The rear engine Corvair wasn’t exactly GM’s first foray into the mysteries of rear engine cars. There were a number of experiments, and the 1949 Corsair concept, although only a 3/8 scale model, was a preview of what might have been a rear engine Cadillac or Oldsmobile. In my CC on the Tatra 603, when I titled it “This could have been the first new postwar Cadillac or Olds”, I was referring to the Corsair.
(Page 2 wouldn’t load up, so here’s the text for it, and the image is above)
If this sounds screwy, it’s typical of some of the inspired double-talk that has been going on ever since the revival of the rear-engine ruckus.
The Burney design, which went whole-hog on radiators with one in back to cool the engine and another in front to heat passengers, was sold eventually to the British Crosley. They came out with a $3000 sedan which set no sales records.
An experimental rear-engine design made its appearance in 1933. John Tjaarda, a Detroiter who designed two experimental models for the Briggs Manufacturing Company, claimed it was ridiculously simple to drive. He explained in the magazine Automobile Topics: “When starting, all one has to do is turn on the ignition, when a red light will show on the dash. Then step on the throttle which simultaneously starts the engine and the red light will go out and a green light shows. As the engine can not be heard in the front seat, the lights will tell what is happening in the rear.”
Tjaarda’s cars caused a mild sensation in the industry for a year or two. Then Chrysler and Ford, potential customers for whom Briggs already made bodies, had to decide whether the sensation was good or bad. The freaks had V-8 engines mounted over the rear axles and buzzed through the streets of Detroit without mishap until winter arrived. The original notion was that the engine heat could not seep forward and cause discomfort during hot weather. As it turned out, passengers were cool enough in summer, but during the winter they froze. No heating system had been devised!
Most unconventional and probably most comfortable of all interiors in a rear-engine experiment was brought out several years before World War II by William B. (Bill) Stout.
As usual, GM thinking with the Corsair was too out there, with the central driving position between the front wheels. Which they then gave as the reason for killing the idea. They should have just built something like the Tatra 603, which was eminently practical, and offered every bit as much or more interior room as GM’s new post war production cars, a proper trunk in front, and competitive performance. And they could have called it the…Corvair.
CC Tatra 603: “This Could Have Been The First New Postwar Cadilla, Olds or Studebaker”
The middle front seat was just unnecessary and bizarre. Earl had an aircraft fetish, always trying to make cars look like fighters with fins and bubble cockpits. The blond in the second row should have been the driver, with the front hood extended back to normal length, and a normal greenhouse.
The middle front seat was just unnecessary and bizarre.
Well, that didn’t prevent McLaren from making F1, a very successful and iconic car, with driver’s seat, instrument cluster, and steering wheel in the middle. No need to spend more money on engineering the left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive systems.
Speedtail, F1’s “spiritual successor”, is built with that feature, too.
And the Matra Murena.
Think it was a Clarkson piece about the McLaren that referenced the Matra, saying the central position worked in the F1 as the car was fast enough to overtake with your eyes shut
Matra isn’t exactly the one we have in mind because the seats are aligned in one row. And the steering wheel is next to the door, not in the middle of the dashboard.
McLaren and Corsair have the driver’s seat ahead of the passenger seats and steering wheel in the middle of the dashboard…
What a PITA to enter and exit.
Agreed, there was no reason to have the driver seated between the front wheels, even the VW bug placed the driver further back. A longer hood would accommodate a large luggage compartment, which could also be a crush zone. GM did build a prototype Cadillac styled like the Corsair, a video was on this site a couple of years back. I don’t think that GM was serious with building rear engined streamliners, it had a fortune tied up in conventionally engineered rear driven vehicles, and everyone, I mean everyone, remembered the ill fated Chrysler Airflow. Maybe the public thought that there would someday be flying cars, but Ol’ Earl just gave them the fins!
Harvey Earl?
The American car buying public can be a fickle bunch (like any other consumer group). No American brand will ever go too far out on a branch to sell a new idea. What usually seems to happen is an import sells a new idea to the rest of the world first and then tries it here. If it sells then Detroit piles on. See Tesla for an example. See Japanese brands for more examples.
I’ve driven many rear engined cars and genuinely prefer them but there are many compromises made to accommodate this design as everyone here knows.
The right design for the average consumer is what we see today – FWD or AWD with a sideways engine up front. The average driver is not, nor have they ever been, very interested in a technically challenging driving vehicle. They want easy and cheap – or cheap enough they can get 84 month financing.