I grew up driving my 57 all around SoCal. To the beach, up to Paso Robles, heck even drove it Wyoming. I learned to manipulate the ebrake once when my master took a***** on the 134 through Pasadena traffic. Do I harbor some fear that my baby could be carved up by an idiot in a Prius? Yes. But she can get the same crossing the street for ice cream. I’ll grind my teeth and pray she learns defensive driving and patience when pulling into traffic.
Agreed. For a modern kid, even learning to remember to shut off your headlights is a valuable lesson in paying attention.
Too bad it's an auto. The manuals are a lot of fun. Corvairs are easy to work on, and there are some good, easy-to-read manuals out there
Absolutely. I do parts and service for heavy equipment and there is a huge swath of youngsters that don’t have the same backyard education we did. They’re smarter than we were, but much less practical common sense
When I was in high school I had a long roof. Definitely agree with those that said never buy a daughter a long roof.... Lol.
Super cool move Dad! She and the 'Vair are a great pairing! It'll look good with some old school drip rail mount surf racks. Don't forget the Cal Custom foot gas pedal. For peace of mind; an alarm system, jumper cables, can of Fix a Flat and fire extinguisher. I taught all 4 of our kids (3 girls/1 boy) to drive and part of the curriculum was they all had to be able to jump start the car and change out a tire with the spare from A-Z and be familiar with all the under hood fluid checks. If they forget but have the tools on hand, they can always Face Time you or someone to walk them through a jump, etc. (I've FT'd roadside issues a few times). They may also be able to****ist a stranded friend rather than wait for AAA, etc.
This is awesome. Best of luck with the great car. Ever since Hemi Joel's amazing thread about driving his 61 Corvair Spider 2000 miles from Arizona to Minnesota, I've been eyeing one for myself. Looks like an absolute blast of a car to drive
I seem to recall that the earlier Corvairs at least (and maybe the later models as well) were a bit fussy about tire pressures. Don't recall the exact numbers but there was a noticeable variation between the front and rear pressures. Not sure how this relates to newer radial tires but surely someone online does.
Yes, I’ve read about this. If I recall the rears are something like 12 psi more than the fronts. Or vice-versa
My oldest son learned that all too well himself. I bought his daughter, my granddaughter, an OT Crown Vic retired police cruiser. She totaled it three weeks later taking out 14 fence posts with barbed wire after she jumped a ditch and climbed the hill to do so. She denied doing it but the barbed wire scratches, fence post dents, destroyed suspension told a different story. two years later she acquired her own car. An OT chevy compact that fared no better than the Crown Vic. Married now with two of our grandkids and her husband drives her where she needs to go.
Very cool! My youngest son was planning to drive a 63 Corvair once we didn't make as much progress on his 51 Chevy pu as we should have prior to him turning 16. He did learn to drive a standard in the Corvair, but after burning a hole in a piston...ended up putting an engine in another project for him to drive when he was 16. I'll be following along on your progress. The slots are a big improvement.
You have a great car for your daughter that is a good size to start driving and is easy on gas. I would suggest putting your daughter in driver ed to help keep your daughter safe. My parents required that I take drive ed if I wanted any hope of touching the wheel of the family car and it had the benefit of lower insurance premiums.That was 58 years ago. 45 years ago I was t-boned by a drunk on a busy city street. The only thing I could do was to hit the gas so my wife was safe and he would hit behind the box behind the cab. Otherwise good. My sons went through driver ed for their own good and to keep my insurance premiums down. The boys have 26 and 29 years of accident free driving respectively. Well not quite my oldest was surprised by a yearling moose one night that bent the the hood and damaged the grill of my Ford truck. Damage was minor considering it was a moose.
In CA a teenager can't get a DL until they are 18 unless they have drivers ed. Back in the day the high schools used to over it but I don't thing any do anymore. Or at least none that I know off. AAA taught my son to drive but they didn't include parallel parking. WTF? Probably because it isn't part of the driving portion for a license. But we specifically asked the instructor and he gave my son a how to which he still uses to this day.
FYI, I had a Corvair when I was a teenager and the biggest issue was the fan belt jumping off. There's a kit you can buy to correct the problem and a video on YouTube by the inventor (I think) that I watched but I can't seem to find it. I'll keep searching and chime in if I find it.....mean while make sure she can fix it when it happens.
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