Possibly "The Ultimate Corvair" ?

MaxxVolume

Lunatic Member
This is quite bad-ass !
35 years ago, I built up a Crown conversion `66 Corsa, it was pretty well-detailed and tricked out, but the car in this video has all the latest (and best) bells & whistles. Uber-expensive, too, I`m sure....

 
Damn! That is incredible! Thanks for posting the video. I enjoyed it but I was beginning to get a little vertigo watching the auto cross segment at the end.

I always liked the Chevrolet Corvair. GM allowed it to be killed off too early. Now one can only dream of where the air cooled rear engine platform could have become. I have no idea if it would have become viable in the market if it had continued. Somehow, I doubt that it would ever have become something that resembled the Corvair in the video.
 
And based on The Squirrels picture alone, I rest my case about where the Corvair could have gone!
 
I had a buddy of mine once that put an s10 subframe under a 4 door corvair,then installed a bigblock 454 and then proceeded to shorten the car in length because he had made the rear doors into half doors.kinda like an extended cab corvair w a bigblock,and a/c of course.this guy was crazy as far as the things he could think of and then actually execute.
 
My Grandmother owned 2, a Red "stock" one, and an ugly Teal "Monza" version. She, on occasion, would race people on 4 lane city streets, the "Monza" version, especially with Grandkids in the car. I always liked them.
 
We put the stereo in this incredible corvair corsa
Jaguar v 12 power and some of the most impressive engineering I have ever seen
https://www.corvaircorsa.com/V-12-01.html
Yeah, I agree with you. I saw that car at a CORSA convention many moons ago, it looked like it came out of the factory with that V12 in it, the most sanitary swap I`ve ever seen !
Jay Eitel was a hell of an engineer, he invented the cherry picker, and held several other patents.

Here`s mine:
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Damn! That is incredible! Thanks for posting the video. I enjoyed it but I was beginning to get a little vertigo watching the auto cross segment at the end.

I always liked the Chevrolet Corvair. GM allowed it to be killed off too early. Now one can only dream of where the air cooled rear engine platform could have become. I have no idea if it would have become viable in the market if it had continued. Somehow, I doubt that it would ever have become something that resembled the Corvair in the video.

The second-gen (`65 and later) Corvair was incredibly well sorted out as delivered from the factory. The suspension had been revised, it was now like a scaled-down version of the Corvette suspension. MUCH more predictable and safer than the older swing-axle design. The only weak point they really had was an oil leak, caused by the lousy Buna-N rubber seals used at the time. Savvy Corvair folks quickly started using Viton rubber O-rings, developed by NASA for the space program. That was an effective fix for the leak problem. Had the car remained in production, it might have been converted to water cooling for emissions and fuel economy reasons, the car would`ve benefitted from disc brakes and other modern touches.
Unfortunately, GM killed off the most promising car in their fleet....it would have given them a much better chance of fighting off the Japanese onslaught that was about to come a few years down the road....
 
they killed the corvair and created the Vega. in California I have not seen a Vega in 30 years.

goes to reliability, longevity, fixability, and as such, a test of Chevrolet brand loyalty.
 
There was a pretty strong local club - Group Corvair ...
I've seen their posts on Facebook
I was a member for a bit back in the mid 70s ...
and I can recall Woody Schwartz's amazing 'vair ...
incredibly clean work and beautifully detailed.
(Found these pics on Facebook!)

Woodys-corvair.jpgTail-lights.jpg
 
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There was a pretty strong local club - Group Corvair ...
I've seen their posts on Facebook
I was a member for a bit back in the mid 70s ...
and I can recall Woody Schwartz's amazing 'vair ...
incredibly clean work and beautifully detailed.

View attachment 1284724View attachment 1284725
Yes, that`s a REALLY nice car....styling engineers really nailed it on this one, the lines were just so clean and simple, the slim roof pillars gave great visibility, everything was "just right" ! Lack of a transmission tunnel created lots of interior room, providing space to carry four full-size adults in comfort. Such a shame that it had to go away....
 
My mother had a '64 and '66 Monza model. Both red.
What I remember most is having to stand in the cold weather with a screwdriver pressed against the carburetor choke mechanism while the car warmed up because the choke cable was broken.

Also, the hole in the backseat floorboard.
About the size of a half-dollar.
My younger brother and sister were fascinated, always pushing stuff through it while the car was moving.
 
Also, the hole in the backseat floorboard.
About the size of a half-dollar.
My younger brother and sister were fascinated, always pushing stuff through it while the car was moving.

Are you referring to the rear seat heating vent ? In the center of the rear seat bottom, close to the floor, there was a little trap-door type deal that you could open, letting hot air into the seating area. Only problem was that once those crappy original rubber seals started to fail, you got a slightly oily exhaust smell coming in. Kinda like being behind a bus....
 
Are you referring to the rear seat heating vent ? In the center of the rear seat bottom, close to the floor, there was a little trap-door type deal that you could open, letting hot air into the seating area. Only problem was that once those crappy original rubber seals started to fail, you got a slightly oily exhaust smell coming in. Kinda like being behind a bus....

Yep, we had fumes alright.
But no, it was just a [rusted out?] hole in the floorboard.

This was in the earlier model, which on second thought was more likely a '61 or '62 model than '64.
I think we got it in '64. Belonged to my grandmother originally.
Which means the other was probably a '65 model....also bought new by my grandmother and given to my mother in maybe '68.
 
There used to be a local guy that specialized in Cirvaurs and Avantis. Weird combination, but whatever.

His son ended up working where I worked at the time and I noticed he usually drove one of a couple different Avantis. We got to talking about it and he ended up inviting me to his dad's shop.

Very interesting guy.

One of his weird projects was putting 1993-1995 Mazda rotary engines into Corvairs. He had two personal cars with them. One was a pretty standard turbo which was maybe 275 HP but he claimed that one was pushing 650 HP.

Of course, you had to wind it to death to see that peak power, but I bet it was zippy as hell and still had a good balance unlike the guys putting huge V8s in them.

He also had a 90s Eldorado or Seville with two Northstar V8s... one engine driving the front wheels and one driving the real wheels.
 
still had a good balance unlike the guys putting huge V8s in them.

Your observation here is HIGHLY incorrect....did you even watch the video I posted at the beginning of this thread??? It`s almost impossible to beat a lightweight, MID-ENGINE V8 car for balance and neutral handling. My V8 `vair (pictured above) weighed 2660 lbs. ready to rock `n roll, with a full tank of gas, and driver`s seat occupied, was about as close to 50/50 as you could hope for. Having owned and driven a bunch of fast cars, I never experienced one as relaxed and confidence-inspiring when being pushed at nine-tenths....
 
Love em when they're done right.

Not so sure about getting rid of the flat six though. Seems a bit blasphemous. :D

I’d agree.

I’d rather see the stock engine tuned to produce something like 200hp. More than that in such a small car just seems out of balance. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should...
 
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