There’s a whole sub-category of Corvair-inspired little boxy sedans from the ’60s (and into the ’70s) that I tend to really like. Most of these are rear-engined, too, which makes them even better, as far as I’m concerned. One of these is the Simca 1000, a tiny little rear-engined three-box sedan that’s sort of like an NSU Prinz, but French. They don’t get talked about all that much, really, but I think they have a lot of charm. They also have what may be one of the worst places to stick a tachometer that I’ve ever seen.
Before I get into the details of that, I just want to point out again how influential the design of the first-generation Corvair really was, all over the globe. Sure, Darth Nader or whatever his name is may have called it “unsafe at any speed,” but carmakers all over the world seemed to think it was safe enough to really crib its clean, crisp lines.
I also bring this up because I have already made this graphic that shows what I mean:
See what I’m getting at? So many!
Anyway, the Simca 1000 definitely fit this mold, and I think pulled it off in quite an appealing way, even if it had a little bit of a crazed gremlin-face. The boxy design meant the front trunk was pretty roomy for a car of its size, too, as is effectively demonstrated by how this woman can sort of do jumping jacks in there:
I said “sort of.” But with boots on, too!
Anyway, I liked these. The faster LS versions made a respectable-for-the-size-and-time 52 horsepower, the same as what my Nissan Pao makes! Plus, they looked pretty tough, with that engine lid open, showing all of that purposeful air ducting:
Simca had some rally versions of the car, and this sportiness definitely played into the car’s character, plucky and fun, as this illustration seeks to convey:
Oh yeah! I love some midcentury line-art.
Okay, but let’s get to the strange flaw here. Look where Simca would stick your optional tachometer:
See that? There’s a little whatevers tray just in front of the shifter, a place that I can imagine would get filled with change and maps and cigarettes and berets and baguette chunks (remember, it’s French), and there at the end of it all sits that forelorn little tachometer.
Even if you kept that little cubby free from things, you’d have to look down and under the dash to see the little tachometer at all. And I’m being generous about the if you could keep that cubby free from things part, because it’s not like the interior of a Simca 1000 was this huge space with lots of storage areas.
The interior was pretty good for a car of this size and era, with really comfortable-looking seats, but I think if there’s places to put random stuff in there, those places will be filled with random stuff. It’s just how reality works. So I feel like that tachometer is going to spend most of its life obscured by a wallet or folded map or something.
But you know what? Who cares? I bet you could hear what’s going on in that engine well enough to have no problem shifting. You could likely get used to the noise so much that you could hear the RPMs down to the tenths place!
Speaking of the Corvair, you might want to do a post on the cars that appear in Unfrosted. As you might expect from a Jerry Seinfeld production there are some interest cars starting with his character’s Corvair wagon. I was watching it with my partner so I wasn’t allowed to pause every street scene to overanalyze, but that is what I pay you guys for.
Agreed, there are as many interesting cars in that movie as there are big-name-star cameos.
The most inconvenient tach placement I ever experienced was the one that sat for years on garage shelf because I never got around to installing it.
Sorry, i don’t these are cars you can consider as cars spun off the Corsair, they were already there
only thing Corsair was early with, was Turbo.
Cheap rear engined cars.with handling for enthousiast was the 50&60s for European small cars.
Not caring what is the proper tire inflation is.
I think is a USA thing
Americans just think they invented everything. Some are just evolutions of previous models (Dauphine -> 8).
And then there’s the preposterous inclusion of the Ro80 in that list.
Maybe it just comes pre-broken and deinstalled in the center storage bin for convenience, given that they put the engine for you in the trunk in a similar manner?
That’s a Braille tach for blind drivers. You wind out the engine with a finger on the tach, when it reaches optimal RPM, you just drop your hand back to the shifter and change gears, then return your hand to the tach by feeling just ahead of the shift lever to monitor for the next gear change. Very progressive tech for the time.
just because; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgRJLtc1rpY&t=87s
In the mid-60s, Oldsmobile also had a variety of console mounted tachometers.
https://xr793.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1965-Oldsmobile-Sport-Models.pdf
“Handsome center control console features a tachometer if equipped with Turbo Hydra-Matic Drive, performance gauge if equipped with a manual transmission.”
I don’t know what a “performance gauge” is, but what the hell sense does it make to only offer a tach on the automatic trans cars?!
Dunno what sense it makes, but everything has them today. Occasionally it’s nice for diagnostic purposes (for those who diagnose their own car). Of course, now that everything’s computers, it costs very little to add.
They didn’t have photoshop then, but all those cars look like the trunk was the victim of an errant click and swipe while on the stretch tool
I seem to recall the optional tach on some GM cars back in the ’50s or ’60s being located in the same place, but I can’t find any proof of that.
Nice, 1 minute later and 1 comment up I get my validation lol
The engineers said to keep the revs low.
Hmmm, I can’t see a connection Corvair <-> Ro80… Or to the Bluebird.
Especially the NSU, which almost still looks modern today.
Your backseat passenger could also feel every rpm in their hindquarters and could report back as you were approaching redline. They’re not as noisy as you think; you are literally leaving the sound behind you.
Engineer: “Boss, it really should have a tachometer so customers know when to shift.”
Boss: “No. Ze tachometer will cost an extra 30 francs per car.”
Engineer: “But boss….”
Boss: “No. Take zis tachometer and stick it where ze sun don’t shine.”
Engineer: ….
I had a 1967 R-10, another little squared off sedan from that time period. Another French car similar to the Simca. Some quirky cars back then. Mine had no tach.
My dad had an R10 after a string of a Dauphine then a string of VW Beatles. He loved it and considered it superior to the VW in every way. Unfortunately, it died a pre-mature death, don’t remember exactly why, but I think internal engine failure of some kind.
“a Dauphine, then a string of VW Beatles”
It is interesting that the Simca tach does not appear to have a redline. Woohoo, 8K!
It’s interesting to me how many nominally performance-oriented cars in the ’60s didn’t have one on theirs.
I had the privilege a few years back to be able stick my head inside the actual Bullitt Mustang (and see other stuff), and you can still see the mark left behind where Steve McQueen had put a piece of tape on the rim of the tach to mark off the the redline.
If you mark it then the customer will use it. Best to leave it inscrutable.
I still find your premise of Corvair inspired a chicken and egg question e.g. The NSU Prinz was introduced before the Corvair by two years. And I could give others. That said…
The Tach placement was one of the many places to find the tach. My least favorite was the huge dial right in front of you before the windshield. Generally, you would go deaf getting the Renault, Fiat or VW engine near the redline anyway.
But the 50’s Prinz also had a very different look than the one pictured above.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/NSU_Prinz_30.jpg
It wasn’t until after the Corvair came out that it was redesigned to ape the styling in ’61.
I don’t see any similarity between the Corvair and any of Torch’s examples.
I can imagine tall drivers having to cock their heads back and to the side to look down and see that practically hidden under the dash… I had some car once upon a time with something that required occasional attention way down low like that… Maybe a fuel reserve tap lever or something like that (no fuel gauge, and after the billionth time kicking it over, you sort of forget whether or not you’re on reserve)? It was pretty annoying. Something more mission critical/frequent like a tach would be massively obnoxious. On a car of this era and class, I’m sure the engine noise is plenty informative though…
Maybe it’s a subtle insult to insinuate you’re new to driving stick.
“Oh? Zee wittle garçon needs to SEE how fast zis fine French moteur is spinning?Well you can see it while you look for what gear you need next you petit enfant!”
I just think it has a really nice little happy face, with that fake grille on the front 😀
Why don’t the “Corvair Inspired Cars” look like Corvairs? Corvairs had low roof lines and the “inspired” cars have (mostly) high roof lines. I don’t see the Corvair inspiration in the cars shown
The boxy design meant the front trunk was pretty roomy for a car of its size, too, as is effectively demonstrated by how this woman can sort of do jumping jacks in there
That’s a “Jacqueline dans le Boite”, an early 60’s French attempt at Trunk Monkey.
When I started dating my wife, my future father-in-law had a ’69 Camaro that he put an aftermarket column mounted tach on. But the bracket was broken so it would always spin and hang down below the column, hitting your knees. For some reason when it did that it would make the reverse lights stay on until it was corrected. I’d get reminded of that fact when I’d take it for a spin, park it, and then get a call the next day that the battery was dead because I had forgotten to push it back into place once parked, and thus the reverse lights had been on all night.
HOW ABOUT YOU JUST LET ME FIX THE BRACKET, GREGG!?!?!?!
That sounds more like a Camero doing Camero things than it does a Camaro.
Test drove a Beetle once that would intermittently cut out. Figured out it was the tach lead grounding out after it bit me.
-didn’t buy it as the rest was pretty sketch as well. At least I told him why it kept cutting out on him
Well, if you need both hands and your eyes to work the shifter then that placement is fine???
Bravo
If I could imbed images in comments, I’d throw up the classic Ep3 Anakin yelling “I HATE YOU” to Obiwan, but substitute Nader and a Corvair in respectively.
That is some bad tach placement. Almost up there with everyone who ever mounted a tach on their steering column only to notice afterward that they have a column-shifted car and their tach now racks them every time they shift into D.
I’d imagine most drivers used the auditory method for shifting. When the engine went from buzzy to the sound of a Stuka dive bombing, you knew it was time for the next gear.
To drive one really quickly the knack is to always keep it in full on Stuka dive bomber mode;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgRJLtc1rpY&t=87s