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Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 89
Shade Tree Mechanic
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Shade Tree Mechanic
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 89 |
I always thought the Corvairs were nice little cars. Back in 62 I was driving a 57 Olds baby blue conv with the J-2 engine. (would I like to have that today) It got awful mileage, part of that could have been the 23 points on my license. Traded it for a new hondarus maroon 62 monza coupe, 102 Hp with 4-speed and black buckets. By the way amber lens didn't come out until 63. Drone the living hell out of it for 110,000 miles. Had the valves ground at about 60,000 I install dual glasspacks and that baby sounded great. Had a lot of fun in that car, but I Wished to this day though that I had bought a 62 bubbletop, they were the about same price.
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Willwood Engineering
Wilwood Engineering designs and manufactures high-performance disc brake systems.
Wilwood Engineering, Inc. - 4700 Calle Bolero - Camarillo, CA 93012 - (805) 388-1188
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 4
Grease Monkey
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Grease Monkey
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 4 |
Well, in Texas it was a 1960 model, because that is what the title said! and it did have a hot air heater, sold first time in Nov. 1960. I made it look like a 1962 because I put amber park lenses in it Also, I used my Dad's oxy-acetylene welding rig to build the dual exhaust. The dealers in Texas had a heck of a time keeping the Corvair coupes in stock, No one in Texas ever liked Ralph Nader eidder! There were some other differences in the EARLY 1960 models from mine too, I didn't like the Early 1960 or the LATE 1959 corvair as well as my 1960 coupe!   Once I was late to work because the highway was snow packed over an inch of ice, on a 2 lane FM road, about 3 miles froM our job site I started passing a farmer pulling a stock trailer about 6:30 AM at 65 MPH and the farmer decided to make a left hand turn into a cow lot. I went onto the dirt on the left side and got 90 degrees sideways throwing snow ice and red dirt everywhere the car hood pointing toward the road and we slid about 100 yards, straight down the sholder, I was slowed down to around 20 MPH sideways and here is a tree comeing up! I reved the engine up, grabbed second gear and barely pulled out to the slide and missed the tree by inches. My brother was asleep in the passenger seat when this all started, he woke up and maps, and stuff was floating around inside the cabin, and he started screaming!...."You *$#^%@! crazy ^%*&#$ you are going to kill us both!"... I never looked back to see what happened to the farmer, he saw us about when we were beside him, we were looking eye to eye, it was erie, like slow motion, all I could think was "Oh God! don't let a tire blow out or come off the rim!:....Later on I remembered this when Ralph Nader's crappie book "Unsafe at any speed" came out. That little coupe probably was the safest car I had ever owned. You just needed to know how to drive it....NO BS!    I believe that I can answer the question of the year of the vehicle in question. Back then, a lot of states would register the car based on the year that the vehicle was manufactured. Many of us have learned how GM would indicate the month and year of manufacture by stamping it on the data plate that was riveted to the rear cross member of the Corvair. If the car was manufactured between 8A and 12D (first week of production in August, and the last week of production in December) of the year, then the motor vehicle department called it a 1960, even though it was a 1961 model year production car. This is how it was done in Ma & NH when I lived there in the early 1960's. When I moved to NJ, I had a heck of a time registering my 1963 model year Corvair, since it was registered as a 1962 in NH. I had to take it to Trenton and they finally relented and called the motor vehicle department in NH to learn how they did registrations. It all had to do with the way that vehicles were taxed. Hope that this clears up the question, and I am assuming that Texas was one of the states that went by the year of manufacture, not model year. PS...... the amber front directional lenses were first introduced with the 1963 model year... the 1962 lenses were clear with clear bulbs. Many people would insert the amber bulbs in place of the original clear bulbs to give the car the "1963 look", or purchase the 1963 lenses to use in their 1960 to 1962 Corvair's.
Last edited by Junk; 10/17/10 09:26 PM.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 30,701 Likes: 141
ChatMaster - 25,000
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ChatMaster - 25,000
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 30,701 Likes: 141 |
The states you mentioned were about the only ones that registered cars by the year in which they were sold. Thats why there are 1943 and 1944 cars from those states.
How about going in the other direction. Were the Corvairs sold in 1959 registered as a 1959 or a 1960?
Gene Schneider
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 648
Oil Can Mechanic
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Oil Can Mechanic
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 648 |
Dad had a '57 4 door olds. 3 duces progressive linkage with the J-2. Wishes he had it back now! What a car...
In my shop, quality is a standard, NOT and option.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 4
Grease Monkey
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Grease Monkey
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 4 |
The states you mentioned were about the only ones that registered cars by the year in which they were sold. Thats why there are 1943 and 1944 cars from those states.
How about going in the other direction. Were the Corvairs sold in 1959 registered as a 1959 or a 1960? It wasn't the year it was sold, but the year that it was built in that was the determining factor. If a car manufactured in 1959 was sold in 1960, it was still registered as a 1959 vehicle. In New Hampshire, they were registered as 1959 vehicles. The year of the manufacturer was an important factor in how much you paid in taxes each year. In the 1960's, NH had very low real estate taxes, but they did have other revenue such as excise tax on cars, and even a poll tax if you were a registered voter. I left NH in 1964, and I know that the poll tax is gone, but I don't know about the excise tax.
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