There are two things you could always count on General Motors to do: work on problems on a model until they were polished out, and the moment the model was spot-on…they killed it. The 1994-96 Impala SS, the Pontiac Fiero, and the Corvair are all examples of how that system works out, but the Corvair’s story tends to be viewed as a touch more tragic because of what might have been, had it not been for swing-arm suspensions and Ralph Nader. Instead of looking pretty much as upright and as vanilla as the Pontiac Tempest, Olds Cutlass and Buick Special that were based on a similar, but RWD, platform with, the second-gen Corvair looked like nothing else in the entirety of GM, save for the Corvette-esque tail lights. Running a rear-mounted, air-cooled 2.7L flat-six was the middle finger to pretty much every other car on the market save the Volkswagen Beetle…but no Beetle had the kind of room in the interior a Corvair had and it certainly didn’t have the style. 

This 1965 model recently popped up on our radar, a driver-quality Corvair coupe with the 110 horsepower engine, sporting Rally wheels and a few spots of rust bubbling out. It’s a midwest car…rust shouldn’t be a surprise in any vehicle from 1965, and nothing here looks like genuine rot. The car overall looks to be in decent condition and the photo of the flat-six shows it running. The only thing we really can ding the little Corvair on is it’s transmission: it’s a Powerglide. If that doesn’t bother you, then credit is due because having only two speeds only seems to make sense on a drag strip. Either way, it’s a neat little find and it fits the budget. Using our Rough Start mark of five thousand dollars burning a hole through your wallet, we’d suggest bringing it home and looking it over for the worst of the wear. With luck, all you’ll need to do is carve out the bad spots in the fenders and patch. It’s project car territory, but one that you can drive around until you’re ready to tear into the metal work.

Craigslist Link: 1965 Chevrolet Corvair