For once, seeing a model of a car die just as it was becoming great wasn’t completely the fault of General Motors. Plenty of the blame had to be laid on the head of one Mr. Ralph Nader, who had gone after the Corvair in particular with the enthusiasm and glee of a junkyard dog that smelled a little bit of blood with the meat in the dinner bowl. Wrong or right, Nader’s work pretty much sank the air-cooled, rear engined Corvair in deep water, making room for the front-engine, rear-drive Camaro to flourish in the marketplace. While work progressed on a potential third-gen Corvair for an early 1970s release, the truth was that between Nader’s book and Ed Cole’s dwindling interest in any Corvair project of any kind, the model was doomed. No, the 2.7L flat-six wasn’t perfect and yes, the first-generation Corvair did exhibit some rather frightening handling characteristics if you were not ready for what could happen and hadn’t been familiarized with a rear-engined car’s movements, but the 1965-69 Corvairs were solid machines that looked good and could handle well enough.
Finding a Corvair in the Rough Start budget isn’t easy. The ones we usually find are normally parts cars. This 1965 Monza isn’t…it’s a project, for sure, but it’s not bad. According to the seller, it ran and drove until last winter, when it suddenly refused to start. An annoyance for the seller, an opportunity for the gearhead. For two grand, you could fix the car, clean it up some and probably flip it if you were so inclined. Or, you could type “Corvair Turbo Kit” into your searchbar while you determine if you want to keep the Powerglide or step up to a four-speed transaxle.
Owned a \’65 when stationed out East in \’69
Seems like I was always adjusting valves………tried to drive it to
St. Louis after I got out………gave up the ghost in Terre Haute
Left it there