When I was in high school, my friend Kelly's father bought her a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair just like this one. I thought it cute as a button, like she was, but she hated it. Although it was in very good if not mint condition, she thought it an "old person's car" and not something she wanted to be seen in or associated with. I thought it quaint and older than it was, it wasn't twenty-years old at the time, but that didn't stop me from begging her to let me drive it. She acquiesced for no other reason than to shut me up.
Despite the lack of power steering, I found it handled amply. If not quite well. Better than my stinking Comet did. The brakes were so-so, but the air-cooled and very noisy flat six out back felt responsive enough. The whole thing was so different from anything else I had driven up to that time; not that by the age of 18 I had driven that many cars, but I knew enough by then that the Corvair was different.
The Chevrolet Corvair and its corporate brethren at Pontiac (Tempest), Buick (Special) and Oldsmobile (F85) were General Motors' salvo at the growing popularity of imports in this country in the late 1950's. And with the Corvair, it was their direct shot at the original Volkswagen Beetle. That being a reasonably space efficient, compact, air-cooled, rear-engined transportation conveyance. The BOP offerings were certainly odd in their own ways but nothing like the Corvair was.
With the Corvair in particular, GM attempted to out-Volkswagen Volkswagen. That being putting the engine in the rear of the car where it "belongs on a compact car". Putting the engine "out there" gave the Corvair a remarkably spacious interior, given its size or otherwise, and enabled designers to make it very, very low. In fact, the lowest car sold in the U.S. at that time. Giving credit where it's due, GM styling was at its Zenith in those early days after Harley Earl retired so at least they were interesting looking. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, everything. Actually. The tip of the spear of "Unsafe at Any Speed", Ralph Nadar's scalding 1965 tome on the state of automobile safety at the time, or lack thereof, because of the deliberate omission of a front stabilizer bar, to save $4 per car, when the swing axle on early Corvair's "tucked in", the lack of something to stop or at least inhibit the front of the car from bottoming out meant Corvairs could flip over when turned aggressively at speed.
Kelly wouldn't let me drive her Corvair over thirty miles per hour nor on the highway because her dad said it would be too dangerous. But he bought her the car anyway? Father of the Year.
I found this Corvair on Facebook Marketplace for sale down in New Philadelphia which is a lovely community 85 miles southeast of Cleveland and roughly 90 minutes west of Pittsburgh. A nice Sunday afternoon jaunt for my wife and I if we were interested in this. Which, despite the mild nostalgia, trip, I for one am most certainly not.
Price has been reduced from a heady $8,500 to a more reasonable but still wishful $3,500. Body appears pretty solid, no visible rust. Which is remarkable on a car this old up here. Its decent shape is why it was bought by the father of the poster of the FB ad in the first place. He bought it, stuffed it in this garage to work on it and that was that. He passed away shortly after he bought it apparently. I guess he loved Corvair's, they do have their positive attributes. They have no idea if it runs or not. Bonus, it comes with a full set of matching Chevrolet Citation wheel covers.
I doubt all it needs is a good cleaning and a headliner. What folks say they "don't know" about a vehicle is a blaring siren to assume and prepare for the worst. This isn't my cup of tea but perhaps it's yours. Comment below if you want more information on it.
I'll look up Kelly and see if she remembers her Corvair too. I bet she says she doesn't.
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