[TriLUG] Re: Customers are idiots

[Chip Davis]

Not to disagree with his primary assertion, with which I fully agree,
but ...

** On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:00:06 -0400 (EDT) Mike Mueller opined:

>  Windows is a Corvair - no seat belts and "Unsafe At Any Speed".

As a past owner of two Corvairs I must _strenuously_ object to this
blatant example of FUD that probably predates Mr. Mueller's birth.

The Chevrolet Corvair was far from unsafe, and in fact both of my cars
had seatbelts.  Its design was a significant departure for American
carmakers, but old news in Stuttgart and Modena.

Corvairs came to the attention of an ambitious young lawyer named
Ralph Nader because they were being driven by idiot customers (see,
this isn't totally OT) clueless to the fact that they handled more
like a Porsche than a Pontiac.  (In 1960, Porsche started working on a
6-cyl flat horizontally-opposed air-cooled rear engine for their 911
model. Guess what was already in the 1960 production Corvair?)

Nader's most damaging "proof" was the now-infamous film of a Corvair
following a Ford Falcon around a racetrack.  This film purported to
demonstrate that the Corvair would spin out in a curve at a speed that
the Falcon managed with aplomb.

Nader screened this film for the congress-critters when he testified
on behalf of more stringent automobile safety standards.  On close
inspection (which the press didn't report) you could see the Corvair
driver's right elbow suddenly jerk upwards, followed shortly by the
car entering into a spin to the left.

The Department of Transportation's National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration studied the film and said it believed the filmed
tests were biased in favor of the Falcon and that the Corvair driver
apparently was intentionally trying to get it to spin.  It noted that
all the spins took place right in front of the cameras.

The film was made by the Ford Motor Company.

A two-year study by NHTSA concluded, "The handling and stability
performance of the 1960-1963 Corvair does not result in an abnormal
potential for loss of control or rollover and it is at least as good
as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and
domestic."

In the early seventies, I owned a 1966 Monza Spyder with a 180hp
turbocharged engine and a 1964 "95" Corvan panel van. 

Yeah, Corvairs handled so badly that we raced them in autocrosses and
gymkhanas throughout the '70s.  Never saw any Falcons competing, come
to think of it.

Then Mike proceeds to compare this excellent automobile to Windows!

Such an ignorant insult fairly demands that I invite him outside for a
little enlightenment.

Instead, I'll suggest that perhaps a more accurate statement would
have been to compare Windows to the Ford Pinto, a car that did a
barely-adequate job of taking you where you wanted to go ... until it
burst into flames!

-Chip-
My other car is a Cessna.