Did you know that Don Yenko built Corvairs for racing? In 1966, before he was known for putting big-blocks in Camaros, he purchased 100 white Corvairs through GM’s Central Office Production Order and then prepared the cars for racing. The "Stingers" were available in various stages of tune, with their flat-six engines outputting anywhere from 160 to 240 horsepower. To comply with Sports Car Club of America rules, the Corvair’s rear seats were removed. The Stingers were very successful in their class and outperformed imports like the Triumph TR4. An additional 15 cars were prepared between 1967 and 1969.
Hopefully they redesigned the rear axle wheel bearing with a locking retainer, so they so not slip out when going around a corner with the press on design. Had this happen to me one time in a turbocharged spider.
So, Porsche was mopping up with their flat-six air cooled quirky thing, and Chevrolet thought it would somehow enter this same market? Quirky is good if ALL the cars are built by Germans in a German factory with German engineering to back it up. A modern version of the 911 could have been put out by Nissan by putting the V6 in the rear of the 300Z. It would have been hard to keep people from sliding tail-first into the ditch then suiing everyone in sight, though. 445mm-wide rear tirs may have halped, but, hey. Nissan did a good job with the car, also they did a good job in NOT trying to be a 911..
