Corvair Fetish

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I had a 1966 Corsa, 4 speed, 4 single throat carbs.

Given their age now, finding a primo one is essential unless you want to do a lot of work yourself.

You may already know, but the 1965 and later ones had true independent rear suspensions. The 1966 and later had the "King Kong" manual transmissions. Best I recall (owned it from about 1970 to 1972, so it's been a while) they had gears and synchros from the Chevy V8's, so a six cylinder, 140 gross HP engine was no big deal.

Okay, now you got me thinking too...
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I had two in the day-nothing like heat full of oil smoke from my leaking pushrod tubes! The one I drove the most was a '63 4 speed, with the 140 HP 2 carb engine, and standard rear swing axle of death suspension! Fortunately it wasn't really fast enough to get into real trouble.
 
My friend's dad had one when we were in the 5th grade (mid 70s sometime). One day his dad dropped him off at school and it caught on fire haha.
 
A buddy of mine had one with a 400 Small block mounted mid engine. It was fast. So fast that he lost control and rolled it.
 
My neighbor used to have a plethora of them. Supposedly he raced them. I will say the 1965+ models are stunning. However, the best part is the sweet sound of a flat six. It is nearly enough to make me fall over...
 
You can find them. Plenty of Corvair clubs around. They'll know of a good one for sale that the husband passed and the wife is selling.

I also am slowly looking for a decent Monza.

One trick is to set front tire pressure low enough that it makes roughly the same contact patch as the rear. They will then turn-in as they should
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If you rear the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" you'll see Ralph Nader mentioned automotive flaws.

Since the Corvair had the deadly swing axle it got mentioned.
Then he mentioned the heater was straight off the engine (as mentioned above). Even the lowly Volkswagen had heat exchangers.

So don't do the automatic, foolish thing of poking fun at Ralph Nader. He got Chevy to improve the Corvair's rear axles.

I had a '64 969 (4 door Monza).
 
grew up racing one of these on back roads in rural Sarasota. Great fun, slid around on the dirt like a mofo. Never had any issues, even as our fav corner was a fast sweeper that changed from dirt to pavement and would really stress the car at high speeds.

My pal locally at a car show has a 327 powered one. Amazing shoehorn job, wonderful noises, too.
 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Cole

My Uncle had a Corvair when I was quite young and everytime I went over to his home I made him open the hood and trunk so I could see the motor in the back and trunk in the front, I think he tired of me but he was always a good sport about it (nice guy!) I made friends a few years ago with a gentlem who has a Corvair and leads a Covair club and he pointed out to me Ed Cole the so called father of the Covair (and Chevrolet Vega) was born and raised about a mile from where I currently live in Marne, I just use Grand Rapids in my signature because it's more recognisable and I was born and raised there, read his Wikipedia page he has quite a story.
TOTO.
 
Learned to drive in a '64 Monza 4dr with the higher compression 110 bhp engine that was supposed to get premium fuel. It also had Powerglide so it was quite slow. This transaxle also lacked park, so it was always necessary to use the parking brake.
The '64 had a transverse leaf spring to prevent the jacking that could happen with the swing arm IRS and the result was a car that loved fast sweepers. The car was genuinely fun to drive even if slow and never bit my inexperienced but enthusiastic 16 YO behind. You could also wipe the tread off the rear tires in no time at all at which time you would sneak off to the local Firestone shop and have a new pair of Deluxe Champions put on the rear, around $25.00 a tire at the time. Didn't want dad to figure out exactly how hard I was using the old Corvair.
I later owned a '65 Monza coupe with the same powertrain. Put a set of JC Whitney headers and duals on it and it sounded really sweet, as only a flat six can.
Other than the kind of troublesome fan belt and the guaranteed to make a mess oil filter location, most of the other bits were standard GM, which at the time meant of very good quality and durability.
This was a fairly complex car from an era when GM was willing to exert itself, take risks and build something entirely different. The fact that the Falcon was killing it in sales and was also far cheaper to build meant that there would shortly be the entirely conventional Chevy II AKA Nova.
There seem to be a lot of good original Corvairs out there. We see a surprising number of them at every old car event we attend. They're also pretty cheap, so would be a nice way to get into something interesting.
 
Yes, they have a strange appeal. There are many good Corvair videos on YouTube. It was interesting watching GM's (promoting the Corvair over the Falcon and the Valiant) and Ford's (promoting the Falcon over the Corvair) back-to-back.

The Corvair-based Greenbriar vans and pickups really intrigue me as well.
 
Rode in one a couple of times in the late 60s...a friend's grandmother had a greenish gold one, couldn't tell you much more about it other than I seem to recall a wide louvered area in the rear valance that struck me as unusual. Nowhere near as cool as another neighbor's DeTomaso Mangusta...
 
Originally Posted By: CincyDavid
Nowhere near as cool as another neighbor's DeTomaso Mangusta...


Probably nowhere near as tail-happy either, which this Ford powered kinda exotic was noted for, although the Mongoose was certainly an exotic looking car and had the reliability and durability to qualify as an Italian exotic. The Ford V-8 wouldn't break but everything else would.
 
Originally Posted By: Kira
If you rear the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" you'll see Ralph Nader mentioned automotive flaws.

Since the Corvair had the deadly swing axle it got mentioned.
Then he mentioned the heater was straight off the engine (as mentioned above). Even the lowly Volkswagen had heat exchangers.

So don't do the automatic, foolish thing of poking fun at Ralph Nader. He got Chevy to improve the Corvair's rear axles.

I had a '64 969 (4 door Monza).



The swing axle suspension in the Corvair was gone by the time Nader complained about it. Full IRS came out in the Corvair in the 1965 model year, so it was introduced in late 1964. "Unsafe At Any Speed" came out in 1965. The only thing that gave that book and Nader any notoriety was GM hired private investigators to trail Nader.

The Corvair was one of the best handling cars of its era. It won SCCA national championships in the hands of Don Yenko. But once a car gets a bad reputation in the popular culture, facts don't matter.
 
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