(first posted at CC on 11/30/2012) In the thirties and forties, GM pioneered and brought to market some of the most innovative, successful and lasting new technologies: Diesel-electric locomotives; the modern diesel bus; automatic transmissions; refrigeration and air conditioning systems; high-compression engines; independent front suspension; and many more. But GM’s technological prowess was just one facet of its constantly-at-war multiple personalities. Planned obsolescence, chrome, fins and financial rationalization were the real moneymakers, especially during the technologically conservative fifties.
Nonetheless, from 1960 to 1966 GM built three production cars that attempted to upend the traditional format: The rear-engined 1960 Corvair, the front-wheel drive 1966 Toronado and the 1961 Tempest. Although the Corvair and the Toronado tend to get the lion’s share of attention, the Tempest’s format was by far the most enduring; essentially, the Tempest was a BMW before BMW built one of their own. If only Pontiac had stuck with it.
Consider its high-performance, four-cylinder engine with four-venturi carburetion; four-wheel independent suspension; four-speed stick shift; perfect 50-50 weight distribution; a light, compact, yet fairly roomy body; decent manual steering; and neutral- to over-steering handling: Those specs parallel those of the all-new 1962 BMW 1500/1800–or perhaps even a Mercedes or Rover 2000? But there was one thing none of those cars had: A rear transaxle and a totally revolutionary flexible drive shaft. When GM gave its engineering talent the freedom to innovate, the results were often extraordinary. But in true GM fashion, penny-pinching resulted in a 1961 Tempest that, like the Corvair, was flawed from the day of its introduction. Sadly, and unlike the Corvair, the Tempest was never given a chance to sort out its easily fixable blemishes; if it had been, the result could have been even more remarkable than the ’65 Corvair.
John DeLorean’s tenure at Pontiac may be more remembered for the ’59 Wide-Tracks, the GTO, the Pontiac OHC six, and the ’69 Grand Prix, but in my opinion the 1961-1963 Tempest stands as his most ambitious and creative engineering effort. He was as aware as anyone of the limitations of Detroit’s big-car formula: What it produced was invariably too big, too thirsty, front-heavy and dull-handling. Now, with the 1960 Corvair waiting in the wings, DeLorean’s longstanding plans to build a truly advanced and practical car would finally come to (not quite ripe) fruition.
DeLorean was particularly interested in the benefits of independent rear suspension, which so many European cars, including VW, Porsche and Mercedes, had been using since the thirties. In the mid-fifties, his engineering team had developed an even more radical evolution of Mercedes’ approach for the 1959 full-sized Pontiacs: A rear transaxle (to balance weight distribution) connected to the engine by a flexible-shaft drive inside a rigid torque tube. That innovation was DeLorean’s alone, and he received a patent on it. And please, don’t call it “rope drive”– if you try to send power through anything resembling a rope, good luck. This was a single flexible piece of steel, more akin to a torsion bar or speedometer drive shaft.
The big 1959 Pontiacs arrived with their ad-friendly wide tracks, but otherwise were utterly conventional. Actually, GM wanted to foist the new rear-engine Corvair on Pontiac in order to spread around its high development and production costs. The prototype Pontiac Polaris (above) was classic badge-engineering, with a ’59 Pontiac-ish front end grafted onto an otherwise unaltered Corvair. But the Pontiac brass, Bill Knudsen, Pete Estes and DeLorean, weren’t buying it, partly because DeLorean was aware of the Corvair’s tricky handling and nasty habit of spinning, or even flipping, when pushed too far.
Initially, DeLorean’a plans envisioned a front-engined car that used the Corvair body and kept the entire Corvair rear suspension and its transaxle as originally placed, not even turning it around to face the motor. Utilizing a hollow shaft, the Corvair transmission would actually be “driven” from the rear of the car; as a result, the torque converter would hang from the back of the differential, where normally it would have mated up to the Corvair’s rear engine.
Very creative indeed, and it’s rather bizarre to see the torque converter out there in the open, like an appendage (as pictured above). The drive shaft had three inches of deflection (curvature), and two intermediate bearings to help smooth out the vibrations.
The benefits of the rigid torque tube went well beyond producing a nearly flat floor. For instance, it was a key adaptation to the four cylinder engine that helped reduce inherent vibration. In theory, a four-cylinder has perfect primary balance, but with only two power impulses per crankshaft rotation, second order and torsional vibrations can be quite significant, especially as displacement increases. Traditionally, the Europeans kept their fours at or below two liters for just that reason. In 1975, Mitsubishi reintroduced the balance shaft in its 2.6-liter four; it proved highly effective, and is now very commonly used to smooth out large fours.
That’s why Detroit shunned fours like the plague: In order to provide American-style torque and power, American fours had almost always been large. At low engine speeds, as in Ford’s Models T and A, they were not too bothersome. A suitable six might have been perfect, but Pontiac had little choice but to create a compact, low-cost four the quick and dirty way: By eliminating one bank of its 389 CID V8. It was a very cost-effective solution because it not only used a high percentage of the V8′s parts, but could also be machined on the same lines as the V8.
Rigidly mounting the four to the front end of the torque tube eliminated the need for the engine mounts to control its front-to-back movements, so it was possible to isolate it and its vibrations from the body to a much greater degree than if had been mounted in the usual fashion. The mounts on the four only had to control its vertical movements, so they could be very soft. That does result in an impressive display of vertical “jumping” when the throttle is opened from idle.
That’s not to say that the 195 cubic inch (3.2 L) four’s noise, vibration and harshness issues were all miraculously solved by DeLorean’s innovative mounting solutions. It’s a very big four, for better or for worse. It does have a fatter torque curve than a comparable six or eight for its displacement, and therefore is very responsive. And thanks to Pontiac’s high performance experience, it could be quite powerful; output started at 110 hp, and went up to 165 hp with the optional four barrel carburetor. That overshadows the 1961 Corvair’s 98 hp optional engine.
As it turned out, Pontiac didn’t have to use the actual 108″ wheelbase Corvair body after all; GM relented and let them share the Corvair-based but slightly larger 112″ wheelbase Y Body that Buick and Oldsmobile were preparing for their 1961 compacts. But Pontiac was given a very tiny budget to adapt it, so the 1961 Tempest (above) used most of the Olds F85 sheetmetal with a ’59 Pontiac-derived front end and a new rear end grafted on. But the four cylinder, flex-drive and Corvair transaxle and its rear suspension were retained, for better or for worse.
The worst was that it was a simple swing axle: rigid half-axles jointed only at each side of the rigidly mounted differential. This was the hot new thing in Europe back in the thirties, but its tendency to jack up in fast corners and create snap oversteer and flipping had become all-too well known.
That’s why Mercedes developed its innovative single low-pivot rear axle (above) with an anti-jacking compensating spring in the early fifties, a temporary step before it adopted a double-jointed irs in 1968. BMW’s “Neue Klasse” 1500/1800/2000 sedans first arrived in 1962 with a double-jointed rear suspension. As did the Jaguar S sedan. Europe was moving on, and GM would quickly learn this painful lesson in penny-pinching. The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray had a new double-jointed rear axle, which the 1965 Corvair also adopted to great effect.
I showed you the odd Tempest automatic transaxle earlier, but here’s the (leaky) four speed in the featured convertible. That round bolted cover on the end is where the Corvair bellhousing would have attached.
And here’s the front of the same unit, showing the shift linkage which the Tempest conveniently shared with Corvair too. It wasn’t a model of precision and quickness, but Porsche had to have something left to improve when it adopted a highly similar torque tube rear transaxle for their 928 and 924/944/968. The 968′s three liter four was only slightly smaller than the Tempest 3.2, and its ferocious torque showed to best advantage the benefits of a large displacement four with balance shafts. If John Z. had remembered about the 1904 Lanchester’s patented balance shafts and adapted them, the Tempest would really have been a milestone car.
Speaking of Porsche, here’s their false claim about their “pioneering”:
The ’61 and ’62 Tempests did also offer a version of the aluminum Buick 215 CID V8 optionally, but only 1-2% of them were built with it, and only a tiny handful with a stick. Theoretically, the combination of the light and smooth V8 with a four speed and the Tempest’s independent suspension and perfect weight balance would have potentially made a very appealing package. But the V8 was troublesome from the beginning, and Pontiac had to “buy” it from Buick, so the four was pushed heavily. And the hi-po four did make almost as much horsepower as the V8.
The Tempest was widely (and rightfully) hailed when it arrived. It won Motor Trend’s COTY, and accolades from the press: “a breakthrough for Detroit”…”a wonderfully refreshing automobile”…”a significant coup of major import”…”may be the forerunner of a new generation”…”unquestionably a prototype American car for the sixties”.
Testers praised its 50-50 front-rear balance, which resulted in lighter steering, less understeer, better traction and braking, and a good ride. But its ability to create the dreaded snap oversteer in the wet or on quickly driven curves was not totally left behind with the Corvair’s rear engine. The Tempest’s handling could also be tricky at the limit, and its agricultural sounding four could not be fully tamed, even if some of its shaking was mitigated. Consumer Reports was not so enthralled.
The Tempest met its sales expectations, selling 100k in 1961, 140k in ’62, and 130k in ’63. That helped Pontiac clinch third place in the sales stats. But it suffered the same problem as the Corvair: profitability was not up to snuff. The extra costs in converting the Olds body and the drive shaft and rear transaxle bit into the already slim margins on compact cars. The whole ambitious Corvair/Tempest/Olds F85/Buick Special Y-body experiments left GM with a bad aftertaste, especially since Ford was doing so well with its utterly conventional Falcon and Comet. The dull 1962 Chevy II was the effective replacement for the Corvair, and the B-O-P compacts became highly conventional mid-sized cars in 1964.
Our next door neighbor in Iowa City, a Russian professor, drove a white ’62 LeMans convertible like the one above. I vividly remember the throb of the big four as I rode with her to Sears to get her lawnmower fixed. But the open top was even more effective than DeLorean’s other efforts to drown out its agricultural sounds, at least above thirty or so. And I once briefly drove a co-worker’s base ’61 sedan in LA: despite being elderly, its intrinsic balance (which could be all-too easily upset for amusing purposes) and decent steering for an American car was downright un-American. If only its engine ran sweetly like my Peugeot 404′s. But the trade-off was the torque: very American indeed.
Our featured car is a 1963 LeMans, which was the sporty/upscale variant analogous to the Corvair’s Monza with the same bucket seats and higher trim. The ’63s were restyled to make them appear bigger, wider and longer, but the inside was no larger. This convertible has all the right options, at least for those that have a soft spot for the four. I found it in front of this shop where it had just been converted to the factory 165 hp four barrel setup. And it also has the four-speed stick. Not surprisingly, its owner turns out to be a ’63 Tempest junkie; it was the car he always wanted in high school.
Norman has over half a dozen ’63s in and a round his shop and back yard, including this sedan still on the trailer that he just picked up. And he has another convertible (below) with the optional 326 V8 that replaced the aluminum V8 for 1963. This was a prescient move by DeLorean, and foreshadowed the 1964 GTO.
The 326 is a 389 with smaller bores (and actually displaced 336 cubic inches), and although no lightweight, it still results in a quite decent 54/46 weight distribution because of the rear transaxle. With a two barrel carb, the 326 made a fairly modest 260 hp, but the Tempest was light (2800-3000lbs) so with the V8 it scoots right along. Because of limited funds, the four speed was not upgraded to handle the V8′s torque, so as far as is known, all the 326s came with the three speed stick or the two-speed Powerglide/aka: TempesTorque automatic. Norman says his fours get 18 – 20 mpg, and the 326 around 16 – 18 mpg.
To mitigate its handling rep, the 1963 Tempest’s rear suspension was revised with a modified control arm geometry and other tricks. But it was still a swing axle, and the Tempest’s end was already in sight, to be replaced by live-axle conformity.
But in my imagination, I see an update of DeLorean’s original Tempest idea: a 1965 Tempest coupe based on the stunningly beautiful ’65 Corvair body, with the 230 hp Sprint OHC six under a lengthened front end and sharing that Corvair’s new Corvette-based rear suspension.
What a genuine American BMW that would have been, right down to the dash (the BMW’s Tempest look-alike dash appeared on the ’66 1602). In my oft-repeated GM coulda-shoulda-woulda dreams.
Ate Up With Motor has a very in-depth article on the 1961-1963 “Rope Drive” Tempest here.
I like the idea of an updated Tempest with the newer IRS from the Corvair (no more swing axles) and the DeLorean OHC “Sprint” six-cylinder engine, with the four-barrel carburetor and the 10.5:1 compression ratio. God knows that this isn’t the first time that GM abandoned a promising technology because the bean counters wouldn’t let the engineers spend the money to work all of the bugs out.
The British seem to be very good at taking the ball that GM dropped and running with it (see Rover and the 215 Buick/Olds aluminum V8 or the Cosworth Chevy Vega four-cylinder).
As a modern update, I wonder how hard it would be to use a salvaged Porsche 924/944/928 drivetrain with a Chevy Vortec 4200 (LL8) straight-six, plopped onto a fully restored Tempest body?
Looks like GM had the technical ability to design new innovations back in the ’60s, but as mentioned, the bean counter accountants at the corporate office poopooed that kind of thinking. Of course, had they not, and GM went ahead and produced technologically advanced designs then, the prices of the cars themselves would have been a lot higher, with no guarantee of the public purchasing them. And like it or not, GM was in business to make money. The whole point of business is to make money, unfortunately. Money is good, but is not the end all be all of life. Shame we couldn’t have (or could still) figured out a way to balance technology, beauty and money so that all of these were able to reach their highest points or zenith. But that would be nirvana and I don’t know if that is possible on earth?
You make a compelling argument, but I can’t help but think that the accountant’s stranglehold on GM left GM woefully unprepared to deal with the import onslaught later, first by the VW Beetle, then later by the Japanese. It’s that laser focus on the next quarter at the expense of long-term planning that left the Big Three generally, and GM in particular, struggling to deal with the twin bogeys of fuel economy and exhaust emissions in the 1970’s. As an example, think of how much better a position GM would have been in if they had the DeLorean OHC “Sprint” engine available during the 1973 oil crisis. Almost the same power output as a small-block V8, but a couple of hundred pounds lighter.
The OHC six wasn’t all that light — the initial 230 cu. in. version weighed 489 lb with all accessories (but I think without flywheel), which was about 45 lb lighter than a small block Chevrolet V-8 and only a few pounds lighter than the cast iron Buick 300. (It was over 100 lb lighter than a Pontiac 326, I’ll grant you.) It also had oiling problems, although I suppose those could have been rectified eventually.
To put it another way, the Pontiac OHC six weighed about the same as a Ford 289 V-8 and about 160 lb more than the Buick aluminum V-8.
Again, the OHC six was only in production for three (3) years, 1967-69, and yes, I think that the oiling issues would have been solved eventually. The problem is, of course, that Pontiac never got the chance to try, GM pulled the plug before they could work out the bugs. That was supposed to be the first in a family of engines, with upgrades in both displacement and efficiency to follow. Not quite fifty (50) years later, GM tried again, this time with the Vortec 4200 (LL8) from 2004-09, and again, GM canceled the engine just as it was coming into its own.
I’m not convinced that there would have been any great improvements in efficiency; its displacement was of course increased to 250 cubic inches for 1968–69, like the Chevrolet six it was based on, which didn’t improve its fuel consumption and hurt its ability to rev.
The main thing the OHC six offered, which was a legitimately important innovation, was a practical approach to hydraulic valve lash adjustment for OHC engines. Had it remained in production a few more years, Pontiac would undoubtedly have made wider use of it and its oiling bugs might have been worked out, but it still wasn’t a great engine, and I can’t see it ever having the development potential of the 90-degree V-6. The latter wasn’t as neat an idea, but it had a variety of specific practical advantages, including being quite light and compact for its displacement, which the OHC six was not.
The dilemma is that there’s a significant difference between something being a cool or interesting idea and having a specific piece or set of workable technology that has worthwhile development potential. Both the Tempest and the OHC six were the former, but they really weren’t the latter, short of basically just starting over from scratch and coming up with something conceptually similar that shared little or nothing with the original product.
I think the bottom line is that from a commercial standpoint, it’s not enough for something to be a neat technological idea — it needs to have a coherent use case that translates into something you can sell.
The Tempest, for better or worse, was conceived as a cheap economy car, and it sold best as a cheapish sporty junior Pontiac. The A-body Tempest basically realigned itself in that direction, and was pretty successful. Most of the ideas people have been tossing around for improving the Y-body would involve making it more Lancia Flaminia by way of Corvette Sting Ray, which would have been technologically possible, but would obviously no longer have been either a cheap economy car or a cheapish junior Pontiac, and would have ended up in a more elevated price class. So, it would have needed to become a different kind of product with a different identity that still somehow fit into the Pontiac lineup, more a Pontiac Riviera than a senior compact. Pontiac did something like that with the A-plus Grand Prix a few years later, but that wasn’t nearly as complex or expensive to tool, so the question would have been, “Are the advantages of having a transaxle and independent rear suspension enough of a sales plus to be worth the cost?”
Though not the Pontiac, my great Aunts, spinsters, bought a new ’62 Olds F85 from Ertley Olds in Kingston, Pa …I think they bought all their cars there (last a ’69 98 bought by the surviving sister, the other having passed away the year before). My Uncle assumed ownership of the ’62 once the 98 was purchased; he described it as being “overpowered”, not what you’d expect a couple of little old ladies to own. Maybe the dealer took advantage of two elderly women and sold them the largest engine available, certainly they might have done better with the 6 since they drove mostly local roads, some modest hills, except for a yearly trip to the Poconos or Atlantic city, also a few trips to vist us (we never lived near my Grandparents nor other relatives, my Dad was in the semiconductor business since ’56 and he changed jobs frequently, plus he needed to live near the plant since he came up with the processes to make the devices and had to deal with often non-existent yields).
My Dad seemed to “copy” purchases of some of his cars with that of relatives (though he also bought some that seemed to come from left field, like the new ’68 Renault R10). The first time probably the ’65 F85 he bought at Val Preda’s after his ’63 Rambler Classic wagon was totalled in front of our motel room when we’d vacated our home having sold it in the process of moving from Catonsville to Burlington. Though, the ’65 was conventional, quite different from the ’62..it had the 330 (his first V8 car). It was as if GM didn’t quite know what it wanted to do when it came to the first compacts, it seemed they had an epiphany and went to 5/8 scale conventional cars (like when the first Chevy Nova came out). The Corvair seemed to emulate the VW Beetle, and the other compacts …well, don’t know many cars that have front engines and rear transmission…maybe FWD would have been good but not many cars had it yet.