer
and wait for the car to respond. With the Porsche, you would steer and wait
to see where the car really was going to go. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
Bill McKee
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
Actually early Corvairs handled bad for the reason that the wheels did tuck.
And that was GM's fault for being to cheap to steal Empi's Camber
Compensator design. Plus it was a pain to work on with all the sheet metal.
Remember having to help a buddy change a leaking oil pressure sender. I
drive a pickup now also. Diesel Chevy Crewcab. Handles well, not a race
car, but tows the aluminum river jet boat with alacrity, while also carrying
a slide in pop-up camper. And gets good milage. 19 on the highway at 80
mph. Wife's 2009 Venza only gets about 22.5 at same speed going to Los
Angeles on I-5. But is a nice handling car. But it also has the 6 cyl, as
I and she hate wimpy cars. I look at a performance car now and again, but I
do not think I could afford the tickets these days. Wife got one for 16
over at night in a 25 zone. $351.
Bill McKee
I drove a 1964 Coupe, Mouse Motor Corvette. Is the silver one getting a
little sideways in the original Herbie movie during the Laguna Seca start.
I would still love a 1962 Corvette. May still buy one. Understand they are
only about $10k for a nice one.
Bill McKee
An aside. Friend was driving is about 1955-56 Porsche Spyder in a 25 zone
in Lafayette, Calif. Very early one morning. Got it to slide on it's side.
Told the cop was a suspension failure at 25 mph. Cop could not prove
different. I doubt he ever drove the car at 25 mph for more than 5
milliseconds. Or the time it took to pass through 25 acceleration or
decelerating. Actually did not do that much damage to the car. ;>)
Bill McKee
Might have been a regional term. I raced San Francisco Region SCCA and do
not recall any discussions of "jacking".
Gunner Asch
<lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
>The Corvair M-80. I
>bought it from a CHP officer who had put 100lbs of sand in the trunk
>to stabilize it and had really kept her up. She was quieter on the
>freeway at 90mph than Mom's '63 Lincoln Continental, though I
>preferred borrowing the Lincoln for the drive-in movies. You could put
>the front seat all the way back and put your feet up on the dash (for
>warmups), and it was wide enough to lay all the way down in. 4 kids
>could horizontally bop in one. Ah, to be 19 again...
Ah to own a Rambler Station Wagon again...every..every seat folded
down...turned it into a very well padded and bouncy van...and a big
playroom for bad boys and girls..
Crom but I loved my Rambler wagon....sign
And the girls who went for rides with me....bigger sigh....
Gunner
"First Law of Leftist Debate
The more you present a leftist with factual evidence
that is counter to his preconceived world view and the
more difficult it becomes for him to refute it without
losing face the chance of him calling you a racist, bigot,
homophobe approaches infinity.
This is despite the thread you are in having not mentioned
race or sexual preference in any way that is relevant to
the subject." Grey Ghost
Ed Huntress
Hmm...that would have been AP when I got involved, but maybe BP by the time
I actually got to driver's school (you had to be 21 then). As I recall, you
had near-perfect 50/50 weight balance and, of course, the double-located
rear suspension. That handling was a *lot* different from a Corvair's, until
the '65s, which were closer to neutral and a lot more predictable.
> I would still love a 1962 Corvette. May still buy one. Understand they
> are only about $10k for a nice one.
Oh, man, that was the car that got me started with sports cars. I saw my
first one in July 1962, at Provincetown, MA, with the top down and parked in
a beach lot. It was gold with white coves. I was 14 at the time and my
parents literally had to pull me away. <g>
About five months later we were in Miami Beach and I saw my first E-Type
Jaguar. I thought I'd fall on my knees and worship it. That was it -- I
became an obsessed sports car fanatic for about the next 12 or 14 years.
I've never fully recovered. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
Hoho! Did he get the cop to help him pick it up and roll it back over? <g>
I'll bet that car didn't weigh more than 1300 pounds.
I loved those things. There was an original 550 Spyder in Lansing, Mich.
when I was a student there. It used to show up for autocrosses in the area.
I'd go even when I didn't have a ride of my own, just to watch it run.
I wish Pete Albrecht was still here. He's an early-Porsche expert. He was
taught his racing in Europe by Paul Frere, one of the best Porsche racers of
all time. Pete probably could tell you every quirk and man-killing handling
trait of those early racing Porsches.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
Well, you were racing Corvettes. We didn't talk much to the guys who raced
above DP. d8-)
Seriously, if you weren't racing against Spitfires, or if you weren't
involved with FV, it probably wouldn't have come up. There were few John
Fitch Corvairs (like mine) on race tracks. But those of us who raced in the
smaller classes were well aware of it.
Porsches didn't have much of an issue with it because their weight biases
and suspension wasn't prone to jacking. The forces preferentially favored
compression of the outside springs, so they didn't build up much jacking
force. You could jack a street-stock Speedster, but by the time they got to
a race track they had negative-camber springs and they were strapped down
with stabilizer bars or a Z-bar on the rear, and Koni shocks, until they
felt like go-carts. The best way for a young tyro to keep from killing
himself with a Speedster was to tie the suspension down hard, until it would
hardly move.
--
Ed Huntress
John
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>"John" <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
>news:k82ur5dm3ukaoqqug...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:29:27 -0700, Larry Jaques
>> <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:20:07 -0600, the infamous Lewis Hartswick
>>><lhart...@earthlink.net> scrawled the following:
>>>
>>>>I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
>>>>is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
>>>>he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
>>>>What a load of BS.
>>>
>>>Yeah, he castrated GM while allowing the VW to go unpunished, despite
>>>the fact that they had more problems than the Corvair, including the
>>>extreme tendency for several to set themselves on fire almost as an
>>>almost daily practice.
>>
>> No that is not correct. Nader wrote Unsafe at any Speed, which was
>> pretty much a hatchet job to the extent that totally incorrect
>> statements were made and even a sketch of how a swing axle works was
>> deliberately drawn showing the outside wheel in a turn tipping inward
>> at the bottom, "tuck under" as Nader preferred to it when in fact it
>> does exactly the opposite, although if you do not understand how the
>> suspension works it might appear to be correct.
>
>Ah, John, no. I hesitate to interfere with your trashing of Nader <g>, but
>he was correct. It was commonly called "jacking" among the sports car
>fraternity. Anyone who drove an early VW, Corvair, Triumph Spitfire, or
>box-stock Porsche 356 (including the original Speedster) will be glad to
>relate some horror stories about it for you. d8-)
>
>Some older chassis books can explain and illustrate the same thing. If you
>were actively driving sports cars around, say, 1965, you were very familiar
>with it.
Well, actually the "sports cars" I was tinkering with didn't have
fenders and had wishbone suspension all around. But I did do some work
on swing axle cars and unless you were able to weld the chassis to the
axles body roll, and they all had it caused the inner end of the
inside axle to move downward. Of course the inboard end of the outside
axle moved up :-)
The formula VW guys didn't have problems with "wheel tuck tripping the
car" as Nadar claimed, Admittedly they handled somewhat different then
all independent but they didn't roll over due to the swing axle.
>>
>> Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
>> competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
>> worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
>> was a dead duck.
>
>Um, the early Corvair was not really competitive. I drove my '63 Monza with
>full John Fitch conversion in my first SCCA driver's school, at Lime Rock
>Park, in '69. I quickly switched to my other car -- an Alfa Romeo.
Production car? Or gutted, roll cage, 1.8th inch Plexiglas windows,
etc? They were admittedly a bit weak in the engine department but I
never saw one roll over due to "wheel tuck".
I was in California and regardless of what SCCA started as I never saw
a "stock" sports car on the track.
>You may be thinking of the Yenko Stinger, which was a highly modified
>*later* Corvair, which did not have the swing axles.
I don't think so. these were a bunch of "hot rodders" that went into
SCCA racing. Built their own car, etc. I'm fairly sure that it was a
standard corvair that they attacked. Completely gutted, welded in
cage, all mod cons, but I thing the rear suspension was basically
stock. Certainly it wouldn't have had independent suspension. Cost, if
nothing else.
>>
>> Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
>> tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
>> time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
>> rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
>> Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
>> N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
>> picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
>> was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
>> the Corvair.
>>
>> Since then I haven't heard much about Nader, but of course I haven't
>> been looking to :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John D.
>> (jdslocombatgmail)
>
Cheers,
John D. Slocomb
(jdslocombatgmail)
sparky
> >news:z8qdnS91-8xkeCDW...@earthlink.com...
> >> I didn't read the whole tirade but Ralph Nadar
> >> is/was an IDIOT. He lost all credibility when
> >> he wrote " Unsafe at any Speed".
> >> What a load of BS.
> >> ...lew...
>
> > Did you ever read it, Lew? Or did you read *about* it?
>
> I read some of it. Couldn't stand to do the rest.
> ...lew...
Whoever broke ralph Nader was a good man! nader was nothing but a
blowhard , out for his own self-gratifacation. Nothing he did was
to help other people.
Larry Jaques
<bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> scrawled the following:
>
[Ed, I saw your comments via Bill's quote. I just checked google and
couldn't find any of those links in the first twenty pages of google
returns, ya shameless wanker.]
>Might have been a regional term. I raced San Francisco Region SCCA and do
>not recall any discussions of "jacking".
Dad raced SCCA gymkhanas and autocrosses in Little Rock, AR in the
early 60s and I never recall hearing the term. I cut my teeth on his
Austin 100-4, tuning the spoke rims for him. It's what drove me into
the auto repair business at the end of high school. <shrug>
Larry Jaques
<bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> scrawled the following:
I owned two stock(ish) 1962 Corvairs, but neither was a Monza Spyder.
<sigh> Neither exhibited that tucking tendency to me, either on or
off-road, and I ran 'em pretty hard. ;) I ran bias ply tires and
didn't race, though.
I loved those trannies. Dad showed me how to speed sync for clutchless
shifting and I had fun pointing that out for people with my clutch
foot crossed onto my right knee. I'd only bring it down to start from
a stoplight. I had lots of fun getting to know my cars inside and out
for years while my friends bought new cars every year or two and never
really knew them.
I figured that the better I knew my vehicle, the better it was,
because when you're in a jam, you need to know your tools to extricate
yourself from it.
I stood my old Ford Ranch wagon on its nose, missing the idiot who
pulled out in front of me by millimeters. I avoided the accident
because of two things: I had my seat belt on and knew those brakes. If
I'd mashed 'em, locked 'em up, I'd have skidded right into the guy.
_Know_ your metal, boys!
William Wixon
"sparky" <spar...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cd5f4bf6-0536-45d9...@5g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
ralph nader is a great man, i hold my hand over my heart whenever i hear him
speak. same with noam chomsky.
bill moyers had a great and very interesting man talking sense last night on
his "journal" (surprisingly, a white haired middle aged white ex-military
man).
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04092010/watch.html
<quote>
BILL MOYERS: Should we quit in Afghanistan?
ANDREW BACEVICH: I think so. I mean again, I believe that ultimately, a
sound foreign policy should be informed by an enlightened understanding of
one's own interests. That's what we pay people like President Obama big
money to do, to advance our collective interests, what's good for this
country, this people. And the perpetuation of the war in Afghanistan is not
good for this country and for our people.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Because we are squandering our treasure. We are losing
lives for no purpose. And ultimately, the perpetuation of this unnecessary
war does, I think, serve to exacerbate the problems within the Islamic
world, rather than reducing those problems.
Joseph Gwinn
"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
> "Wes" <clu...@lycos.com> wrote in message
> news:cTOvn.164824$Bs1.1...@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com...
> > Lewis Hartswick <lhart...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >>> Did you ever read it, Lew? Or did you read *about* it?
> >>>
> >>I read some of it. Couldn't stand to do the rest.
> >> ...lew...
> >
> >
> > I read it, the latter Corvairs were safer, too late to save the brand.
> > Compared to today,
> > the 60's cars are death traps for the most part.
> >
> > Wes
>
> The pre-'65s were the ones with the swing axles, and a frame that had
> serious weaknesses in the central bay. The swing axle was just fine for
> moderate driving. But, pressed hard, the car was a wild thing that took some
> experience to handle. On the racetrack it absolutely needed heavy
> modifications. (I spun mine at Old Bridge Speedway in NJ, even with a bunch
> of modifications, because, en extremis, the rearward weight bias took over
> and that was all she wrote). In '64, there was a factory-installed
> transverse spring that had the same effect as a stabilizer bar -- it reduced
> the tendency for the suspension to jack.
>
> Starting in '65, the car had a better unibody and they went to a four-link
> rear suspension that was functionally the same as double wishbones. At the
> time, it was the most advanced suspension on any US-built car, along with
> the Corvette.
>
> But GM screwed the pooch by putting up so much resistance to Nader's
> assault, particularly by trying to entrap him with a prostitute and some
> other underhanded things. I think the Corvair could have weathered it all,
> but trust in the company was shot to hell.
Yes. I do recall thinking (and hearing) that if GM had simply ignored Nader,
the whole thing would have blown over in a week or two.
But the Japanese would still have eaten GM's lunch.
Joe Gwinn
Ed Huntress
They would have if they weren't strapped down with stabillizer bars or
Z-bars. The lower CG made it less likely than in a bug, but you still had to
strap down the rear. I never saw a FV that didn't have a stabilizer bar in
the rear, although someone probably tried it at one time or another.
>, Admittedly they handled somewhat different then
> all independent but they didn't roll over due to the swing axle.
>>>
They could snap into a rear-end slide with the greatest of ease. It's not
technically oversteer, but the rear end would come around.
>
>>> Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
>>> competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
>>> worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
>>> was a dead duck.
>>
>>Um, the early Corvair was not really competitive. I drove my '63 Monza
>>with
>>full John Fitch conversion in my first SCCA driver's school, at Lime Rock
>>Park, in '69. I quickly switched to my other car -- an Alfa Romeo.
>
> Production car? Or gutted, roll cage, 1.8th inch Plexiglas windows,
> etc? They were admittedly a bit weak in the engine department but I
> never saw one roll over due to "wheel tuck".
Production. It was my everyday driver that I was just using for drivers'
school.
You didn't see one roll over probably because no one in his right mind would
drive one on a track with stock suspension. The John Fitch Monza GT, which
is what I had, included shortened rear springs that gave you 2-1/2 degrees
of negative camber. That put a lid on the jacking. Then you'd add as much
stabilizer bar (anti-roll bar) stiffness as required to minimize camber
change in a turn. Too much, and you'd have so much oversteer that you were
almost back where you started.
> I was in California and regardless of what SCCA started as I never saw
> a "stock" sports car on the track.
>
>>You may be thinking of the Yenko Stinger, which was a highly modified
>>*later* Corvair, which did not have the swing axles.
>
> I don't think so. these were a bunch of "hot rodders" that went into
> SCCA racing. Built their own car, etc. I'm fairly sure that it was a
> standard corvair that they attacked. Completely gutted, welded in
> cage, all mod cons, but I thing the rear suspension was basically
> stock. Certainly it wouldn't have had independent suspension. Cost, if
> nothing else.
When I was involved in racing, a "welded in cage" would have been illegal.
You would have had to race it in a modified class -- probably CM or BM or
somewhere around there, but I don't recall the engine-size classes for
modifieds. You'd be racing against Cooper Monacos with Coventry Climax
racing engines. Not much joy racing against them. d8-)
By the time you've done all that, it isn't a Corvair anymore.
>
>>>
>>> Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
>>> tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
>>> time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
>>> rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
>>> Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
>>> N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
>>> picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
>>> was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
>>> the Corvair.
>>>
>>> Since then I haven't heard much about Nader, but of course I haven't
>>> been looking to :-)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> John D.
>>> (jdslocombatgmail)
>>
> Cheers,
>
> John D. Slocomb
> (jdslocombatgmail)
Cheers,
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
I searched on "corvair suspension jacking" without the quotes. Searching on
"car jacking," all you're going to get is crime sheets.
>
>
>>Might have been a regional term. I raced San Francisco Region SCCA and do
>>not recall any discussions of "jacking".
>
> Dad raced SCCA gymkhanas and autocrosses in Little Rock, AR in the
> early 60s and I never recall hearing the term. I cut my teeth on his
> Austin 100-4, tuning the spoke rims for him. It's what drove me into
> the auto repair business at the end of high school. <shrug>
>
The point is, swing-axle cars can tuck their rear wheels under; it was
common among swing-axle sports cars, some tiny European sedans, and Formula
V race cars; it was commonly called "jacking" among the people who were
racing those cars, and you probably never saw it because people who raced
those cars knew how to prevent it.
Austin Healey 100s, obviously, did not jack. It's hard to jack a solid rear
axle. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
Gunner Asch
<wwi...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>ralph nader is a great man, i hold my hand over my heart whenever i hear him
>speak. same with noam chomsky.
This was said in humor..right? Blink blink
If so..be sure to put smileys here and there in your post, because if it
was said seriously....it means the person who said good things about
either of those two fecal blots on a clean floor is absolutely fucking
nuts.
Wes
>ralph nader is a great man, i hold my hand over my heart whenever i hear him
>speak. same with noam chomsky.
You can stop now William, we are convinced you are a liberal. Next thing you are going to
say is Howard Zinn is the greatest historian of all time. ;)
Wes
Bill McKee
AP vettes were the original Big Blocks. The 396 and 454's later. Mine was
a 327 Fuely originally and later carbed. I went through driver school in
1996 and last raced in 1973. Had a daughter that year and figured she
needed a dad more than I needed racing. Had a couple friends killed over
the years. Most in cars other than sports cars. Indy car, sprint cars,
etc.
Bill McKee
I was also involved in D Prod. My best friend ran TR2's,3,4's. You can
bore out a TR4 and install a Rambler piston and get some serious go power.
;>) Was never a real Porshe fan. The first sports car I ever worked on was
a Maserati. Went down hill from there. Aquaintance near where I lived had
a Maserati, and I help him with some brake problems during my teen years.
I was always great mechanically. Grew up in a large machine shop
enviroment. Was going to be a mechanical engineer or geologist. But due to
lifes whims, I ended up an electronic engineer.
Bill McKee
Welded in cages never made it a modified at any race I was in. As to the
Yenco Stinger. They were a sort of "Production" race car. Yenco was a very
large Chevy dealership that was in to racing. He built 500 of the Stingers
so they could be homulgated as Production vehicles. I think they were all
later models with the newer rear suspension and not the swing axles. The
early years of SCCA was a lot of near production cars in the Production
classes. Was not until about 1971 when they started opening if up to cars
that looked sorta production. Then came tube frames, Greenwood bodies,
super wide wheels, etc. Also priced the average person out of being
competitive. you could be competitive in a BP Corvette that cost maybe $3k
plus the car to build. Couple years later you were looking at $50k plus the
car.
John
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
No Ed, the whole "wheel tucking" is so much hogwash. Before you reply
draw a little picture. Differential in the middle, attached to the
chassis; axle going our either side firmly attached to the wheels. Now
imagine going around a corner - the chassis/body rotate around an
imaginary line called the "roll Center" that body rolls outward at the
top and the diff goes right along rolling the top of the diff toward
the outside of the corner which moves the axle attaching point down
which in turn causes the wheel to lean inward at the top and outward
at the bottom.
Nader's drawing showed it the other way.
What you have been talking about, your "jacking", which I think may be
a east coast term, as I never heard it used in California, I believe
refereed to the rather idiosyncratic handling of the rear engine,
swing axle, cars which was caused by the extremely rearward weight
distributation and secondly the rather large camber changes of the
swing axles. Certainly the rear weight bias would make even a kid's
red wagon handle strangely and the camber change must have added
considerably to the excitement.
At least that is the way I see it. Certainly the camber changes did
work the way I described and the cure, at least in Formula V terms was
a bloody great "roll Bar" that must have removed a considerable
amount of the suspension's flexibility and turned the car into
virtually a solid wheel wagon as far as cornering was concerned.
One reason that I probably never heard any reference to the Formula
V's suspension probably was that the basic suspension tweeks had all
taken place back in the first days of competition as certainly the
guys I used to see weren't for ever tinkering with suspension. Mostly
they were whispering to each other about "trick" engine parts.
>>, Admittedly they handled somewhat different then
>> all independent but they didn't roll over due to the swing axle.
>>>>
>
>They could snap into a rear-end slide with the greatest of ease. It's not
>technically oversteer, but the rear end would come around.
Of course they will. Swing a weight on the end of a string and it does
the same thing. Called, by the some centrifugal force (I seem to
remember a long discussion that determined that no such thing actually
exists :-). so, just plug a bloody great "roll bar" across the rear
suspension and balance it a bit with one on the front and you have a
car that's suspension doesn't do a great deal but at least you can
drive the thing around corners.
>>
>>>> Although his engineering was wrong and Corvairs were fairly
>>>> competitive in SCCA racing, (apparently on the track the suspension
>>>> worked perfectly well :-) the public bought the book and the Corvair
>>>> was a dead duck.
>>>
>>>Um, the early Corvair was not really competitive. I drove my '63 Monza
>>>with
>>>full John Fitch conversion in my first SCCA driver's school, at Lime Rock
>>>Park, in '69. I quickly switched to my other car -- an Alfa Romeo.
>>
>> Production car? Or gutted, roll cage, 1.8th inch Plexiglas windows,
>> etc? They were admittedly a bit weak in the engine department but I
>> never saw one roll over due to "wheel tuck".
>
>Production. It was my everyday driver that I was just using for drivers'
>school.
>
>You didn't see one roll over probably because no one in his right mind would
>drive one on a track with stock suspension. The John Fitch Monza GT, which
>is what I had, included shortened rear springs that gave you 2-1/2 degrees
>of negative camber. That put a lid on the jacking. Then you'd add as much
>stabilizer bar (anti-roll bar) stiffness as required to minimize camber
>change in a turn. Too much, and you'd have so much oversteer that you were
>almost back where you started.
Well yes. However, you cold just added another bar to the front and
locked that set of wheels down a bit and everything balanced :-)
>> I was in California and regardless of what SCCA started as I never saw
>> a "stock" sports car on the track.
>>
>>>You may be thinking of the Yenko Stinger, which was a highly modified
>>>*later* Corvair, which did not have the swing axles.
>>
>> I don't think so. these were a bunch of "hot rodders" that went into
>> SCCA racing. Built their own car, etc. I'm fairly sure that it was a
>> standard corvair that they attacked. Completely gutted, welded in
>> cage, all mod cons, but I thing the rear suspension was basically
>> stock. Certainly it wouldn't have had independent suspension. Cost, if
>> nothing else.
>
>When I was involved in racing, a "welded in cage" would have been illegal.
>You would have had to race it in a modified class -- probably CM or BM or
>somewhere around there, but I don't recall the engine-size classes for
>modifieds. You'd be racing against Cooper Monacos with Coventry Climax
>racing engines. Not much joy racing against them. d8-)
>
>By the time you've done all that, it isn't a Corvair anymore.
Nope, but I was down in S. California and I really don't remember a
car coming to the races that didn't ride in on a trailer. I was
involved with Formula Ford and didn't pay that much attention to
anything with a body on it but they certainly didn't seem the same as
my car at home.
There was a Mini that used to be at all the races. Whatever class
those things run in there weren't many so they used to run several
classes together. The little Mini was really competitive in these
mixed races and I commented one time about what a great car they must
be.
After the heats one of the guys who knew them took me over. they had a
15 ft. trailer fixed up as a shop, Gen set for their own electricity.
Air compressor, pickup to haul the car. The car had a welded in frame
and roll cage all the windows except the windshield were 1/8"
plastic,. they had the hood up and except for the block it was all
aluminum, aluminum radiator and oil cooler....As I said, I don't know
what class it ran in but That was a sports car!
.
Ed Huntress
John, enough. Here's a photo of an early, swing-axle Triumph Spitfire
jacking:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads3/Spitfire+jacking+11090328641.jpg
Here's a Triumph Herald -- same suspension, higher CG. This is the extreme
case: the inside wheel actually lifts:
http://herald-tips-tricks.wdfiles.com/local--files/start:start0/resized_tilt_herald.jpg
Here's an illustration that shows it:
http://www.rqriley.com/images/fig-17.gif
Your analysis is missing the primary forces at work here, which are the
inward force applied at the bottom of the tire, and the outward force of the
car as it goes through the turn, applied from the pivot point through the
half-axle, to the center of the wheel hub. The couple's effect is to tuck
the tire under the car.
Forget body roll for a moment and just look at how that force couple is
resolved -- by the tire tucking under, and the car "tripping" over the
outside wheel.
That's what happens. Compression of the outer spring from body roll
counteracts it. When forces are low, the body roll usually dominates. As
cornering forces increase, the outside wheel snaps from negative to positive
camber, the pivot point reacts by moving in the only direction it's free to
move -- upward -- and the car jacks.
You can see it clearly in the photos above.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
Well, I was thinking you were a little older. The original 327 Stingrays
were AP. Bill Thomas's team of 327 Stingrays were AP, and fought against the
289 Cobras. Then they got moved down later.
> Mine was a 327 Fuely originally and later carbed. I went through driver
> school in 1996 and last raced in 1973.
Uh, I assume you meant 1966 and 1973?
> Had a daughter that year and figured she needed a dad more than I needed
> racing. Had a couple friends killed over the years. Most in cars other
> than sports cars. Indy car, sprint cars, etc.
1973 was my last year, too, but for a different reason. I became diabetic
that year and lost my SCCA license -- along with my pilot's license and my
berth on a racing yacht in the Southern Ocean Racing Conference. It was a
very tough year, and it put the brakes on nearly everything I had planned
and worked for.
I tried starting up again in '83. It's a long and uninteresting story, but
the medical examiner for this region still wouldn't let me race. Then my son
came along in '87 and I put it all away.
I worked as a tech inspector for SCCA and CART, but it wasn't the same. I
wanted to be on the track or nothing.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
And you could hotwire the Laycock de Normanville electric overdrive on them
(overdrive was an option) and get 8 speeds forward. Much joy. d8-)
> Was never a real Porshe fan. The first sports car I ever worked on was a
> Maserati. Went down hill from there.
I guess! A Birdcage, by any chance?
> Aquaintance near where I lived had a Maserati, and I help him with some
> brake problems during my teen years. I was always great mechanically.
> Grew up in a large machine shop enviroment. Was going to be a mechanical
> engineer or geologist. But due to lifes whims, I ended up an electronic
> engineer.
A lot of twists and turns happen in life, eh? The jobs I've had are ones I'd
never heard of. <g>
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
I don't have a '60s-era rule book around, but for a while, at least, any
rollover structure that "materially affected" the stiffness of the chasses
was not allowed in production classes. Welding wasn't the issue.
Triangulated cages that effectively were part of the chassis were the issue.
That rule was later changed, and I remember a Lotus Elan, that raced at Lime
Rock, that looked like it had a bird cage on top. d8-)
> As to the Yenco Stinger. They were a sort of "Production" race car.
> Yenco was a very large Chevy dealership that was in to racing. He built
> 500 of the Stingers so they could be homulgated as Production vehicles. I
> think they were all later models with the newer rear suspension and not
> the swing axles.
Right. No swing axles. He yanked the rear seats out, too. But as you say, it
was not homolugated as a Corvair. It was homolugated as a Yenko Stinger.
(Yes, "Yenko.")
Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What did GTO
stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an abbreviation in
Italian, but most people don't know what it means even after you translate
it into English. d8-)
> The early years of SCCA was a lot of near production cars in the
> Production classes. Was not until about 1971 when they started opening if
> up to cars that looked sorta production. Then came tube frames, Greenwood
> bodies, super wide wheels, etc. Also priced the average person out of
> being competitive.
No kidding! I've commented here before that 1971 was the year I got swamped.
I was driving a '67 MG Midget; a typical club-racer setup, with few mods and
an unbalanced engine. I had a 3/4 cam from Racer Brown, and the optional,
larger SUs (1-1/4"), but no front-end lowering kit or head work, aside from
a good CC'ing and polishing.
In '71, suddenly, a bunch of cars showed up with $5,000 Hollywood Sports
Cars engines -- in $2,300 cars. They had at least 20 hp on me and I had no
chance.
I called those guys the "technoids," and they kind of wrecked it for us poor
college students racing our everyday drivers.
> you could be competitive in a BP Corvette that cost maybe $3k plus the car
> to build. Couple years later you were looking at $50k plus the car.
Yup, I was there too.
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
>
>> you could be competitive in a BP Corvette that cost maybe $3k plus
>> the car to build. Couple years later you were looking at $50k plus
>> the car.
I've got a good friend, Noel Park, that is still racing his '55 and '57
Corvettes.
--
John R. Carroll
Ed Huntress
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
> Ed Huntress wrote:
>> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
>> Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
>> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
>> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
>> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
>
> Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
That's the "GT." What's the "O"? The "O" is the hard part. d8-)
Wes
>"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
>news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
>>> Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
>>> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
>>> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
>>> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
>>
>> Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
>
>That's the "GT." What's the "O"? The "O" is the hard part. d8-)
I knew the GT part, didn't know the Omologato part. Accredited seems to be what that word
means in Italian.
And now you can insert the correct answer below. :)
Wes
John R. Carroll
> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
> news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
>>> Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
>>> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
>>> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
>>> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
>>
>> Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
>
> That's the "GT." What's the "O"? The "O" is the hard part. d8-)
O
I mean Oh.
"Ceritfied" or "Approved" in English. That isn't literal.
To an American buyer it meant "Long, Wide Penis" however.
--
John R. Carroll
Ed Huntress
No, no correction. You got it right. In English it's "homologated," and
accredited is a good synonym. Specifically, it means that the car was made
in sufficient quantities, usually 500 but for GTs at the time of the
original Ferrari GTO, 50, that it qualifies as a production car in that
class.
GTs in those days were exotics, made in small quantities, so Ferrari only
had to make 50 and get the production run certified and approved by the FIA,
which is (or was) the international racing sanctioning body.
For a few years, when road racing was almost a big deal in the US (thanks to
Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Scarab and Chaparral), Pontiac copped a legendary
reference to the Ferrari GTO. It was silly but they should have had the
decency to explain what it means. In high school, I could stump all of the
motorheads with that one. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
Exactly. Connotations are important here. d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
> news:BdCdnRD2xIaGyV_W...@giganews.com...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
>>> news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
>>>>> Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
>>>>> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
>>>>> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
>>>>> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
>>>>
>>>> Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
>>>
>>> That's the "GT." What's the "O"? The "O" is the hard part. d8-)
>>
>> O
>> I mean Oh.
>> "Ceritfied" or "Approved" in English. That isn't literal.
>> To an American buyer it meant "Long, Wide Penis" however.
>>
>> --
>> John R. Carroll
>
> Exactly. Connotations are important here. d8-)
LOL
I still have a couple of chrome plated die cast emblems that say "Vega
Chaparral".
GM was pretty far along when Hall complained.
--
John R. Carroll
Wes
>LOL
>I still have a couple of chrome plated die cast emblems that say "Vega
>Chaparral".
>GM was pretty far along when Hall complained.
I remember the Cosworth Vega. What was the Vega Chaparral?
Wes
Wes
>> And now you can insert the correct answer below. :)
>>
>> Wes
>
>No, no correction. You got it right. In English it's "homologated," and
>accredited is a good synonym. Specifically, it means that the car was made
>in sufficient quantities, usually 500 but for GTs at the time of the
>original Ferrari GTO, 50, that it qualifies as a production car in that
>class.
I had to search around on homologated. I'm usually pretty fair at decerning what a word
means by looking at it or considering the context it was used in. Never took Latin though
I had a teacher that really wanted me to take it. I probably would have performed better
learning Latin than I did at learning Spanish.
>
>GTs in those days were exotics, made in small quantities, so Ferrari only
>had to make 50 and get the production run certified and approved by the FIA,
>which is (or was) the international racing sanctioning body.
>
>For a few years, when road racing was almost a big deal in the US (thanks to
>Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Scarab and Chaparral), Pontiac copped a legendary
>reference to the Ferrari GTO. It was silly but they should have had the
>decency to explain what it means. In high school, I could stump all of the
>motorheads with that one. d8-)
I'm going to try to remember this bit of trivia to try out on my motor head nephews and
brother in law.
For a political thread this one sure has morphed into an interesting tour of racing
history. I've enjoyed it. I looked at the pictures you posted. Was there another set
when the car rolled over? That looked scary.
What was the problem with diabetes and SCCA and the FAA if I could be as bold to ask? Kept
in check, it is something you live with. Was this a case of ill informed judgment on what
disqualified someone from participating in earlier times?
Wes
John R. Carroll
I don't think so but it's been a while.
Either Buick or Oldsmobile sold a Monza and the GT version had a V-6 in it.
That was the car IIRC.
GM had trademarked the Monza name in about 1960 and intended to use that for
the Corvair but I believe they had trouble there as well and went with
"Spyder". There is an entire, fascinating history behind some of these
product names. Had GM gone to Hall, he'd have let them have the name for
nothing but they didn't and when he found out, he tried to jack GM up. The
tooling was done and everything.
LOL
That was why I knew about it.
GM had to involve someone that could put the effort to get replacement done
both inside (Styling/Division) and outside through the vendor network that
could ink a large order.
Interesting talk around the dinner table at my folks place. I've got one
hell of a Dolly Cole story that I'll tell one day.
--
John R. Carroll
Ed Huntress
> "Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>> And now you can insert the correct answer below. :)
>>>
>>> Wes
>>
>>No, no correction. You got it right. In English it's "homologated," and
>>accredited is a good synonym. Specifically, it means that the car was made
>>in sufficient quantities, usually 500 but for GTs at the time of the
>>original Ferrari GTO, 50, that it qualifies as a production car in that
>>class.
>
> I had to search around on homologated. I'm usually pretty fair at
> decerning what a word
> means by looking at it or considering the context it was used in.
It's a very hard one. Unless one was involved in racing of an international
flavor (note that Bill used the word first), it's unlikely that he's ever
heard the term in English, let alone in Italian. That's why it's a good
stumper. d8-)
> Never took Latin though
> I had a teacher that really wanted me to take it. I probably would have
> performed better
> learning Latin than I did at learning Spanish.
As for Latin, my son has his final next week in 3rd year Latin, and if you
asked him, he would tell you to run, not walk, away from it. He decided to
take it on his own. I knew he was in for it, but it was close to bloody
murder. This semester he's translating Latin poetry, and I can hear the
agony when he calls. <g>
I don't know how it will help him in econometrics, but he's a good writer,
and it seems to have helped his vocabulary.
>
>>
>>GTs in those days were exotics, made in small quantities, so Ferrari only
>>had to make 50 and get the production run certified and approved by the
>>FIA,
>>which is (or was) the international racing sanctioning body.
>>
>>For a few years, when road racing was almost a big deal in the US (thanks
>>to
>>Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Scarab and Chaparral), Pontiac copped a
>>legendary
>>reference to the Ferrari GTO. It was silly but they should have had the
>>decency to explain what it means. In high school, I could stump all of the
>>motorheads with that one. d8-)
>
> I'm going to try to remember this bit of trivia to try out on my motor
> head nephews and
> brother in law.
>
> For a political thread this one sure has morphed into an interesting tour
> of racing
> history. I've enjoyed it. I looked at the pictures you posted. Was
> there another set
> when the car rolled over? That looked scary.
'Dunno. I picked them up with a Google Images search on "swing axle
jacking," or something like that.
But those two cars would roll over. In 1971, I helped pick up and roll back
upright a swing-axle Spitfire from a guy who was driving in a gymkhana. (He
wasn't hurt, but he sure was embarrassed.)
There were lots of funky little European cars in Princeton when my family
moved there. My buddy's dad took us for a ride in his "four passenger
Spitfire" (a Herald) one time, after we'd been jawing about sports cars and
he had been regaling us with stories about racing an MG-TD, and was trying
to impress us. The rear end jacked just like the one in the photo and we
damn near rolled.
The thing that kept a lot of them from rolling over was the crappy, skinny
tires they had, which didn't get enough adhesion to worry about. They'd just
spin. My '64 VW jacked up just like that Herald one night, when I drove it
into a circle in the Pine Barrens that was unlighted, and which was *much*
tighter than I expected. Shitty tires saved my ass, and probably saved my
shorts. <g> No curbs, thankfully. I spun into the median at around 60 mph
with no damage.
>
> What was the problem with diabetes and SCCA and the FAA if I could be as
> bold to ask? Kept
> in check, it is something you live with. Was this a case of ill informed
> judgment on what
> disqualified someone from participating in earlier times?
>
> Wes
Good question. I'll try to keep it short.
I'm a Type I (juvenile) diabetic, like Mark, and in those days control
wasn't nearly as good as it is now. The real danger is hypoglycemia, which
leaves you confused and very stupid. Your judgment can go completely to
hell. In an airplane, you could black out and die. It can come on very
quickly and with little warning, especially if you're occupied racing a car
and don't notice it coming.
By the '80s it was evident that good control and a history free of
hypoglycemic episodes should allow you to race or fly. In fact, the FAA
changed their rule in the '90s to allow Type I's to fly under close medical
reporting. But I couldn't afford it now, anyway, so it's moot for me.
The SCCA left it up to the regional medical directors. Mine wouldn't budge.
The SCCA national supported me and wanted me to fight it. They couldn't just
tell him what to do.
But it, too, got expensive. I couldn't have afforded to pursue the case. My
interest then was only as a low-key hobby -- I planned to drive a Fiesta in
ITC class, which could be called "old guys driving old junk and making fools
of themselves." I didn't want to break the bank for a hobby.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
Huh. I didn't know about that one. Or I forgot it. Did GM think that Hall
owed them? He probably did -- not financially, but for turning out those
special automatic transmissions, which were brilliant and which allowed the
driver to use his left foot to control the wing.
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
> Hall owed them?
I really don't know Ed. I think they were surprised as hell and I definitely
know they were pissed big time. After getting reamed for the "Monza" badge,
something Hall knew all about, they decided to screw him back rather than
make a deal. Hall priced himself out of the market.
HAHAHA!
>He probably did -- not financially, but for turning
> out those special automatic transmissions, which were brilliant and
> which allowed the driver to use his left foot to control the wing.
What I remember most about that car was that it was banned from racing <G>
--
John R. Carroll
Ed Huntress
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
By Ferrari, IIRC...
> ...something Hall knew all about, they decided to screw him back rather
> than
> make a deal. Hall priced himself out of the market.
> HAHAHA!
>
>>He probably did -- not financially, but for turning
>> out those special automatic transmissions, which were brilliant and
>> which allowed the driver to use his left foot to control the wing.
>
> What I remember most about that car was that it was banned from racing <G>
Jeez, you want to get me going again? <g> That was the Sucker Car, which was
banned at LeMans. The guy, or his engineering team (Hall was an excellent
engineer himself, by all accounts) came up with one genius thing after
another. The FIA finally got pushed over the edge when he showed up with a
car that had an "auxiliary" engine of 40 hp that sucked the air out from
under the car and slammed it down to the track like a leech. d8-)
Hall got pissed, withdrew from racing, and left it all to Ford and their GTs
(I hope Banquer isn't listening -- he'll jump in here and make a real mess
if he sees that).
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
> news:s4ydnVU1_6pb6l_W...@giganews.com...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
>>> news:O9Kdne31CvMexl_W...@giganews.com...
>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
>>>>> news:BdCdnRD2xIaGyV_W...@giganews.com...
>>>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>>>> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
>> racing <G>
>
> Jeez, you want to get me going again? <g> That was the Sucker Car,
> which was banned at LeMans. The guy, or his engineering team (Hall
> was an excellent engineer himself, by all accounts) came up with one
> genius thing after another. The FIA finally got pushed over the edge
> when he showed up with a car that had an "auxiliary" engine of 40 hp
> that sucked the air out from under the car and slammed it down to the
> track like a leech. d8-)
I thought they had raced it somewhere snd kicked everyones ass.
I did see one of the two(?) that were put together.
Pretty cool looking and they ran it around the Tech Center track after lunch
the day I was there.
I think they toured the car to auto shows or something but I just don't
remember.
>
> Hall got pissed, withdrew from racing, and left it all to Ford and
> their GTs (I hope Banquer isn't listening -- he'll jump in here and
> make a real mess if he sees that).
Ford wanted a to win no matter the cost and he did.
LOL
--
John R. Carroll
Ed Huntress
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
Jim Hall introduced so many innovations that I don't remember them all. I
saw his first winged cars at Watkins Glen, and we all stood there with our
jaws hanging down as they went around the track like they were on rails. We
didn't know then that they had automatic (2-speed) transmissions with
"super" torque converters -- Hall kept it a secret for quite a while.
He went on to flabbergast the Europeans, too. He had skirts, and air dams,
and all kinds of things. First they outlawed his movable wings. Then they
outlawed wings mounted on the suspension uprights (he may not have been the
originator of that one). Then they limited wing size, and, finally, they
outlawed his sucker car.
As for Ford, watch out -- JB may be lurking. d8-) Personally, I think Ford
almost ruined sports car racing. But their cars were brilliant and also
broke a lot of new ground.
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
You'll be on your own, Ed.
I'm not a racing guy but I have heard the same thing from people that are
and do.
J
Bill McKee
I still want a Birdcage. Nope, was a street Maserati. Can not even
remember the model anymore. Was back in 1961.
Bill McKee
I tried to buy a Lotus Elan for the street. Did not fit in it. I am 6'4"
and a size 14 shoe. Foot covered 2 pedals and both feet did not fit in the
foot well. Loved the Elite. Guy I grew up with drives one on the street
and heads the Lotus registry. Mike's still has to be the worst paint job
Lotus ever. White with a red racing stripe. Just plain boring. GTO was
Grand Touring Oblamagatto or spelling similar. Means a car with at least 2
seats (maybe 4), street legal (lights, etc) and a spare tire.
Bill McKee
"John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
Friend I raced with, Paul Reinhart still races his 57. And he is 79 or 80
now. Still one of the prettiest vettes on the course. He was a Union 76
dealer in Oakland and took a Trident oil can down to the local paint supply
and said I want these colors. Got them. He had one of the first 63 Vette
factory race cars. Sponsored by Cochran and Celli Chevrolet. He and Bill
Sherwood got them. Came with factory disk brakes a year before they were
available to the public. Did not work as well as the drums originally.
Paul complained he could not get over 5000 RPM when driving the car from St.
Louis to Oakland. 3 oz out of balance crankshaft. Duntov went ballistic
from what I heard.
Ed Huntress
Jeez, I don't even think about things like that anymore. What's a Birdcage
worth today? Online auction descriptions say the asking prices run around
$4,000,000. There were only 17 of the Tipo 61's built. Good luck! <g>
> Nope, was a street Maserati. Can not even remember the model anymore.
> Was back in 1961.
Most likely a 3500 GT. My favorite was the Mistral coupe, but they were
first made a few years later.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
Ah, see, you have to leave the old Lotuses to us shorter guys. They were
built for us.
I'm 5'9" and my head clears the roof of a Lotus Europa/Type 47 by maybe two
inches. Stay out of those...
BTW, if you're talking about the *original* Elite, 1958 - 1962, I agree. A
masterpiece of minimalism, and one of the prettiest small cars ever built,
IMO.
> Guy I grew up with drives one on the street and heads the Lotus registry.
> Mike's still has to be the worst paint job Lotus ever. White with a red
> racing stripe. Just plain boring. GTO was Grand Touring Oblamagatto or
> spelling similar.
Close.
> Means a car with at least 2 seats (maybe 4), street legal (lights, etc)
> and a spare tire.
Well, that's part of it, but not the big part. What you're describing is the
FIA requirement for a sports car, back in the days when the "Prototypes,"
like the D-Type Jag and the other all-out enduro racers, required those
things. And they had to fit a small suitcase in the trunk.
Omologato, Italian for homologated, means "officially approved," roughly,
and it applied to the FIA certifying that the car met those requirements
above, but more importantly that the minimum number of cars were produced in
one year to qualify as a production car in the car's class. In the Ferrari
GTO's day, that meant 500 for a sports car or 50 for a GT.
--
Ed Huntress
John R. Carroll
> "John R. Carroll" <nu...@bidness.dev.nul> wrote in message
> news:XcWdnXO2StrB1V_W...@giganews.com...
>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>> "Bill McKee" <bmckee...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>> news:2o-dnZZmEufJ8FzW...@earthlink.com...
>>> Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
>>> did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
>>> abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
>>> even after you translate it into English. d8-)
>>
>> Grand Tourisimo wan't it?
>>
>>>
>>>> you could be competitive in a BP Corvette that cost maybe $3k plus
>>>> the car to build. Couple years later you were looking at $50k plus
>>>> the car.
>>
>> I've got a good friend, Noel Park, that is still racing his '55 and
>> '57 Corvettes.
>>
>
> or 80 now. Still one of the prettiest vettes on the course. He was
> a Union 76 dealer in Oakland and took a Trident oil can down to the
> local paint supply and said I want these colors. Got them. He had
> one of the first 63 Vette factory race cars. Sponsored by Cochran
> and Celli Chevrolet. He and Bill Sherwood got them. Came with
> factory disk brakes a year before they were available to the public.
> Did not work as well as the drums originally. Paul complained he
> could not get over 5000 RPM when driving the car from St. Louis to
> Oakland. 3 oz out of balance crankshaft. Duntov went ballistic from
> what I heard.
http://www.hmsausa.com/index.html
Here is Noel's shop.
http://www.jdcorvette.com/Mechnical/index.cfm
The white '57 in the bottom pic that's in the air is one of the two cars he
runs.
The '55 is yellow and the Duntov car that ran at Daytona IIRC.
Something like that anyway. It's a picture perfect restoration.
I looked through the photo's of the 2009 event at Laguna Seca and didn't see
either,
I hope Noel is OK and still racing. He really loves the entire deal and is a
terrific guy.
He and his brother Woody are sort of characters, in a good way. I always
enjoy my visits with them.
--
John R. Carroll
John D.
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>"John" <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
>news:le43s5ps291cebrmc...@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:11:41 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
>> No Ed, the whole "wheel tucking" is so much hogwash. Before you reply
>> draw a little picture. Differential in the middle, attached to the
>> chassis; axle going our either side firmly attached to the wheels. Now
>> imagine going around a corner - the chassis/body rotate around an
>> imaginary line called the "roll Center" that body rolls outward at the
>> top and the diff goes right along rolling the top of the diff toward
>> the outside of the corner which moves the axle attaching point down
>> which in turn causes the wheel to lean inward at the top and outward
>> at the bottom.
>
>John, enough. Here's a photo of an early, swing-axle Triumph Spitfire
>jacking:
>
>http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads3/Spitfire+jacking+11090328641.jpg
>
>Here's a Triumph Herald -- same suspension, higher CG. This is the extreme
>case: the inside wheel actually lifts:
>
>http://herald-tips-tricks.wdfiles.com/local--files/start:start0/resized_tilt_herald.jpg
>
>Here's an illustration that shows it:
>
>http://www.rqriley.com/images/fig-17.gif
>
>
>Your analysis is missing the primary forces at work here, which are the
>inward force applied at the bottom of the tire, and the outward force of the
>car as it goes through the turn, applied from the pivot point through the
>half-axle, to the center of the wheel hub. The couple's effect is to tuck
>the tire under the car.
>
>Forget body roll for a moment and just look at how that force couple is
>resolved -- by the tire tucking under, and the car "tripping" over the
>outside wheel.
>
>That's what happens. Compression of the outer spring from body roll
>counteracts it. When forces are low, the body roll usually dominates. As
>cornering forces increase, the outside wheel snaps from negative to positive
>camber, the pivot point reacts by moving in the only direction it's free to
>move -- upward -- and the car jacks.
>
>You can see it clearly in the photos above.
Yes, I can clearly see it in the photos and certainly the wheels are
both positive.
I've read your description a number of times and I think something
besides cornering force is effecting the car.. As you describe it
cornering force alone overcomes every other force and lifts the entire
back of the vehicle enough for the camber, which would have probably
been at least a degree or so negative as a result of body roll to
suddenly go, from your pictures at least 10 degrees positive. But the
Internet is so slow here in the Marina that any research will have to
wait until I get back home to a faster connection.
I had damned Nadar for all these years when he was right......but what
the hell, I'm not going to start lauding him with phrase, I plead the
rights of RCM to continue my own cockamamie view point, evidence to
the contrary be damned :-)
Larry Jaques
<jdsl...@invalid.com> scrawled the following:
>On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:23:22 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
><hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>>John, enough. Here's a photo of an early, swing-axle Triumph Spitfire
>>jacking:
>>
>>http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads3/Spitfire+jacking+11090328641.jpg
WTF is this? Wasn't the talk about how the suspension handles
_cornering_? The front wheels are straight and both rear tires
cambered out in this pic. It looks like someone mashed the brakes and
was standing it on its nose, no cornering involved. Then there's that
strange smoke coming from the bottom of the rear wheels...
>>Here's a Triumph Herald -- same suspension, higher CG. This is the extreme
>>case: the inside wheel actually lifts:
>>
>>http://herald-tips-tricks.wdfiles.com/local--files/start:start0/resized_tilt_herald.jpg
Wow! I'd call that "pronounced".
>>Here's an illustration that shows it:
>>
>>http://www.rqriley.com/images/fig-17.gif
OK.
>>Your analysis is missing the primary forces at work here, which are the
>>inward force applied at the bottom of the tire, and the outward force of the
>>car as it goes through the turn, applied from the pivot point through the
>>half-axle, to the center of the wheel hub. The couple's effect is to tuck
>>the tire under the car.
>>
>>Forget body roll for a moment and just look at how that force couple is
>>resolved -- by the tire tucking under, and the car "tripping" over the
>>outside wheel.
>>
>>That's what happens. Compression of the outer spring from body roll
>>counteracts it. When forces are low, the body roll usually dominates. As
>>cornering forces increase, the outside wheel snaps from negative to positive
>>camber, the pivot point reacts by moving in the only direction it's free to
>>move -- upward -- and the car jacks.
>>
>>You can see it clearly in the photos above.
>
>
>Yes, I can clearly see it in the photos and certainly the wheels are
>both positive.
>
>I've read your description a number of times and I think something
>besides cornering force is effecting the car.. As you describe it
>cornering force alone overcomes every other force and lifts the entire
>back of the vehicle enough for the camber, which would have probably
>been at least a degree or so negative as a result of body roll to
>suddenly go, from your pictures at least 10 degrees positive. But the
>Internet is so slow here in the Marina that any research will have to
>wait until I get back home to a faster connection.
Perhaps it's the mashing of the brakes which sets this up. Haul ass
into the corner, stomp the whoa-stop pedal, and crank the wheel, then
hit the gas again? But that effect would be momentary, going away the
instant the brakes were let off and the CG came back to f/r normalcy.
>I had damned Nadar for all these years when he was right......but what
>the hell, I'm not going to start lauding him with phrase, I plead the
>rights of RCM to continue my own cockamamie view point, evidence to
>the contrary be damned :-)
Nader crusaded against the result, not the root cause. His real gripe
_should_ have been owner maintenance and instead of forcing people to
be responsible for their own safety (pay attention or die, you
dipshits!), he forced the Corvair out of production. It's much like
what is happening in the healthcare biz today. Doctors give you one
med, then give you two more to reduce the side-effects of the first.
When my sister stepped in, Dad was on 17 different concurrent meds.
(This is not uncommon. I see the vast array on elderly folks' dressers
or kitchen counters when I go in to repair their homes.) She got him
down to 6 plus some herbs, and had him make a couple diet changes.
--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir
Ed Huntress
"John D." <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:g9s5s5dd41iq4o2n3...@4ax.com...
Ok. If you find it, let us know. d8-)
> As you describe it
> cornering force alone overcomes every other force and lifts the entire
> back of the vehicle enough for the camber, which would have probably
> been at least a degree or so negative as a result of body roll to
> suddenly go, from your pictures at least 10 degrees positive.
To go through the whole thing, analyzing all of the vectors, is fairly
complicated. My chassis books are not handy and I'm not going to do it now.
I'm sure you can do it yourself, if you've analyzed chassis before and think
through all of the loads.
But one fact here may help: When the cornering force is first applied, the
downward force measured at the differential is zero, because the car springs
are supporting the weight of the car. So when that upward vector is
applied -- the resultant of the couple I described before -- it's lifting,
initially, against zero resistance. In other words, it takes very little
force to lift the rear end of the car a little bit. And doing some numbers
in my head, I'll guess that the lifting force, at maximum cornering of
around 0.6 g or so (the most you'll get out of those tires), is well over
100 pounds. Then the jacking reinforces itself because the bottom of the
outside tire is moving in toward the centerline of the car, and the vectors
result in more upward force for a given cornering force.
Also keep in mind that the body roll, while it's acting downward on the
outer spring, is dead neutral on the car's centerline -- and thus on the
diff. It is not supplying any downward force to oppose that lifting force
vector. The car is rolling *around* the roll center: one side depresses
while the other side lifts.
It gets complicated with further considerations of body roll and its effect
on camber, and with considering the offset between the car centerline and
the actual pivot point on each half axle (this is shown in the illustration
linked to above). I'll leave those things for you to work on.
On the off chance that we discuss this again, let's clarify one more thing,
so we don't get tangled in terminology. We've been loose in the use of the
term "oversteer." Oversteer refers only to the effect of slipping, which is
the result of tire-tread distortion in cornering. The tire is pulling in a
direction offset somewhat, angularly, from the rolling direction of the
tire. It does NOT refer to the effect of a car's rear end coming around
because of *sliding*. Most of what we're discussing here is the result of
sliding, and is not oversteer. Once a car starts to slide, other dynamics
take over.
It's important to keep that clear because the transition from slipping to
sliding is where a lot of the nastiness occurs. A rear-engined car will not
necessarily oversteer (later Porsche 911s do not oversteer). But a
front-engined car *can* oversteer. An out-of-the-box 289 Cobra, with full
independent rear, oversteers. So does a Bugeye Sprite, with its solid rear
axle. But a Corvair with a stiff front stabilizer bar understeers. Put on a
rear stabilizer bar, and it oversteers.
Suspension geometry and dynamics determine whether a car oversteers or
understeers. Front-to-rear weight bias *can*, and often does, determine what
a car does in that regard once sliding begins. But with swing axles,
traction on the rear tires diminishes so rapidly as the car jacks that it
can snap you from understeer to violent tail-end sliding with a snap of your
fingers. That occurs whether the car is rear-engined, like a VW bug, or
front-engined, like the Triumph Spitfire in the photos above.
If I haven't confused you yet, you may see that we're actually dealing with
two kinds of handling transitions. One is from understeer to oversteer, or,
conceivably (I can't think of an example), vice-versa. Some advanced
rear-engined performance cars transition from understeer to oversteer.
Actually, a Bugeye Sprite does that too, but the transition occurs at fairly
low speeds. It transitions into oversteer just driving it smartly around
town. (It's the result of the rear-spring configuration; later Sprites do
not do that.)
The other is from slipping to sliding, which can cause any car --
understeering or oversteering, front-engined or rear -- to transition from
any kind of handling to a tail-end slide. Or, in some instances (Allard J2;
some early Lotus race cars; modern front-wheel drive cars) to a front-end
slide. That has nothing to do with applying power and causing a power slide,
which is another factor that Bill mentioned.
It's complicated, but what's important here is that swing-axle cars can be
deadly because they're prone to snap transitions from any one condition to a
severe rear-end slide. Thankfully, no one builds them anymore.
> But the
> Internet is so slow here in the Marina that any research will have to
> wait until I get back home to a faster connection.
>
> I had damned Nadar for all these years when he was right......but what
> the hell, I'm not going to start lauding him with phrase, I plead the
> rights of RCM to continue my own cockamamie view point, evidence to
> the contrary be damned :-)
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> John D. Slocomb
> (jdslocombatgmail)
You aren't alone in damning Ralph Nader. I did, too, for years, until I got
the hang of what he was doing.
As for cockamamie points of view -- isn't it fun being human? d8-)
--
Ed Huntress
John D.
wrote:
Ed,
Had a good Internet connection for a bit this evening and had a look
around and I really couldn't resist (the devil made me do it)
Have a look at the Mercedes W196 of 1954. Won the first race it
entered (French GP) and took 4 first places and a second. Lead Driver
Fangio crowned champion driver prior to last race of the season. When
Mercedes retired from racing the next year the W196 had won 9 of 12
races started.
Ed Huntress
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
> On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:12:54 +0700, the infamous John D.
> <jdsl...@invalid.com> scrawled the following:
>
>>On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:23:22 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
>><hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>>John, enough. Here's a photo of an early, swing-axle Triumph Spitfire
>>>jacking:
>>>
>>>http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads3/Spitfire+jacking+11090328641.jpg
>
> WTF is this? Wasn't the talk about how the suspension handles
> _cornering_? The front wheels are straight and both rear tires
> cambered out in this pic. It looks like someone mashed the brakes and
> was standing it on its nose, no cornering involved. Then there's that
> strange smoke coming from the bottom of the rear wheels...
Nope. That's jacking. You can't make a Spitfire lift at the rear like that
from braking. Where's the corresponding "squat" at the front? Jeez.
>
>>>Here's a Triumph Herald -- same suspension, higher CG. This is the
>>>extreme
>>>case: the inside wheel actually lifts:
>>>
>>>http://herald-tips-tricks.wdfiles.com/local--files/start:start0/resized_tilt_herald.jpg
>
> Wow! I'd call that "pronounced".
Then you should call yourself...uninformed, too. <g>
Nope.
> Haul ass
> into the corner, stomp the whoa-stop pedal, and crank the wheel, then
> hit the gas again?
Try it. You won't like it.
Go find an old VW Bug and spin it into the tullies. You're in for a
surprise.
> But that effect would be momentary, going away the
> instant the brakes were let off and the CG came back to f/r normalcy.
Larry, I've been there, dozens of times, in various swing-axle cars. It
works as I've described it.
You must not have pushed your Corvair very hard. How long did your tires
last? I typically needed a new set every 5,000 miles. d8-)
Ed Huntress
"John D." <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:qq76s5taj1mjmqdjd...@4ax.com...
I know the car. I love the car. I especially love the engine -- desmodromic
valves.
It's a perfect example of Mercedes-Benz engineering: "Why use two parts to
do a job when you can use three?" d8-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> John D. Slocomb
> (jdslocombatgmail)
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"John D." <jdsl...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:qq76s5taj1mjmqdjd...@4ax.com...
Oh, I forgot something important. When Fangio drove that car at the Grand
Prix of Monaco, he chipped a tiny piece of masonry off the side of the
bridge each time he went through. He could position a car within a fraction
of an inch.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"Larry Jaques" <lja...@diversify.invalid> wrote in message
news:1k66s5pm05hujotsa...@4ax.com...
> <jdsl...@invalid.com> scrawled the following:
>
>>On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:23:22 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
>><hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>>John, enough. Here's a photo of an early, swing-axle Triumph Spitfire
>>>jacking:
>>>
>>>http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads3/Spitfire+jacking+11090328641.jpg
>
> WTF is this? Wasn't the talk about how the suspension handles
> _cornering_? The front wheels are straight and both rear tires
> cambered out in this pic.
<snip>
Hey, Larry, take another look at that Spitfire photo. The front wheels
aren't straight. The car is leaning to the right, indicating that it's
turning left. The front wheels are turned slightly to the right. He's
countersteering to counteract the slide.
--
Ed Huntress
Bill McKee
Loved the Tipi 61 of Chuck Sargent. Could not believe how may birdcages
were at the Monterey Historics 2 years ago.
Ed Huntress
There is a true story that used to float around Lime Rock about someone -- I
forget who -- selling a pair of them right from the pits, around 1964 or so.
They were just obsolete race cars by then -- mid-engined cars were eating
them alive. Anyway, the story is, and I can't confirm it, that the pair sold
for $750.
That the cars were sold from the pits as a pair has been confirmed. I only
had one source for the price, a minor point in an article from SCG or R&T in
the late '60s. But it makes me want to cry.
BTW, I would give one non-dominant limb to see the Monterey event. I have
some photos from them that make me melt into the pavement. The late-'50s
racing Aston Martins that were the event marque one year would have been
nice to see.
--
Ed Huntress
Bill McKee
Hell, just book a cheap flight, throw a tent in a golf bag. Golf bags fly
free on most airlines. And camp at the races. They have campground right
by the track. Connect up with some others and you could use their stove, or
just get enough junk food to tide you over when the vendors are closed.
Life is short, go for the gusto.
Bill McKee
I believe it. I turned down buying a Ferrari GTO in 1967 for $5500. Was
for sale after, I think Sebring, and was being run at the old Vacaville
Raceway. Did not figure I could afford a new ZF transmission if it broke.
Could have bought it and put it in storage for a very good investment. I
think the highest they sold for was $16,000,000 yup that is 6 zeros about 15
years ago.