IN DEFENSE OF CORVAIRS

I well remember the red and white Corvairs that we had as “photo cars” or “camera cars”. In their defense, they really weren’t bad little cars. I think even Ralph Nader later admitted he gave them a bit of a bad rap with some questionable engineering criticism about the handling. I owned one for a number of years. (I enjoyed it, even though the threads were stripped in one spark plug hole and it had the quirky habit of popping the hot sparkplug out of the aluminum head where it would dangle by its wire while the engine made a loud chuffing noise until I could get it shut off. I kept a pair of pliers in the car to thread it back in and we would be soon on our way.)

Back to handling... I quickly found out that if you pushed the car into a corner, the back end might well come around and meet you on the way out. But once you learned to anticipate all that weight in the back, it was really a pretty nice handling car and you could do some fancy two-wheel drifts in tight curves and come out of the turn looking like you knew what you were doing. Of course, I would never have done that in a UT car! I have owned a couple of Porsches as well, and there ain’t that much difference in the way you drive the two although the Porsche is much better balanced and refined with its small 4-cylinder engine than the heavier Corvair pancake six ever thought of being, of course.

I would have to vote a thumbs down on the white Ford Mavericks that followed the Corvairs, and Stan didn’t keep the Fords too long. I liked the red and white Chevy Novas which replaced them. They were full size cars and much more comfy, even those basic models with few amenities. I think they actually had an AM radio. After that came the Pinto station wagons which were all white with blue lettering on the doors as I recall.

Like Thane, I almost burned one of the Mavericks up covering a wild fire, somewhere around Poway. I had parked the car on a road overlooking a little arroyo with the fire on the far side. All the windows were opened in the 100 plus degree heat and wind. I left the driver’s door open and walked up the hill to get some shots of a fire crew working where the road ended. As I was shooting my pictures, I looked back and was stunned to see the fire had come around the back side of the hill behind us and was licking up to where the lonely Maverick was sitting. Fires can be very nasty things if they can sneak up behind you. I managed an explosive comment that seemed appropriate at the time, and made a dash for the car just as a single gust of wind whooshed the flames momentarily in through the open window on one side and out the open door on the other. It didn’t do any damage other than leaving a bunch of hot ashes on the front seat, so I jumped in the car with the intent of getting my backsides out of there with a maximum of haste and a minimum of bodily damage. By the time I got turned around, the fire crew was in their truck right behind me and I enthusiastically led the little bumper to bumper parade down the mountain in my stalwart little UT photo car as fast as the fire truck could push me.