Automotive Revolution: GM Introduces Two Turbocharged Cars for 1962 (Jetfire & Corvair)

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:04]Did you know that General Motors actually introduced two turbocharged cars for 1962?

[00:00:10]Today, turbocharged vehicles are everywhere. It's very common to see, for example, cars with 2 L 4-cylinder turbocharged engines or twin turbocharged six-cylinder engines, etc. But back in 1962, this was an extreme rarity. In fact, it was something that the domestic auto industry really hadn't seen in mass production. And so, for General Motors to introduce two cars in the same model year that both had turbocharged engines really speaks to their engineering prowess and at the time a little bit of daring, too, because it took guts to go to market with a technology that the buying public at the time just thought was unproven.

[00:00:50]And so today we're going to talk about these two vehicles. The 1962 Omobile Jetfire, which came slightly ahead of the 1962 Corv turbocharged flat six-cylinder engine uh in the marketplace. Not by much, just by months I believe, but we'll talk about both of them today. Now for 1962, as I said, Ozmobile introduced the Jetfire. And the jet fire was really based upon the senior compacts F85's cutless that was introduced for 1961.

[00:01:26]Now this whole time period was actually a really interesting one in GM's history where they introduced a series of compact vehicles. The Corv beginning in 1960 and then the Pontiac Tempest, the Ozmobile F85, the Buick Special all in 1961.

[00:01:42]So there was a flood of these new cars on the market that were significantly smaller than before. If you think back to the middle 1950s really there weren't too many options if you were buying a car. Of course you could buy from the General Motor stable a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Omobile, Buick or Cadillac. But there was no such thing really as a compact car aside from the Corvette as an example. There wasn't even a Firebird back in the 1950s or a Camaro. That would have to wait until the later 1960s.

[00:02:13]Instead, what you could buy was really a full-size car. There weren't even intermediates. Now, by the early 1960s, the platforms had proliferated. And one of the things that customers had articulated to General Motors was that they wanted cars that were more fuel efficient and that were smaller. And so GM not only introduced the compact Corv and the senior compacts that I mentioned for 1961, but by the way, they also slightly downsized their full-size vehicles for 1961 versus 1960. And this is a time in the late 1950s, the US was going through a recession. So consumers were more costconscious and were really looking to pinch some pennies, hence the introduction of all these vehicles. So it seems a bit oxymoronic to have a compact car that was designed to really help consumers pinch pennies that now in 1962 is a performance car. But that is what uh what happened here in this particular scenario. And here you see a red jet fire almost identical to the advertisement they showed before except this has a white top on it. But for 1962 ozmobile revised the styling a bit of its F85. The grill up front became more toothy and you got this double windsplit molding up top on the Jetfire and then a little kind of bright work that was trimming the license plate frame beneath the bumper. That, by the way, is a pretty spindly bumper. I don't think that that is going to do all that much uh from a protection standpoint. Another thing is the designers seemingly eliminated a little corner piece in the eye of the headlight that existed in 1961. and it was now gone for 1962. And on your Jet Fire, you had this wide body side molding that kind of filled in the cove that was created by the surface formed uh at the top of the fender. That the fender, by the way, if you look at it either side, kind of looks like a stingray to me, just how it kind of goes up a little bit. Uh and that then goes back and forms a shoulder over the door and then continues on to form the flat section of the quarter panel. That door, by the way, was shared across the Tempest and the Special and the F85. So, they all had to kind of that was a very complicated surface. They all had to integrate that door into their form. And it's rare that in general when cars tend to share components, they tend to be less, I would say, noticeable so that the eye doesn't discern that vehicles are sharing components. But here clearly that door form I would say was uh something that was certainly different from other vehicles in its class. And if we look to the rear you'll see that you have a similar repeat in the back of the front styling with those kind of stingray wings or bat wings. Obviously here you have those underneath those you have four tail lamps and then another spindly bumper that is probably not going to provide much protection in the event of an impact. Very sculptural styling on these and again uh pretty unique from the perspective of having that big thick shoulder between the door outer and the glass plane. Something that you don't see on cars today at all.

[00:05:33]Usually the glass plane is kind of I won't say flush but near flush with the door outer. And this was not something that you saw. You kind of get the roof inset here significantly from the body.

[00:05:45]The 61 Continental would be a car that really capitalized on that styling trait. But here you have it on an Osmo Mobile. And by the way, the S was, as I mentioned, also introduced for 1961. So it certainly didn't copy the 61 Continental, nor does it have the Fender Peak molding or uh would anybody call this a Bowhousian or plainly styled car um like that 61 Continental. Take a look at those wheels, by the way, too. 13-in wheels on this car. That is definitely something that you don't see, but it doesn't look bad. I have to say it kind of looks uh like it belongs there. Now, let me also show a picture of this particular jet fire. I wanted this because of the lighting. Notice the C-pillar is kinkedked, has this very distinctive crease that runs all the way from the A-pillar on the roof back to the midsection of the C-pillar and then takes a sharp angle down toward the quarter panel. But notice how the light is breaking uh along that crease. And it's one of those examples of fine details that General Motors designers back then really just um employed, I would say, to great skill and mastery.

[00:06:50]This car has so many different surfaces on it that show off the highlights and the low lightss. Again, something that you don't see a lot in cars today, um where are it's kind of this mastery of surfacing, but this car certainly has it. As we turn to the interior of this particular Jetfire, it has some interesting options, including power windows there, which was something that many of these were not equipped with.

[00:07:15]But when you got the JetFire, you got the little center consolelet, I guess you can call it, with the turbo rocket gauge there. So, there was no tachometer on this. You have the speedometer, obviously. You have some idiot lights, and that gauge in the console is just a gauge to tell you if the turbo is functioning or not. By the way, in the brochure for the Jetfire, Osmobile had a number of typical questions that buyers would ask like, "What is a turbocharger and when does it activate and how do you know when it's activated?" And to the lattermost question, the answer was, you know, by the seat of the pants feel. Of course, the turbo uh let's say hastens acceleration and you can check your turbo rocket gauge down there. Overall though, a very handsome and simplistic mid-century modern-esque interior. I love the pod style speedometer with the clock and the idiot lights integrated into it. And the dash on for the remainder of it is basically this kind of flat panel that's scalloped out and gives you a good sense of roominess on the inside since you have a perfect sight line. Imagine the passenger and the sight line they have to the windshield just with this particular dash that's relatively low. So, a nice place to be and a nice place to enjoy your Jet Fire. And here's where the fun really happens in your JetFire. That's under hood. This is a 215 cubic inch V8 that made 215 horsepower. So, 1 horsepower per cubic inch. And that was a feat that had been achieved before.

[00:08:49]The 1957 Chevrolet as an example. The top fuel injected engine was 283 horsepower from 283 cubic inches.

[00:08:57]Chrysler also had some engines that would even better that, especially if you got optional fuel injection, but uh the Benedict fuel injection only worked, let's say, part of the time, and many were retrofitted. In any case, it was a pretty interesting feat for an engine to have one horsepower per cubic inch, have the turbocharger, and on top of that, this was an aluminum block V8. So, very rare turbocharging, aluminum block. This is exotic stuff for 1962.

[00:09:27]Um, and now it's kind of mainstream, but it wasn't even mainstream until I would say aluminum block engines coupled with turbochargers maybe 10 years ago. So, pretty advanced for the time frame. Now, this 215 did have some teething problems. It was introduced in 1961 in the senior complex. It was standard in the Buick. It was optional in the Pontiac Tempest. Uh and Buick did have some differences between them, including the heads. Uh for whatever reason, I don't know. I guess the divisions just had to have some differences. But this engine would later be sold to Rover and become the famous Rover V8 that was in production for many years into the 2000s. And it would also spawn what would become the GM 3.8 L or 3800 V6. Uh in 1962, Buick was looking for a lowerpriced entry variant for its special and the aluminum block engine was costly to produce. So they switched to cast iron, lop two cylinders off. I'm of course uh let's say exaggerating the simplicity of that change, but they came out with a fireball V6 in 1962 and that would continue to evolve over time into the well-known, as I mentioned, 3.8 L V6 from GM. Now, in addition to the exotic technologies that I mentioned, this engine had a 10 and a quarter to1 compression ratio, which is high, but might not seem as high as other engines of the era that had 10 1/2, 10.75, or 11:1. But remember, this is a turbocharged engine, and typically compression ratios would drop with turbocharging given all the forced air induction. However, this one really was quite high compression even with the turbocharger. And how did Ozmobile solve that? Well, turbo rocket fluid. You would basically add what Ozmeal called turbo rocket fluid to a little tank and that would get injected to help control spark knock and detonation in the engine and allow it to operate at optimum performance. Well, you can imagine that there were some reliability issues associated with that and customers would forget to fill the tank with the turbo rocket fluid. But hey, at least there was a provision for putting a spare bottle of turbo rocket fluid under hood.

[00:11:40]You can see it on the driver's side there up near the firewall. That was effectively just a mixture of 50% distilled water, 50% methanol that helped kind of cool the uh combustion chamber temperatures to reduce the spark knock. And well, that was needed given the compression ratios that I was mentioning before. Now, you could get these jet fires equipped with a manual transmission. You could also get them equipped with a uh roto hydroatic transmission which was Omobile's transmission that they ended up forcing upon Pontiac and the short wheelbase Pontiacs like the Catalinas and the Grand Prix. And it was basically a grenade behind these cars. The Roto Hydroatic was not very durable to begin with and this was a smaller Roto Hydromatic than the full-size cars got.

[00:12:30]you throw a turbocharger on this engine making 300 pound- feet of torque, you're just looking for some significant trouble. So, something to bear in mind if you look at one of these cars, the automatic transmissions are not very durable at all. And good luck finding somebody to service a roto hydroatic transmission these days. That is a real rarity. So, just pointing that out.

[00:12:54]Stick with the manual transmissions if you want one of these cars. Now over on the Chevrolet side of the house, 1962 would be the third model year for the first generation Corva. It was introduced in 1960, had been produced in 1960,661, and then by 1962, I guess Chevrolet was looking to introduce something exciting. And in fact, the inaugural brochure for the 1962 model year did not include the Monza Spider package. But partway through the model year, Chevrolet would introduce the Monza Spider with its turbocharged engine. But first, let's talk a little bit about the Corv design. You can see that the Corvair had kind of a typical Chevy trademark of the time, and that's that crease uh that is going around the entire vehicle, kind of forming a DATM line, similar to the 63 split window Corvette, and something that would be copied even by some European automakers.

[00:13:50]But the car has kind of this uh happy front end, a barbell theme where the outer edges are taller than the midsection.

[00:13:58]Certainly rounded surfaces around here, but I love how that crease kind of throws a low light underneath it and gives the car uh really interesting look on the body sides in particular. Now, this first generation Corv would run from 1960 through the 1964 model year before being redesigned. And I actually have to say I like the second generation Corv even better. But this is a happy looking little car. And while some people like the Corvair, some also just uh had a problem with it, including Ralph Nater, who wrote his unsafe at any speed book that really criticized the Corv's handling and tendency to over steer because of its swing axle rear suspension design where the camber just moved in conjunction with the wheel moving up and down. um at least in the early years. In 1964, Chevrolet would start to attenuate that issue by adding a leaf spring to the rear suspension.

[00:14:56]Then in 1965, the rear suspension would be redesigned completely. But alas, what can you do when you have a car that has a tendency to over steer, throw more power at it? And that's what Chevrolet did partway through the 1962 model year with the $421 Monza Spider package that got you the turbocharged flat air cooled six-cylinder engine among some other little goodies. And take a look at how that turbocharger is packed in there over top of the crazy fan belt that drives the fan as well as the generator that takes all these twists and turns.

[00:15:30]The Corv would have this 150 horsepower engine to finally complement its good looks. And eventually by 1965, the turbocharged engine would become 180 horsepower. In that same year, there would be a 140 horsepower 4c carburetor variant of the engine, which by that point had been enlarged, actually was enlarged for the 1964 model year from 145 to 164 cubic in. Regardless, 1962 would be a good year for the little Corvair. And you not only had the turbocharged variant now, but if you wanted a wagon, the Lakewood, by the way, name was dropped for the 1962 model year, and you had to get a 700 series wagon. That was the base entry wagon.

[00:16:16]Couldn't get it on the 500 series, which was the absolute base car. And on the inside of your Corvair for 1962, at least the Spider, you could get the gauge package that had these round gauges that I show here, which included a tachometer, kind of a horizontally oriented tachometer. Pretty interesting.

[00:16:32]And a cylinder head temperature gauge because, of course, the engine here was not water cooled. So, there was a temperature gauge for the cylinder head temperature. It was a handsome gauge package. And of course, you have the so-called dual cockpit theme to your Corv interior for 1962. something that was a trademark of Chevrolets, including the Corvettes, for many years here. It obviously made it onto the Corv and gave you some nice looks while you were driving in your Corv Spider. So, overall, it's super curious to me that in 1962, GM introduced two turbocharged engines to the world. First with the Jetfire, a few months later with the Monza Spider uh in the Corv. The Jetfire being the more powerful one at 215 horsepower. The Corvair actually not being as powerful but greater than 1 horsepower per cubic inch uh at 150 horsepower. This again was radical stuff for the time, but also showcased the engineering prowess of General Motors and probably something that I don't think GM has done this amount of experimental power trains in mainstream vehicles. uh maybe arguably since um they certainly tried some novel power trains in years, some of which worked, some of which didn't work. We won't talk about the Chevy Vega engine or the Cadillac HD4100.

[00:17:52]Uh I guess I just did mention them there, but regardless, these two I think were two cool variants and hope you enjoyed the spotlight on them. Let me know your thoughts. Put a comment in the comments section and thanks again for watching.