What are the pros and cons of the corvairs??

A friends dad who was a gm car salesman gave us a ride in a new 1963 demo corvair with auto. From a dead stop at the end of 2 block we were doing a blazing 30MPH

 

I have a 65 Coupe....not rusted out, never been rolled, strong running 140 Hp engine, doesn't leak. I don't drive it for personal reasons but it is a sweet little car. Most of the CON comments are just wrong........period. The car died off because Chevy went to the Camaro to compete with the Mustang / Falcon cars. According to the Corvair.com history, Chevy continued the car for several years so it did not appear that the consumer groups won. The one big problem is most Corvair restorer / owners pride themselves on being cheap.......fixed that carb with a spring from a ball point pen type stuff
AND.......it's not a HAMB type car except for parts........

 

My Pop was a Corvair mechanic, between us, we've owned several. Most common problems were oil leaks from the pushrod tubes and missing or incorrectly positioned sheetmetal parts that enclose the engine. Old, hard,brittle,broken O-rings on pushrod tubes allow oil to leak down into heat shields. Soon you are smelling oil inside, if it's a bad leak and you turn on the heater you may even get oil smoke inside!!(trust me on this one). If a previous owner tried to fix the oil leak it is common to find that they diud not replace all the sheetmetal pieces. They were tricky to replace properly, you know..kinda flimsy,easily bent or bashed, so maybe some bolts didn't get replaced or entire panels were left off. Anyway, panels were important for engine cooling and function of what, at best,was a weaking heating system(VW) Oh, yeah, there were flaps in the heat ducts, controlled by a bellows-style thermostat. If they fail the flaps open to prevent engine over-heating, but you get NO inside heat from heater.
Otherwise, I drove the hell out of my "65 4 speed Corsa, 140hp, 4 carb model. Cornered great, I loved it. Good Luck

 

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but Nader's report was on the early Corvair that had the swing axles and were pretty unstable in cetain situations. When Chevrolet revamped the suspension for '65, the car handled MUCH better.

I had a '65 convertible for a little while- it was fun to drive and VERY responsive.

AND don't forget that Yenko raced them!

 

There is a difference between "cheap" and "economy". As a modern example, there is a substantial difference to me between hopping up a Fox bodied Mustang, and a new Cavalier. The Mustang is cheap because it isn't new, they're plentiful, respond well to engine swaps, etc. Whereas the Cavalier is inexpensive because it's supposed to be. Maybe you can see the parallel. Sort of the same way T's, A's, 39 and 40 Fords were cheapo hot rod fodder in 1955, whereas in 1964, a 60 or 61 Corvair was damn near a new car.

Maybe we see things differently now because they're all just cool, old cars. Maybe my kids will cringe when I tell them how badly I abused the 95 Civic I used to daily drive. And again, maybe my perspective is off, or I just have different tastes than some, which is fine.

Shifty, I'm most certainly not a lifestyler, and thank you for recognizing that. We both have different opinions on the subject, which is fine. Some people's feelings get too hurt too easy, arguing is the basis of my career

 

The only one I ever drove that was worth a shit, was a 69 Monza with a 302 Chevy Z28 motor in the back seat. Every other one i drove was a useless pile, underpowered and horrible handling. JMO

 

I had a 62 and I really like that car !
A friend in high school had a Turbo Spider and that was one fast Corvair !

As for Nater , he was an asshole !

 

It's like driving a 911, if you are not familiar with driving a rear or mid engined car then it is a foreign thing as far as handling goes. If you understand it then you can go like a bat out of hell. I remember all the hubbub over Jeeps flipping, you can't drive them like a regular car, you have to be aware of the handling characteristics.

 

this thread seams to be going in direction that doesn't really answer automatic's question , so i brought my first post on this thread back up.

Automatic , you are not going to pull a loaded 40 foot enclosed trailer with it , but i still believe it would make a good shop truck/parts hauler. i say this base upon my own experiences with Corvairs....my father had about 7 of them at various times in the 60's , 3 of them being Greenbriars. i guy who worked for my father at the time had a Rampside and used it to haul all sorts of stuff. the first car i ever drove was a 1961 , and my favorite of mine was a 1965 Monza with a 140 HP motor. i drove that to school many times. while i'm not a Corvair expert , i do feel what i say comes from my own hands on experiences with them

 

S10s and rangers regularly come with similar power levels, so if a 4 popper minitruck would handle your parts chasing needs, a well maintained corvair truck ought to do the same.

I see a lot of problems with rust in the ramp door making it unsuitable for bearing weight. Look close! Good luck

 

Well, in case anyone cares, here is my abbreviated opinion on this thread...

Corvair = Good

Ralph Nadar = Bad

 

They go over snowbanks real well, sort of like a big toboggan. Not too many good places to hook up a tow rope though......

 

Since the original question was about the Corvair Rampside pickup, here's a few pics of what they look like.

 

theres a corvair only junkyard about 6miles from my work if you do end up picking one up i might be able to help you out on used/new parts alot cheaper than Clarks (a great company none the less) please let me know i love helping keep corvairs on the road!

 

In the mid-to-late 1970's a friend in Dallas owned three sequentially numbered Yenko Stingers. Numbers 095. 096 and 097 of the first 100 car production run. We rebuilt 095 from a street version into a SCCA D-Production car. It was fun and relatively competitive if shifted smoothly to keep the Kevlar fan belt in place. Once at the Runoffs at Road Atlanta we qualified one row ahead of Paul Newman. Night before the race we wrote "Ben Quicker" on the back panel to poke fun at the role Mr. Newman played in "The Long, Hot Summer". He pretty well burned our barn down during the race but came by our pit later and laughed about it. Good days.

BTW the last uncompleted Corvair body off the assembly line is a 1969 Burgundy coupe that used to sit in the Pate Museum. Always wanted that chassis assembly to work on. Oh well..

Oh yeah, at the race shop we worked on several V-8 conversion street machines. Best running one had an Olds Toronado engine and drivetrain sitting where the back seat used to be. Clean installation, handled good and was a real sleeper.

 

Yeah, rodding has always been about starting with the newest, fastest, most expensive car you can find.....And, as much as I abhor ricers, souping up economy cars is THE hot thing to do if you lean that way, just visit any college town, those little bastards are everywhere.

 

I think that the Corvair will make you a nice vehicle.A little modern technology in an old school ride should make it a kick-ass daily driver.The only mechanical problem that I ever had with mine was vapor locking and that was easily solved.

 

Is it just me or did the Early corvettes totally suck? Sure they look great until you get up close and notice the paint cracking. I bet that heavy arse truck motor in a "sports" car was pretty sweet for pulling trailers but not for accelerating out of a corner if you made it out of said corner cuz they handled like crap. The 2 speed trans was totally a race car transmission too even drag racers nowadays have those right?

 

To say the early Corvettes "sucked" may be a bit of an overstatement. The 235 also isn't a "truck" motor, per se. It's just what Chevy had, no V8 available until 1955. The Corvettes also had higher compression and that kick ass 3 carb intake with side draft carbs. That intake is not ported and the linkage is not progressive. 1 carb operates 2 cylinders. They made good power for their day. Also, the 235 I6 was roughly 40 lbs heavier than the SBC, so the weight in drivetrain could feasibly be offset by a driver who ate too many burgers at the local hop. I'm not sure on the production of Vettes with 2 speed cast iron powerglides versus 3 speed manuals. Though I could only speculate, I would imagine the manual cars would account for the crux of production.

As for the checking paint, it's likely a result of the fiberglass bodies versus the steel of the Thunderbirds.

 

One of the best car I ever owned and raced I had a 1964 Corvair Monza I bought new and drag raced it every weekend for years at Keystone Dragstrip in Manitoba Canada.

I won Jr Stock eliminator every weekend for 2-3 years. I was young in those days and had no money.

I had a 32 Ford 3 Window coupe in my garage and a 31 Chevy 5 Window coupe. Yet the Corvair was really fun it was one of the best times of my life. All the guys with there fancy rides could not believe it I won my class + Jr Stock Eliminator every weekend for years. I took home 2 trophies every weekend. I tuned it and over hauled it myself I worked on the Pipe Line for a living and drove it every day in -30 and -40 and -50 below weather and never had a problem. I later sold it to my dad when I moved to the USA and he drove it for 12 years till the floor rusted out and he was 84 years old when we sold it.

Great car!

I saw one with a V8 in it in California years later and almost bought it but I was racing a bad ass 914 Porsche and driving against Rick Meyers( who won Pikes Peak) every weekend and I was breaking up with my wife and going to sell my business so I had no time or money or would have bought it

 

i don't know if id let chevy off the hook that easy.... using just what they had sounds beyond lazy to me.... at least with the Corvair they went "ground up" with the drive train..... the rear suspension was similar to the Vette and the seats were all vette with different ulpolstry =)

 

Man the engine is a flat 6 a Boxer style engine like Ferrari's I raced mine every weekend for years and won My Class + Jr Stock Eliminator every week end for almost 3 years. I was unbeaten. I raced at Keystone drag strip in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada.

I owned at the same time a 32 Ford 3 window and 31 Chevy 5 window but really enjoyed my Corvair.

I worked on the pipe line and drove it every day to work in -30,-40,-50 degree weather and it never gave me a hard time.

 

Ferrari made a Flat 6?

Thats news to me...

 

Well, I doubt Chevy wanted to rush a half-assed V8 into production in 53 or 54 when it knew the SBC was coming out soon. They obviously got it right the first time. Besides, the Blue Flame I6 was pushing out 150 hp, which was adequate in a light car.

 

No a flat motor where the cylinders are 180 degrees opposed are called Boxer motors. Ferrari made Boxer motors as did Porsche.

 

Thank you, I think we've established that Corvairs have 6 cylinders, contrary to my mental gaffe.

If you're comparing a Corvair 6 to a Porsche engine, I'd imagine the similarities are few and far between except for configuration. I've worked on a bunch of 911s and the engineering involved in those motors blows me away.

 

I know that a Boxer is.

And The Ferrari Boxer was a 12Cyl.

So in number of Cylinders you made a bigger mistake than Joe.


This is getting really silly.

I think this one is done...