I have a 1966 issue of Car Life magazine that is dedicated to Corvairs. Shows all kinds of dressup, speed equipment, concepts and customs. I always like the looks and never believed Nader's hype.
Corvair was officially cleared of all charges by Dept. of Transportation in '72. They never deserved Naders crap, as most Corvair owners know. I sure miss having one. Mine was a '62 Monza sedan; done in by a Toyota Tercel Wagon while sitting around, minding it's own business.
OK, maybe its the rum cocktail talking , but anyone who puts a v-8 in the FRONT of a Corvair is a red neck. You are miising the whole point of the design concept. It's a frickin "sports car" not a muscle machine. Granted the early swing axle designs had issues but they where mostly sorted after 1965. Although the 4 dr long roof '61-64's have recently struck at my heart strings. Drove a 67 110 twin carb 4 speed with headers, for awhile and it was one of the funnest cars I have ever owned. Damn thing sounded like a Cessna airplane, very cool going under a long bridge wide open. Bottom line, another GM car, ahead of its time. If you want a V-8, buy a Camaro and pop the top on another Ice House. JT btw...Unsafe at any speed, only mentions the Corvair in a few chapters. Nobody ever talks about the '53 Buicks, with faulty master cylinders, that killed more than a few people.
I was in Greenfield Iowa this past weekend and there was a car museum in the middle of downtown. It had I think 3 Corvairs, one was a turbo convertable. Weren't the Spiders with the turbos all hard top? A friend of mine in the early 70's was a Corvair nut. Mick
Lovin this thread. Was raised on corvairs and an opposed 6 was the first engine I ever tore down and reassembled. It came out of a rusty red early model that we totally stripped and dune-buggied for a while. The last & best one we had was a rust free 68 1/2 corsa monza hardtop with the 6, 4 carbs, a 4 speed. The old man sold it, and a garage full of 20 years of corvair parts cars in the late 80s. Cannot remember a time in my life before then without corvairs. And honest to god, haven't even sat in one since the burgundy corsa monza left us. Someday I'll have one...... but now the old man and his bottomless pit of corvair knowledge are gone..... and the responsibility of maintining one of those pieces of shit is a large undertaking..........man they're sweet......wish I had a picture of any of em....... The #1 thing I remember about corvairs- the fucking 90 degree turn belt coming off on powershifts. The old man had me trained to listen for it coming off on WOT shifts, I'd jump up and turn around in case it exited the engine compartment, so we could tell where it went in the ditch. Good times, good times. Someday I'll have a kid, and my corvair will be a cherry red late hardtop with a silver rear panel, and some kind of liquid cooled aluminum V8 transaxle out of a late model........Or maybe not, we had some fun times looking for that belt, and the random adventures caused by overheating............
One of my earliest corvair memories was when me and a buddy was cruising in his one night and the throttle linkage broke. He sat on the rear fender with the hood up and worked the throttle while I drove so we could get it home.
back in St.Louis in the '80s, there was a guy must've had dozens of these things in his yard, off Ambs road. Friend of mine bought one, factory AC car, convertible. Dunno if it was a Spyder. Those were cool cars...........
I've had 3 of them, loved 'em all. One of my high school buds bought a brand new '67 Spyder convertible (turbo) w/ 4-sp, and decided he needed to jack the compression up to make more HP. I told him turbos don't like that, but he went ahead and put NA pistons in it... He was cruising in fron t of the school and nailed it to impress some chicks, both heads blew out the sides of the car! Pretty impressive, I have to admit! Can't believe no one has posted a Toronado'd Vair?
Poor handling early Corvair (and early Tempest) swing axle rear suspension can easily be tamed by decambering the rearend, accomplished by lowering the transaxle mounts with small blocks (find a copy of the Hot Rod Pontiac Performance Manual published around 1964 for a detailed description of this procedure), adding modern adjustable shocks, and/or simply installing a Z bar type rear stabilizer bar. The 65 and later suspension is true independent patterned after the 63 Corvette, with the half shafts acting as the upper links and the substitution of coil springs for the transverse leaf. Although this suspension does have it's limitations, it made the 65 and later Corvairs one of the best handling production cars of the 60s.
I had 3, a '60 3sp coupe (the dash is going in my '46), a '64 Greenbrier (I replaced the Powerglide in the middle of a tropical storm... outside a buddies shop, good times), and my daily for 5 years, a '65, 4 sp. conv. with a warmed-over 110 with duals. I dug 'em, but my buddy with the parts stash lost his storage and I had to start BUYING parts, and it was getting expensive.
Saw this one at Jimmies Icehouse at the Houston HAMB Kruze one Sunday. My Dad had one in high school...he went through the windsheild in an accident, and was hospitalized with his eyes bandaged up. He said every morning when the nurse would feed him breakfast, he would smell bacon, but never got any. One morning he peeked and caught the nurse eating it. Back to our regularly scheduled hot rods...
This is the first Greenbrier I've seen since I sold my '64 fifteen years ago. I loved that thing. One of my axle clips broke so I sold it for next to nothing. Very cool van!
65 Monza 4 speed... still in progress. Sorry the pics kinda blurry- BTW its one of those $50 rustoleum paint jobs too.
there was an old guy in chino california that was trying to buy up every old corvair he could find .he managed to buy over 200 and had them lined up in a vacant lot on mission blvd.the city changed his plans tho when they brought in the car crusher.
My first car was a '66 Covair Monza. White with a red interior and auto "T" shift on the dash. Sounds pretty cool huh?......not so much. I bought this piece of crap from my Dad for $150 bucks in '74. It "ran" on 3 cylinders and leaked (no it gushed) oil big time. I bought used oil by the gallon and keep a couple gallons in the back seat at all times. The dash mount "T" gear selector was handy to pop it into neutral so it won't stall (as often) at stoplights. The best part was that both doors had giant decals which read "Hey Culligan Man!" My Dad was a salesman for Culligan. Yes-sir-ree, this baby was a real hit with the ladies. None the less, these Covairs shown here do look pretty cool and are helping me recover from my experience. In another 33 years I might even want to own one again.......nah problably not, but you guys go ahead and have fun with 'em!
When I bought my house, "included" in the sale was a '63 'vert, a '61 coupe and a '64 coupe that I had to pay $50 each to haul off because no one in the local Corvair club wanted them for free...even delivered. And that was only 4 years ago. My uncle was a Corvair nut when he was younger, but when he moved off the family farm, he left about 20 'Vairs, including 4 vans, 2 wagons (lakewoods) 1 Spyder 'Vert, a Corsa, and a dozen or so others that all went to a salvage yard after rotting for 25 years...except the Spyder, he sold that to a buddy of mine. I always thought the '65-'69's felt like a 3/4 scale 1st gen. Camaro inside...cool little cars.
The Jalopy Journal
