Bruce,
Thanks for the kind words about CCSRB and my T !
Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought the MB 190 was the first
car to sue the Kammback theory, as I know MB took the theory to heart
very quickly, even in the late Thirties. The 190 was just an example I
was very intimately connected with. Actually, because of my employment
at Motor Trend in '70, I got to know the facts, flaws and foibles of
the Vega Kammback and its kin quite well, which we got hoodwinked into
picking as Car of the Year because the samples we got to test were
heavily massaged handbuilt versions from the GM proving ground in
Arizona (there was a UAW strike going on at the time, and those were
the only ones we could get). Anyway, they rode like full-size Impalas and
checked out at .9g on the skid pad. When we got hold a real Kammback
wagon and GT, we found the QC was lousy (I called Lloyd Reuss, the Vega
chief engineer, later the head of Buick division and a basically decent
guy) and asked what happened and he sent a technician to respond to all
my many complaints about quality shortcomings, an exercise which was
less than satisfying, as the guy mostly shrugged as I demonstrated the
gripes. The wagon got 15 mpg in normal driving, albeit with Powerglide,
and the GT had about a third of the front suspension travel of the cars
we tested. I realized we'd been had. Then the overheating problems made
themselves known. Next, a rear axle retainer clip was prone to break.
Then there recalls...one because the engine vibrated some severly that
the carb top screws came loose, leaning the misture, causing a
backfiring in the muffler, which in turn heated the gas tank above and
caused newly filled tanks to overflow, leading to fires at the rear of
the car (the fix was Loc-Ting the carb screws). Of course, it's
contender for the COY title that year was the Pinto, also a nascent
firebomb.
There's a book in there someplace.
A.B.
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