Hey, don’t hate us, we didn’t design, build, or destroy it. Okay, we wanted to make sure to get that out there first thing, as this week for our Throwback Thursday, we take a look at everyone’s love-to-hate-it car, the Chevrolet Corvair.

In 1965 and 1966 the Corvair was available with a production Corsa engine. The 164 cubic inch, aluminum alloy engine featured a turbo, and was rated at 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm.

When the Corvair was first released, many considered it revolutionary. The fact that the engine was in the rear of the car, was unprecedented from an American car maker. In regards to the body, in 1959, the “flying wing” roof was being utilized across the 1959 General Motors line, but the rest of the car just wasn’t flashy enough for consumers. It was the age of chrome, fins, and bold grilles, and Corvair had none of that.

An often-recounted discussion between Chevrolet Chief Engineer Ed Cole and Maurice Olley—the division’s Director of Research in 1955, refers to the various engine/drivetrain variations for a small car. These discussed variations included a conventional front engine/rear wheel drive, front-wheel drive, and finally, rear engine/rear drive. At the time, a number of small European cars were tested, and the rear-engine design used by Volkswagen was realized to be very advantageous for a lot of reasons.

In January 1960, Kai Hansen, Project Lead for Corvair, told a meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers: “Our first objective, once the decision was made to design a smaller, lighter car, was to attain good styling proportions. Merely shortening the wheel base and front and rear overhang was not acceptable. To permit lower overall height and to accommodate six adult passengers, the floor hump for the driveshaft had to go. Eliminating the conventional driveshaft made it essential that the car have either rear-engine/rear-drive, or front-engine/front-drive. Before making a decision, all types of European cars were studied, including front-engine/front-drive designs. None measured up to our standards of road performance.”

The first designs were of a sedan and a coupe, but because of its unusual design, the Corvair was expensive to produce. Designed as an economical car, and receiving an engine with modest power. Sales were not a good as GM had hoped. But, when America discovered the Monza show car, which was a sporty Corvair with bucket seats and a floor shifter, it was immediately put into production.

In 1961, the Corvair product line expanded, with the addition of a Monza sedan, a station wagon, a family van, a commercial panel van, and pickup truck models. For 1962, Chevrolet introduced the Monza convertible and the sporty Spyder with a turbocharged engine. Unfortunately, the market was shifting, and Americans wanted larger cars with bigger, more powerful engines. In 1963, the station wagon was discontinued.

In 1965, Covair’s kiss of death was administered. Ralph Nader published his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, and the first chapter was dedicated solely to the Corvair. Nader’s complaint recounted the inadequacies of the 1960 – 1963 rear suspension design, but that design was already discontinued. It didn’t matter that Nader’s complaint was outdated, the Corvair could not recover. After ten years of production throughout the 1960s, the last Corvair was built on May 14, 1969.