WEBVTT - The Chevrolet Corvair: How Safety Failed Us 0:00:15.316 --> 0:00:22.956 Pushkin. Hey Eddie here, before we get started, I wanted 0:00:22.996 --> 0:00:24.916 you to know that you can listen to Car Show 0:00:24.956 --> 0:00:29.276 ad free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You'll also 0:00:29.316 --> 0:00:32.796 get access to detours, bonus episodes of Car Show, where 0:00:32.836 --> 0:00:37.676 we go for extended drives, play outtakes, and more. Fine 0:00:37.716 --> 0:00:40.636 Pushkin Plus on the Car Show page in Apple Podcasts, 0:00:41.156 --> 0:00:48.556 or at pushkin dot Fm. Is a fun car for 0:00:48.876 --> 0:00:56.716 fun lovers for car lovers. Corvet a most unusual car 0:00:56.956 --> 0:01:05.276 for people who enjoy the unusual. A most unusual car. Indeed, 0:01:05.916 --> 0:01:09.396 the nineteen sixty Chevrolet Corvet didn't look like you're tipical 0:01:09.436 --> 0:01:13.276 General Motors car of the era. Its bodywork was naked 0:01:13.356 --> 0:01:18.836 of tailfins and excess chrome. It's styling was restrained. It 0:01:18.956 --> 0:01:22.596 had a slim wraparound belt line and subtle body surfacing. 0:01:23.436 --> 0:01:30.156 And that's just the outside. The Corvette was unusual from 0:01:30.196 --> 0:01:33.516 top to bottom, from stem to stern, and it was 0:01:33.636 --> 0:01:37.036 poised to put General Motors and maybe the whole American 0:01:37.116 --> 0:01:42.756 car business on a more sophisticated, driver oriented path. It 0:01:42.836 --> 0:01:44.996 was the vehicle GM would send into battle with the 0:01:45.076 --> 0:01:48.196 European cars just starting to hit our shores in the 0:01:48.276 --> 0:01:52.076 late nineteen fifties and early sixties. You know it's funny, 0:01:52.196 --> 0:01:55.476 is this doesn't look like your typical American sixties car, 0:01:55.596 --> 0:01:59.356 does it. There's no chrome everywhere. It's got this beautiful 0:01:59.516 --> 0:02:02.436 like ridge to the side. It's almost like a modern 0:02:02.476 --> 0:02:04.916 car the way you've got this little bone line and 0:02:04.956 --> 0:02:10.876 the bodywork tucks under, super sophisticated for the era, real restraint. 0:02:11.196 --> 0:02:14.516 It's a cool face. It looks very European. You know, 0:02:14.556 --> 0:02:18.236 it does not look American at all. Pretty nice size interior. Yeah, 0:02:18.316 --> 0:02:31.276 you can make out ease here in the car. The 0:02:31.396 --> 0:02:34.116 Chevrolet Corvet was one of the most consequential cars of 0:02:34.156 --> 0:02:37.236 all time, but maybe not for the reason you think. 0:02:38.556 --> 0:02:41.716 It wasn't because the car was America's first real attempt 0:02:41.996 --> 0:02:45.676 to beat back the imports. It wasn't even because it 0:02:45.716 --> 0:02:49.036 became the target of a huge safety crusade, one we'll 0:02:49.036 --> 0:02:53.996 talk about later in the episode. The Corvet was important 0:02:54.196 --> 0:02:59.356 because it represents a fork in the road of human accountability. 0:03:02.236 --> 0:03:04.716 My name is Eddie Alterman, and I've been editing car 0:03:04.756 --> 0:03:08.196 magazines since I was in short pants. This is Car Show, 0:03:08.596 --> 0:03:11.596 my pod cast about why we drive what we drive. 0:03:12.796 --> 0:03:16.676 The Corvet takes us to an important moment. The question 0:03:16.716 --> 0:03:20.716 it posed was Kenny Carmaker trust its customers to learn 0:03:20.756 --> 0:03:25.116 how to handle and maintain an unconventional automobile or must 0:03:25.116 --> 0:03:27.956 it design for the lowest level of skill and involvement? 0:03:29.676 --> 0:03:31.876 And what does that mean for those of us who 0:03:31.916 --> 0:03:52.996 love to drive? Right? Yeah? So well this thing is 0:03:52.996 --> 0:03:56.076 great love. I love enamel paint. I don't know how 0:03:56.116 --> 0:03:58.476 old the paint it actually is. When I got it, 0:03:58.476 --> 0:04:01.876 it was, I guess just been painted or something. I'm 0:04:01.876 --> 0:04:05.316 in a parking lot in Encino, California, with Brian Morris 0:04:05.436 --> 0:04:10.116 and his light yellow nineteen sixty three Corvet convertible. Where 0:04:10.316 --> 0:04:12.996 is now? What do you want to do? Start the car? 0:04:13.276 --> 0:04:26.996 Probably okay, just turn that to the ride. A vuncular, 0:04:27.436 --> 0:04:30.596 self deprecating and clad in a light yellow shirt and 0:04:30.676 --> 0:04:33.916 pants to match the car, Brian drove the couple hours 0:04:33.956 --> 0:04:37.156 to La from Camarillo to let us drive his Corvet. 0:04:37.956 --> 0:04:41.076 Brian bought this car from a family friend. He'd always 0:04:41.076 --> 0:04:44.236 wanted a Corvet convertible because his fraternity brother had a 0:04:44.316 --> 0:04:48.196 yellow one in nineteen sixty six. Brian is convinced the 0:04:48.236 --> 0:04:51.756 car helped his friend woo his future wife and just 0:04:51.876 --> 0:04:55.156 looking at it, you can see why this was the 0:04:55.236 --> 0:04:58.036 kind of car a dashing ivy leaguer would use to 0:04:58.116 --> 0:05:03.236 cruise Princeton at night. No, this has lovely light steering, 0:05:03.996 --> 0:05:08.196 rides great. It's really kind of relaxing to drive. I 0:05:08.236 --> 0:05:12.516 would say I had put a word to it. I 0:05:12.596 --> 0:05:15.476 think it's got enough power. I'd say, the faster you go, 0:05:15.556 --> 0:05:19.796 the easier it is draft interesting. I mean, we're going 0:05:20.116 --> 0:05:25.396 fifty five thousand an hour. It feels really straight, stable, easy, 0:05:26.036 --> 0:05:34.956 and we're not doing any extreme maneuvers. But it's so 0:05:35.076 --> 0:05:39.316 mild manner. That was lovely. This sounds great. Well, you 0:05:39.356 --> 0:05:42.196 know what this is. This is a go get ice 0:05:42.196 --> 0:05:53.156 cream car, sleek trim, not like those other hulking jock 0:05:53.236 --> 0:05:57.236 cars the jock kids drove. This was the American car 0:05:57.316 --> 0:06:01.516 for the American sophisticate, the person who smoked Nat Sherman cigarettes, 0:06:01.876 --> 0:06:06.036 who read the New Yorker, who wore White Bucks, Who 0:06:06.116 --> 0:06:09.676 was General Motors answer to the VW's Reyna and Alpha 0:06:09.756 --> 0:06:19.036 Romeo's rapidly infiltrating America. A little context is important here. 0:06:20.116 --> 0:06:24.076 Up until this point, General Motors, the parent corporation of Chevrolet, 0:06:24.796 --> 0:06:30.716 was the apple of mid century America. Utterly dominant, essential 0:06:30.756 --> 0:06:33.836 to our way of life. It had an apparent monopoly 0:06:33.876 --> 0:06:37.396 on good ideas and seemed capable of achieving the impossible. 0:06:38.356 --> 0:06:41.436 Post World War Two, GM led the industry with an 0:06:41.476 --> 0:06:46.116 astonishing fifty percent share of the car market. Its mid 0:06:46.116 --> 0:06:52.036 century run was the stuff of epics. GM invented the 0:06:52.076 --> 0:06:56.996 automotive design department. It thought harder and better about self 0:06:57.076 --> 0:07:00.916 driving cars back in nineteen fifty eight than most autonomous 0:07:00.916 --> 0:07:05.756 car hucksters do today. It sent cars to the moon 0:07:05.916 --> 0:07:10.556 on Apollo rockets. It built a temple to itself in Warren, Michigan, 0:07:10.916 --> 0:07:13.996 designed by Aero Saarinen, the same guy who built a 0:07:14.036 --> 0:07:18.116 TWA terminal at JFK and the Gateway arch in Saint Louis. 0:07:19.116 --> 0:07:24.956 GM made trucks, buses, locomotives, home appliances, you name it, 0:07:25.756 --> 0:07:33.556 and of course cars, sleek corvettes, extravagant Cadillac Eldorado's chrome 0:07:33.636 --> 0:07:44.556 toothed Buick roadmasters. It was oz, but substantial headwinds buffeted 0:07:44.596 --> 0:07:49.116 its mid century progress. This administration will continue to undertake 0:07:49.316 --> 0:07:55.996 any maker dot Willard sis healthy economic recovery. At the 0:07:56.076 --> 0:08:00.236 start of Eisenhower's second presidential term, a recession had many 0:08:00.276 --> 0:08:04.636 car buyers reconsidering their lane filling tailfin barges. With their 0:08:04.676 --> 0:08:10.396 acres of chrome, European cars like vwzmg's presented new options 0:08:10.436 --> 0:08:14.876 for the sporty set or the frugally minded Jeffersonian. In 0:08:14.996 --> 0:08:18.956 nineteen fifty four, only about twenty thousand Americans bought small 0:08:18.996 --> 0:08:24.796 European cars. Four years later that number was twenty times higher, 0:08:25.396 --> 0:08:30.036 almost ten percent of the car market. Critically, the Big 0:08:30.076 --> 0:08:33.716 Three had no small Sunan offerings at that time. They 0:08:33.716 --> 0:08:36.996 only made them in two sizes back then large and 0:08:37.196 --> 0:08:45.396 extra large. Enter the Corvee. It was what happened when 0:08:45.396 --> 0:08:49.356 the mightiest car company on Earth set its mind to downsizing. 0:08:50.196 --> 0:08:53.596 The Corvee would fuse the engineering ingenuity of those small 0:08:53.636 --> 0:08:58.316 European cars to the comfort of a Chevrolet. Its name 0:08:58.396 --> 0:09:02.956 revealed GM's intentions. Corvee would have the verve of a 0:09:03.036 --> 0:09:10.116 Corvette and the solidity of a bell Air. But despite 0:09:10.116 --> 0:09:14.596 the portmanteau, Corvet was unlike anything GM had made before, 0:09:15.716 --> 0:09:18.196 from its engine type to its placement in the car, 0:09:18.876 --> 0:09:22.276 from its suspension to the design of its bodywork. It 0:09:22.356 --> 0:09:24.676 was a car to beat the Europeans at their own 0:09:24.756 --> 0:09:28.716 fencing match, using European engineering techniques and sense of style 0:09:29.156 --> 0:09:34.316 against them. Underneath its seductive lagdolce vit to bodywork was 0:09:34.356 --> 0:09:39.636 what automotive engineers call a rear rear layout. It's very 0:09:39.756 --> 0:09:43.156 rarely deployed. It means an engine in the rear of 0:09:43.156 --> 0:09:46.916 the car after the rear axle, with power routed to 0:09:46.916 --> 0:09:50.916 the rear wheels. It sounds odd as it's the complete 0:09:50.916 --> 0:09:54.276 inverse of the front wheel drive front engine sedan norm 0:09:54.436 --> 0:09:57.476 we know today, but it's a great formula for a 0:09:57.556 --> 0:10:01.836 sporting machine. The original VW Beetle had this layout and 0:10:01.996 --> 0:10:05.476 gifted it to the Porsche three fifty six, arguably the 0:10:05.516 --> 0:10:08.836 best sports car of its day. Putting the engine in 0:10:08.876 --> 0:10:11.556 the back of a rear drive car meant that the 0:10:11.636 --> 0:10:14.636 majority of the mass was over the driven wheels, which 0:10:14.636 --> 0:10:19.396 gave the car superb traction when accelerating, but having all 0:10:19.396 --> 0:10:22.956 that mass back there demanded attention when breaking hard or 0:10:22.996 --> 0:10:27.876 taking evasive action. And then there was the car's swing axele, 0:10:28.596 --> 0:10:32.716 one of the earliest and most basic independent rear suspension designs, 0:10:33.196 --> 0:10:38.356 which further complicated things. Unlike every car today, a swing 0:10:38.356 --> 0:10:41.796 axle lacks an outboard hue joint, where each axle meets 0:10:41.796 --> 0:10:45.356 the wheel hub, so as the wheels move up and down, 0:10:45.836 --> 0:10:48.836 like when you take a corner hard, the hub's position 0:10:48.956 --> 0:10:52.476 is fixed. It can't pivot to keep the tires alignment 0:10:52.556 --> 0:10:56.356 consistent to the road. This can upset the car's balanced, 0:10:56.836 --> 0:11:00.156 but it is not terribly hard to control. Lots of 0:11:00.196 --> 0:11:06.036 cars from the thirties through the fifties had swing axles. 0:11:06.076 --> 0:11:09.236 Back with Brian Morris in the Corvet were applying in 0:11:09.236 --> 0:11:13.556 the concept. So when you're exercising the car and you're 0:11:14.396 --> 0:11:17.436 unloading the rear and there's less weight on the rear, 0:11:17.916 --> 0:11:20.476 and the rear of it lifts up, like if you're 0:11:21.196 --> 0:11:24.556 charging into a turn really hot and you've got the 0:11:24.556 --> 0:11:28.076 front end kind of planted in, the back end lifts up. 0:11:29.596 --> 0:11:33.156 Swing axles will droop down. They sort of tuck under, 0:11:33.796 --> 0:11:36.756 and it can take you by surprise if you're not 0:11:36.796 --> 0:11:41.596 ready for it. But you know, in every car I've 0:11:41.676 --> 0:11:46.276 driven with swing axles, the car really tells you what 0:11:46.316 --> 0:11:50.436 it's doing. It doesn't come as a surprise. And what 0:11:50.476 --> 0:11:54.436 you do in that situation, and this is really counterintuitive, 0:11:55.316 --> 0:11:58.236 you have to give it more gas, not less, like 0:11:58.396 --> 0:12:02.036 in a regular car. Things get squirrely you just lift 0:12:02.076 --> 0:12:06.876 off the gas pedal and everything rights itself. But in 0:12:06.956 --> 0:12:09.436 a car with swing axles and a rear engine, you 0:12:09.476 --> 0:12:13.636 need to settle the rear by accelerating and shifting a 0:12:13.756 --> 0:12:16.676 load of the thing and the mass backwards so the 0:12:16.716 --> 0:12:21.556 wheels could pull out of right exactly right. So to 0:12:22.156 --> 0:12:25.916 avoid the droop, you have to do something that feels unnatural. 0:12:26.276 --> 0:12:29.196 But once you learn how to drive a car with 0:12:29.956 --> 0:12:32.836 those kinds of axels, like a beetle or a three 0:12:32.916 --> 0:12:37.396 fifty six or a going it's really fun and it's natural. 0:12:38.076 --> 0:12:40.476 It's a skill that you have to develop. But once 0:12:40.516 --> 0:12:43.476 you do, it's pretty gratifying to drive a car like this. 0:12:48.636 --> 0:12:52.196 But if you didn't develop those skills, well, that's where 0:12:52.236 --> 0:12:55.756 the trouble came in the acquire Ralph Nader, a legal 0:12:55.796 --> 0:12:59.316 advisor to the United States Senate Inquiry, has just published 0:12:59.356 --> 0:13:04.076 a book called Unsafe at Any Speed. In an interview 0:13:04.116 --> 0:13:07.796 with Warner Troyer, Ralph Nader took aim at the corveer 0:13:07.876 --> 0:13:11.836 in Unsafe at Any Speech, alleging that GM withheld critical 0:13:11.876 --> 0:13:15.836 safety equipment in the engineering of the car. You say 0:13:15.916 --> 0:13:18.276 that the cor of air for three or four years, yes, 0:13:18.876 --> 0:13:25.316 was an unsafe vehicle to drive. Isn't that a pretty 0:13:25.316 --> 0:13:30.036 wild exaggeration. No. I think the core are models nineteen 0:13:30.116 --> 0:13:33.276 sixty to sixty three, and to some extent sixty four 0:13:34.436 --> 0:13:38.876 had a rear axle which is called technically a swing 0:13:38.916 --> 0:13:45.036 axle rear suspension system which, under certain predictable conditions of driving, 0:13:45.716 --> 0:13:50.676 the car would suddenly unexpectedly go out of control. He 0:13:50.876 --> 0:13:53.436 thought GM should have put an anti roll bar in 0:13:53.476 --> 0:13:57.916 the rear suspension to tame the car's handling. His argument 0:13:57.956 --> 0:14:01.276 was based on some one hundred lawsuits against GM filed 0:14:01.276 --> 0:14:04.356 by drivers who lost control of the car more than 0:14:04.396 --> 0:14:08.756 a statistical anomaly. GM would settle most of these suits 0:14:08.756 --> 0:14:14.876 out of court. In his book, Nader did not hold 0:14:14.916 --> 0:14:22.036 back from Unsafe's first sentence. Nader was often running for 0:14:22.196 --> 0:14:27.276 over half a century. He wrote, the automobile has brought death, injury, 0:14:27.596 --> 0:14:32.156 and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people. 0:14:34.076 --> 0:14:36.516 Ralph Nader was not a fun lover like our friend 0:14:36.516 --> 0:14:40.276 Brian Morris with a yellow corvet or your humble narrator. 0:14:41.596 --> 0:14:46.316 Nader was all business. He went to Princeton for undergrad 0:14:46.516 --> 0:14:50.276 and then Harvard Law School. After that, his best friends 0:14:50.276 --> 0:14:54.156 were books. He did not play Hackey Sack in the quad, 0:14:54.596 --> 0:14:57.796 nor did he rip Narley bongtoakes with the brost Sigma Kai. 0:14:59.316 --> 0:15:01.516 I would say he was monk like, but he was 0:15:01.716 --> 0:15:05.396 way more self righteous than any monk. Either it's cheer, 0:15:05.476 --> 0:15:08.476 callousness or indifference, or they don't bother to find out 0:15:08.516 --> 0:15:15.116 how they're card behave. Nater took aim at the largest 0:15:15.156 --> 0:15:19.356 corporation in the world, arguing that the corvet was a lethal, 0:15:19.716 --> 0:15:24.116 unpredictable viper of a car ready to bite without provocation. 0:15:25.596 --> 0:15:29.836 That's simply not true. The car could be a handful, 0:15:30.236 --> 0:15:32.876 but it was predictable if you understood how it worked, 0:15:33.996 --> 0:15:37.356 also if you understood how to maintain it. In the 0:15:37.396 --> 0:15:42.036 corverre's case, maintaining balancing control depended a lot on setting 0:15:42.036 --> 0:15:46.236 the tire pressures properly. It required a conscientious approach to 0:15:46.356 --> 0:15:50.756 vehicle maintenance. But gas station attendance at the time had 0:15:50.756 --> 0:15:54.996 a saying twenty four pounds all around and did not 0:15:55.196 --> 0:15:58.196 care about keeping the corvert's tires at the right inflations. 0:15:58.716 --> 0:16:02.076 Those inflations, if we're getting technical, were eighteen pounds per 0:16:02.116 --> 0:16:04.156 square inch in front to give the tire a fatter 0:16:04.276 --> 0:16:08.396 footprint and thirty pounds of pressure at the rear. Even 0:16:08.476 --> 0:16:10.956 more stability he would be afforded by an anti roll 0:16:10.996 --> 0:16:13.996 bar in the chassis, which GM would put in the 0:16:14.036 --> 0:16:18.036 second generation of the car in nineteen sixty five. You 0:16:18.156 --> 0:16:21.556 had to take care of it. Most people did not. 0:16:24.276 --> 0:16:27.956 Though the Corvee was an above average car aimed at 0:16:27.996 --> 0:16:32.276 an above average driver, that's not necessarily who ended up 0:16:32.276 --> 0:16:35.676 buying it. Plenty of people in the nineteen sixties looking 0:16:35.676 --> 0:16:39.956 for a small, affordable sedan walked into a Chevrolet dealership 0:16:40.436 --> 0:16:43.876 and drove out in a corvee. The buyer for the 0:16:43.956 --> 0:16:47.676 car was probably more of a small sedan buyer, and 0:16:47.716 --> 0:16:51.756 so you had to apply that kind of sports car 0:16:51.876 --> 0:16:54.076 care to this car, which a lot of them probably 0:16:54.076 --> 0:16:57.036 didn't do. So a buyer of a three fifty six 0:16:57.196 --> 0:16:59.396 knows what he or she is getting into a little 0:16:59.396 --> 0:17:03.996 bit more, whereas maybe the buyer of the corvee was like, Oh, 0:17:03.996 --> 0:17:07.756 it's just like you know, the bell Air, except a 0:17:07.756 --> 0:17:11.756 little bit smaller, getting sportier, and I can afford it. Yeah, 0:17:11.796 --> 0:17:13.996 and I can afford it, and you know, I don't 0:17:13.996 --> 0:17:16.756 have to buy one of those imports. I think General 0:17:16.796 --> 0:17:20.916 Motors was saying we're just as good as those sporting 0:17:21.036 --> 0:17:24.716 imports from Germany, and we're gonna create a car that 0:17:25.076 --> 0:17:28.836 might challenge you a little bit. And I don't know 0:17:28.876 --> 0:17:31.916 if the average buyer was prepared for it. But also, 0:17:32.476 --> 0:17:37.996 there's nothing diabolical or crazy about this card. It's comfortable, 0:17:38.116 --> 0:17:42.196 you know, cor this thing tracks great. You know when 0:17:43.196 --> 0:17:47.116 in the Blues Brothers when Jake and Ellwood go into 0:17:47.236 --> 0:17:52.196 Ray Charles Ponshaw and need to buy some instruments, and 0:17:52.876 --> 0:17:55.276 you don't remember that I don't, and he quotes in 0:17:55.356 --> 0:18:00.036 this ridiculous price on a Rhodes piano, and he goes, 0:18:00.076 --> 0:18:02.716 that's crazy for this thing. It's all beat up, and 0:18:03.476 --> 0:18:07.436 Charles goes, excuse me, I don't think there's anything wrong 0:18:07.476 --> 0:18:17.676 with the action on this piano. And that's kind of 0:18:17.716 --> 0:18:21.196 how I feel about this. Whether all of this, it's great. 0:18:24.436 --> 0:18:26.076 He just got an auto to play it, He got 0:18:26.156 --> 0:18:35.036 an aw to drive it. Cheated death yet again, pocket 0:18:35.076 --> 0:18:44.436 signing nator Nader would have been unconvinced and unsafe at 0:18:44.436 --> 0:18:47.716 any speed. He suggests that the issue was an owner 0:18:47.716 --> 0:18:52.596 maintenance or driving behavior. The issue was that Chevrolet was 0:18:52.636 --> 0:18:56.236 too cheap that it chose to forego an anti roll 0:18:56.276 --> 0:19:01.356 bar in the rear suspension because it added cost. Nader wrote, 0:19:01.996 --> 0:19:06.276 an automobile representing a reduction of one thousand, three hundred 0:19:06.316 --> 0:19:09.676 and thirty two pounds of material, or more than one 0:19:09.796 --> 0:19:13.036 third the weight of a standard nineteen sixty Chevrolet that 0:19:13.116 --> 0:19:15.916 could sell for only about two hundred dollars less than 0:19:15.996 --> 0:19:20.596 standard models, would constitute a marvel of production cost efficiency 0:19:20.956 --> 0:19:27.516 and sales ingenuity. If the Corvee was such a miracle 0:19:27.556 --> 0:19:32.596 of profitability with so much economic headroom, why would GM 0:19:32.636 --> 0:19:34.796 care about the cost of adding a slim piece of 0:19:34.796 --> 0:19:38.276 metal to the rear end. Doesn't make a lot of sense. 0:19:39.556 --> 0:19:42.316 By the time Nater's book came out in nineteen sixty five, 0:19:42.996 --> 0:19:46.396 the Corvee had already evolved from swing axles to a 0:19:46.436 --> 0:19:50.596 more advanced and stable type of independent rear suspension. It 0:19:50.676 --> 0:19:53.916 was an admission on GM's part that the Corvee had 0:19:53.956 --> 0:19:58.236 room for improvement. Though a new suspension is a big alteration, 0:19:58.996 --> 0:20:02.716 changes are common in the car industry, and all new 0:20:02.756 --> 0:20:05.916 model comes out, its flaws are cataloged by the press 0:20:05.916 --> 0:20:09.676 and owners, and the company works to modify it. It 0:20:09.756 --> 0:20:15.396 usually takes a few years. Though he wrote damningly that 0:20:15.556 --> 0:20:20.916 GM diluted its engineering standards for the Corvet. Nater's book 0:20:21.076 --> 0:20:24.076 did not prompt any changes to the car. The ebbs 0:20:24.076 --> 0:20:28.356 and flows of the car development process did. That. Nater's 0:20:28.436 --> 0:20:32.556 book came out after GM made the change. He himself 0:20:32.716 --> 0:20:35.876 noted in the very first chapter that GM had made 0:20:35.916 --> 0:20:40.836 these upgrades. Still, despite taking aim at the largest and 0:20:40.956 --> 0:20:45.116 richest corporation in America, the book did not make much noise, 0:20:45.316 --> 0:20:51.356 at least initially, but it worried GM. The corporation viewed 0:20:51.356 --> 0:20:54.996 it as an attack on its sterling reputation, and they 0:20:55.076 --> 0:20:58.716 sought to attack Nater in kind. When it became known 0:20:58.756 --> 0:21:02.876 that GM had Nater tailed by private investigators, the story 0:21:02.996 --> 0:21:07.316 erupted and the book got noticed, another great moment in 0:21:07.356 --> 0:21:16.836 the history of unintended sequences. In the wake of the book, 0:21:17.276 --> 0:21:21.476 sales of the re engineered Corvete without the swing axle collapsed. 0:21:22.356 --> 0:21:25.036 In three years, GM went from selling more than two 0:21:25.156 --> 0:21:28.996 hundred thousand Corveres a year to fewer than fifteen thousand, 0:21:29.956 --> 0:21:34.076 even as GM modified the car for greater stability. Nater 0:21:34.156 --> 0:21:36.676 gets all the credit for this precipitous drop in sales, 0:21:37.356 --> 0:21:40.476 but it is also true that the Ford Mustang did 0:21:40.476 --> 0:21:46.516 as much as natter to kill the unconventional little Chevy stampede, 0:21:46.676 --> 0:21:51.796 a stampede of one hundred thousand Mustangs Ford Mustang in 0:21:51.916 --> 0:21:54.756 less than four months. The board Mustang has become the 0:21:54.796 --> 0:21:58.076 most talked about, most exciting and fasto selling you've gotten 0:21:58.116 --> 0:22:01.956 over twenty years. It seems like just about everyone wants one. 0:22:01.996 --> 0:22:05.516 It was the Mustang, after all, that made small American 0:22:05.596 --> 0:22:12.236 cars sexied. Five must they call it them two blacktoos. 0:22:12.676 --> 0:22:15.796 It seats two upfront and when you pull down the 0:22:15.836 --> 0:22:19.196 two bag seats, and there's room for a beach umbrella, 0:22:19.556 --> 0:22:25.076 third board and a pheasant underglass. Henry's become quite a gourmet. 0:22:25.876 --> 0:22:28.836 So I try to have everything ready for him when 0:22:28.876 --> 0:22:33.236 he gets here. Why don't you change your nfe Ford 0:22:33.316 --> 0:22:35.836 pitched the staying down the middle of the strike zone 0:22:36.036 --> 0:22:41.156 at the largest, best educated, and most affluent generation America 0:22:41.276 --> 0:22:46.636 had ever seen, Baby Boomers. It's arrival in nineteen sixty 0:22:46.636 --> 0:22:50.836 four coincided with the boomer's first driving years. If the 0:22:50.876 --> 0:22:54.436 Ford Model T mobilized the New America, then the Ford 0:22:54.516 --> 0:23:00.516 Mustang mobilized a new American entity, the teenager with the 0:23:00.556 --> 0:23:03.996 affordable and fun Mustang out on the street. The Corvet 0:23:04.156 --> 0:23:08.876 was doomed anyway. Still, the car in the book are 0:23:08.916 --> 0:23:12.716 for ever linked. Nater made it so that Corvet's very 0:23:12.876 --> 0:23:18.236 name conjureous disaster. It is GM's analog to Ford's Edsel, 0:23:19.436 --> 0:23:23.436 And with the book, Nator basically invented what we now 0:23:23.476 --> 0:23:28.796 know as consumer advocacy. As the saying goes, consumer advocacy 0:23:29.196 --> 0:23:34.356 focuses on fighting baths rather than producing goods. It is 0:23:34.396 --> 0:23:37.636 a movement that has given us cleaner air, cleaner water, 0:23:38.156 --> 0:23:45.276 and more temperate McDonald's coffee. Unsafe at Any Speed launched 0:23:45.276 --> 0:23:48.836 a movement. It was the immediate precursor to the establishment 0:23:48.836 --> 0:23:53.196 of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other government 0:23:53.236 --> 0:23:59.436 oversight agencies. Cars, of course, are safer now too. In 0:23:59.476 --> 0:24:03.236 the mid sixties, there were roughly five road fatalities for 0:24:03.316 --> 0:24:07.516 every one hundred million miles driven. Today it's roughly one 0:24:07.596 --> 0:24:14.236 fatality over that same distance and eighty percent improvement. That's 0:24:14.316 --> 0:24:17.156 incredible progress, and I find it hard to argue that 0:24:17.236 --> 0:24:22.716 Nader's book didn't bring the issue into the mainstream. But 0:24:22.836 --> 0:24:27.636 there's one number I can't quite get past. We'll talk 0:24:27.676 --> 0:24:41.436 about it after the break, Hey, listeners, while I've got 0:24:41.476 --> 0:24:43.236 you for a second. I want to talk to you 0:24:43.276 --> 0:24:45.916 about a podcast I've been enjoying that I think you 0:24:45.996 --> 0:24:50.156 might like to It's called Patented, and it's all about 0:24:50.236 --> 0:24:54.356 history's most impactful inventions, from the airplane to the humble 0:24:54.396 --> 0:24:57.436 cup of coffee, and the inventors who claimed these ideas 0:24:57.476 --> 0:25:01.476 as their own. The history of inventions is full of myths, 0:25:02.076 --> 0:25:06.076 stories of Eureka moments and genius loan inventors, but this 0:25:06.236 --> 0:25:11.076 reality is often a lot more complicated and interesting. Patented 0:25:11.196 --> 0:25:14.596 is hosted by Dallas Campbell, a science presenter who loves 0:25:14.636 --> 0:25:17.076 to try to get to the bottom of these messy stories. 0:25:17.836 --> 0:25:20.596 They have episodes on everything from how corn flakes were 0:25:20.596 --> 0:25:24.716 created on a foundation of some pretty questionable science, why 0:25:24.836 --> 0:25:27.316 monks were the most inventive minds of the Middle Ages, 0:25:27.876 --> 0:25:30.396 and who should really get credit for the first motion 0:25:30.436 --> 0:25:36.276 picture spoiler it's not Thomas Edison. Coming up. They have 0:25:36.396 --> 0:25:41.996 episodes on cryonics, contactless payment, and plastic surgery. So if 0:25:42.036 --> 0:25:44.796 any of that sounds up your ally, you can subscribe 0:25:44.796 --> 0:25:48.316 to Patented History of Inventions from our friends over at 0:25:48.356 --> 0:25:53.636 History hit on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:25:59.236 --> 0:26:02.716 Nater's advocacy in the nineteen sixties brought about a new 0:26:02.716 --> 0:26:07.916 awareness around automotive safety. But there's one statistic that nags 0:26:07.956 --> 0:26:14.116 at me. Before Nater entered the scene, roughly forty thousand 0:26:14.116 --> 0:26:19.596 people died per year in car collisions. Today, forty thousand 0:26:19.636 --> 0:26:23.876 people per years still die in car collisions. Sure, the 0:26:23.956 --> 0:26:27.156 population is larger, so the proportion of deaths is down, 0:26:27.836 --> 0:26:30.996 and fatalities per mile is a fraction of what it was. 0:26:32.476 --> 0:26:38.196 But forty thousand deaths is still forty thousand deaths. That's 0:26:38.276 --> 0:26:46.076 forty thousand real people, mothers, daughters, sons, and fathers. This 0:26:46.316 --> 0:26:51.516 in an age of air bags, passenger safety cells, crumple zones, 0:26:51.956 --> 0:26:56.116 blind spot warnings, and a host of other safety innovations 0:26:56.196 --> 0:27:00.036 that didn't exist sixty five years ago. With all the 0:27:00.076 --> 0:27:04.236 advances in automotive and road safety in those intervening six decades, 0:27:04.916 --> 0:27:07.756 you think that that number would be much much lower. 0:27:11.236 --> 0:27:15.516 So why is it still so high. Well, one theory 0:27:15.596 --> 0:27:18.836 is that, in the wake of nature, we stopped focusing 0:27:18.836 --> 0:27:23.236 on driver proficiency and started letting the car assume responsibility 0:27:23.436 --> 0:27:27.356 for our safety. Kenneth White wrote a book about that shift, 0:27:28.476 --> 0:27:31.276 in the Sack of Detroit. He tells us how it 0:27:31.356 --> 0:27:34.876 played out. So it wasn't until the twenties when everybody 0:27:34.916 --> 0:27:37.636 had a car and people were using cars a lot 0:27:37.716 --> 0:27:39.836 more and the roads were better and they were driving 0:27:39.876 --> 0:27:44.796 faster and driving off them faster. That's when traffic safety 0:27:44.836 --> 0:27:49.396 became more of an issue. And so Herbert Hoover has 0:27:49.476 --> 0:27:55.836 this big confab in the nineteen twenties where he invites 0:27:56.396 --> 0:28:01.796 the industry, he invites health authorities, he invites municipal and 0:28:01.836 --> 0:28:04.516 state governments and said, you know, we got to do 0:28:04.676 --> 0:28:08.116 something about it. Let's pull together all the information we 0:28:08.196 --> 0:28:12.836 have about auto safety and come up with a general 0:28:12.876 --> 0:28:15.796 approach to the problem. And that's where the Tripoli approach 0:28:15.876 --> 0:28:22.796 came from. Triple E. It stands for education, engineering, and enforcement. 0:28:23.756 --> 0:28:26.516 Education was about making sure people knew that cars were 0:28:26.596 --> 0:28:29.516 dangerous and that they knew how to drive, how to 0:28:29.556 --> 0:28:34.196 share the road, and how to maintain their vehicles. Engineering 0:28:34.236 --> 0:28:37.956 concerned road design and ensuring that highways were properly marked 0:28:38.076 --> 0:28:41.756 and had good sight lines and grading. This led to 0:28:41.836 --> 0:28:45.036 the divided highway and much greater levels of highway safety. 0:28:46.396 --> 0:28:52.876 An enforcement well you know what that means. But while 0:28:52.876 --> 0:28:56.316 the proportion of deaths relative to driven miles was going down, 0:28:57.236 --> 0:29:00.796 a huge number of people were still dying in car crashes. 0:29:01.076 --> 0:29:04.436 It was the medical community that first said, you know, 0:29:04.556 --> 0:29:08.356 maybe triple E isn't everything here. Maybe there's something else 0:29:08.396 --> 0:29:13.556 we can do to keep people from getting smashed to 0:29:13.636 --> 0:29:17.556 pieces in their automobiles. They were more concerned with what 0:29:17.716 --> 0:29:21.276 was called the second collision, which was after the bad 0:29:21.316 --> 0:29:24.316 thing on the road had happened, and then driver or 0:29:24.396 --> 0:29:28.476 passenger hits the dashboard or goes flying out of the vehicle, 0:29:28.556 --> 0:29:32.516 and that's where the whole second collision theory, which was 0:29:33.276 --> 0:29:38.356 taken as an alternative to the triple East school, came 0:29:38.396 --> 0:29:42.796 into play. In the nineteen fifties. Nader was a second 0:29:42.796 --> 0:29:46.516 collision man. He thought the car was the problem, not 0:29:46.556 --> 0:29:52.156 the driver. In Unsafe, he called the Corvette an American 0:29:52.196 --> 0:29:56.156 car that abruptly decides to do the driving for the driver. 0:29:56.996 --> 0:30:00.116 The idea that we had to concentrate now on car 0:30:00.196 --> 0:30:07.236 interiors as the leading factor in human carnage was appealing 0:30:07.276 --> 0:30:13.516 to the men folks, but it was also appealing to 0:30:13.756 --> 0:30:17.756 the tort industry in the US in the fifties, the 0:30:19.036 --> 0:30:24.876 tort industry saw an opportunity to use second collision theory 0:30:25.356 --> 0:30:32.956 to argue that all traffic accidents were the responsibility of carmakers, 0:30:33.116 --> 0:30:37.596