Word: corvair
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...trust" in the GM management to handle the environment problem. When you get into statistics, however, it's a little hard to play the game with a straight face. GM has long had the worst record of the Big Three in 1) auto safety (they brought you the Corvair); 2) pollution control (35 per cent of the nation's entire-not just automotive-pollution tonnage comes from GM); and 3) hiring of minority workers (of GM's 13,000 national new car franchises, only seven belong to non-whites...
...supreme irony is that the Corvair in production at the time of the furor (1965 and later) was considered by many mechanical engineers as well as enthusiasts to be the best-handling American sedan available. It is bad enough to live with this know-it-all but to have you glorify him is absolutely nauseating. If he is really serious about safety, why doesn't he work on the worst, most critical, problem-the drinking driver...
Nader was able to force off the market General Motors' Corvair, which was withdrawn from production this year. Corvair's sales had plunged by 93% after Nader condemned the car as a safety hazard in his bestseller, Unsafe at Any Speed. That influential book, and Nader's later speeches, articles and congressional appearances, also forced the Department of Transportation to impose stricter safety standards on automobile and tire manufacturers...
...first inkling that all was not well with the Corvair's suspension system came from a disgruntled General Motors auto worker who wrote him a letter. In Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader went on to single out the sporty car's rear-suspension system as an example of hazardous compromise between engineering and styling. At certain speeds and tire pressures, or in certain types of turns, he charged, the rear wheels could "tuck
...FOUR YEARS since his Unsafe at Any Speed drove Corvair off the market and set General Motors detectives on his tail. Ralph Nader has gone a long way towards establishing himself as the Renaissance Man of American crusaders. After cutting his muckraking teeth on the automobile industry. Nader has moved on to hit a staggering range of targets...