Please see my thread on the Polaris forum, questioning Polaris' claim to the "first" ATV IRS (Independent Rear Suspension).

I think the Suzuki Quadrunner 250 4X4 and King Quad [300cc] pre-dated Polaris' arrival on the IRS scene, but . . . I'm often in error!

I seem to recall suki being first as well, but not by much, maybe a year ahead of polaris, something like that.

I've dated it back at least to 1986 models on Google, cc1999; think they beat Polaris by 10 years or so . . .

Tree Farmer is correct, the quadrunners of '86 which in the fullness of time became the first gen King Quad, had an independent rear suspension long before Polaris joined ranks.
That said, there is another detail that Polaris uses to muddy the historical waters.

I do remember one automotive based magazine that in the late 90's published a rather biased test of independent rear suspension ATVs (there were just the two at that time) and made it their task to stress that the Polaris design was a 'true' (sound familiar?) independent suspension because it used both upper and lower A-arms (like the Datsun 510) whereas the Suzuki design employed a single A-arm (ala Volkswagen Beetle).

Sounds like Polaris was looking for a technical detail to seize upon and claim that title which wasn't theirs, but I may be wrong yet again.

I know that a lot more Beetles were sold than Datsun 510's, and it was never claimed that those cars didn't have independent rear suspension.

Just walkin' down memory lane, Glenlivet; the military JEEP of the era had independent rear suspension, too; not unlike the Beetle, and the early ("Unsafe At Any Speed," Ralph Nader) Corvairs.

Way leads on to way; why isn't Ralph Nader running for PRESIDENT in this election?

Folks afraid he might spoil things for Billary?

I digress; apologizing, meekly . . .

Annie( Man she was hot in that car ) and I had a 1962 maroon with black interior("Unsafe At Any Speed," Ralph Nader) Corvair, Monza, turbocharged Spider that would go like hell,...but I wrapped it around a power pole because it was,..... Unsafe At Any Speed. The rear pancaked 6 cylindered engine and that model years IRS caused a significant over steer and the rear end would switch ends on you very quickly. The rear suspension was latter redesigned as per the Corvette model after old Nader correctly pointed this out,...but it was to late for the Corvair by this time.

They called the older Corvair rear suspension a 'swing-axle', a fairly accurate description of a one A-arm independent.

Fact is, for the 1964 and onwards models, Chevrolet had already redesigned the Corvair suspension to correct the earlier deficiencies.

Nader's book wasn't published until 1965. Not that Nader didn't still crow about the 'Unsafe at any speed' Corvair and get as much bombastic press as possible about the earlier and now discontinued-with-no-input-from-Nader design.

If Nader wanted to stay in character these days, he should get his soap box back out and start braying about loose tiles or bad rocket booster O-rings on the space shuttles posing an unsafe risk to astronauts.

Then claim victory for NASA's correcting the problems.

The controversy eventually killed the Corvair and with it a lot of innovative car design that saw the ultra conservative American car makers actually try something different than the iron block front engine rear drive sleds that Detroit had been addicted to for decades.
The death of the Corvair ensured a few decades more of the iron sleds.

To be fair to Nader, he did bring much needed attention to a lot of automotive safety problems that need not have existed but for the near non-existence of safety concerns in the design and production of North American automobiles in those days of the late 50's/early 60's.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Glenlivet,

quote:

Originally posted by Glenlivet:
Fact is, for the 1964 and onwards models, Chevrolet had already redesigned the Corvair suspension to correct the earlier deficiencies.
- - -
The controversy eventually killed the Corvair and with it a lot of innovative car design that saw the ultra conservative American car makers actually try something different than the iron block front engine rear drive sleds that Detroit had been addicted to for decades.
The death of the Corvair ensured a few decades more of the iron sleds.

True; the Corvair was unfairly denounced; executed for the shortcomings of the earlier models.

The reformed and redesigned suspension was safe and roadworthy; however, Nader's negative publicity turned the tide of the buying public against the Corvair.

Public opinion often remains outside the influence of facts.

Wait; is 1908 an ELECTION year?



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NOTE: I can only IMAGINE how fascinating our reminiscences of the Corvair must appear to those too young to have even HEARD of the car!



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Walking even FARTHER down Memory Lane, Hitler wanted a winning international road-racer to represent the superiority of the Third Reich; hence the Auto Union (ancestor of Audi), like the Corvair, a rear-engined car.

Even with well-designed rear suspensions, rear-engined cars, with their novel weight distributions, have unique handling characteristics (experienced to some extent by Stutz-is-my-Dog (Annie; you KNEW you shouldn't have let him drive!)). Even experienced road-racing champions cracked up the Auto Union cars with regularity.

So, Hitler and his Nazi pals recruited drivers who HAD NEVER DRIVEN A CAR, and trained 'em initially on the Auto Unions; avoiding the intuitive reactions developed and reinforced by driving typical front-engined cars.

Ideal candidates for the Auto Union stable were motorcycle racers without ANY 4-wheeled driving experience.

The result: Germany won International Grand Prixs in the 1930's with the Auto Unions, ancestors of rear-engined Volkswagens and Porsches . . . and predecessors of the ill-fated Corvair . . .

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tree Farmer,

This is very interesting information....Suzuki looks like they lead the pack for years. Yep=show your age, Corvair~~~~

I loved my little covair monza convertable

A little history lesson about how Suzuki was first in leading the development of the ATV as we know it.

Honda was first to bring ATVs to the market when it introduced the ATC in 1969. These fat-tired three-wheelers were mainly playtoys until the early ‘80s, when their utility in farming and ranching environments were realized. Butt interesting thing happened in the early to late 1980's which many ATV riders are completely unaware of. The U.S. government came within millimeters of banning the import of all three wheelers all together because of the increasing accident and injures that were attributed to the three wheel design.

Breaking the three wheeled tradition in 1984, Suzuki unleashed the first four-wheeler and called it a Quadracer. By this time, the ATV market was geared more toward such sporting machines, while utility machines were secondary in production. Although four wheelers were developed and introduced by Suzuki, it wasn't until the three wheelers were on their way out that modern four wheeled ATVing was born!

My dad had a black Corvair Monza Convertible with a white racing stripe right up the hood and down the trunk (engine bay) It was beautiful. Wonder what it would be worth today?

Even the mighty Porsche 911's are a handful to drive, if you're going to drive it fast, you have to be a pro, or the rear end will come around in a heartbeat.

First quad I ever rode was one of those Zuki Quad racers. 2wd that pushed in the corners and fun as heck....I can blame it for the addiction I guess.

Off topic, but on subject.

I had a friend with a Corvair convertible that had dropped an LT-1 in place of the stock engine, but in the rear seat. That's a 370 hp 350 for those that don't know. As I recall someone made such a conversion kit. Another swap of that era was to install a camshaft that allowed the original corvair engine to run clockwise and install that engine in a Volkswagen beetle? I had another couple of friends that did that conversion. One in a beetle, the other in a Karmann Ghia.

Sorry, I'm way off topic, but a bit of nostalgia for the old guys.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cajun,