VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1961-1964 I found a corvair....

I've always wanted to restore a corvair. I found one today. It is a 2-door, red (even the steering wheel). It seems to run well. The odometer indicates 725,000 miles. The body has some dings in it. Someone put bucket seats in it. The dash looks original. It has a back seat....tiny. Tires are average.

The owner wants $2500 for it. Don't know what year it is. Or if the motor is original. The body is in good shape...just a few dings - nothing major.

What is this car worth? I'm agonizing about it because Christmas was expensive and income tax season is coming up..... I shouldn't be spending money at this time :-(

Lee Prairie

Check for rust......front cross member, rocker panels, trunk floor, front floors, lower part of front fender bhhind wheel.....oil leaks, gas tank rusted out, .....They are fun to drive but not always fun to work on. If it is a Monza Chevrolet put in the buckets.

725,000 miles? Ouch!!

Chance are it has 72k on the odometer as those new type odometer weren't used on Corvairs.....Joe

That could be.... I may have mis-read the odometer by a factor of 10.

It looked like a '64 to me. Is it worth $2500 in decent shape?

Thanks!

Lee

If it passes the rust inspection and runs well, then $ 2500 is not too bad for a Coupe. The 4 door should be less. There are plenty of Corvairs that have been saved. Not too many on the road on a daily basis. They are great town cars but can be a bit squirrely on the open road particularly in a brisk crosswind. I have enjoyed driving all the Corvairs that I have owned.

If it's rust free it may be worth the $2500. Find out what year it is. Most people will tell you to avoid 1960 models due to a lot of one-year-only parts. You can determine which model is by the body style code in the VIN. For example a Monza coupe will contain 927 in the VIN. They're a lot of fun to drive.

Many thanks to all for posting!

I'm going back to look at the Corvair tomorrow.

I commute 80 miles a day to work and back. My Ford F150 gets about 15 mpg (heavy duty towing package, the big V-8, off-road package, et cetera). The Corvair might pay for itself in 2 years if it gets decent gas mileage.

Lee

A 1999 Mailbu would be a better choice than the Corvair. It would cost the same amount, get better milage than the Corvair, have a heater and AC, flow along at 70 MPH, would be 75% safer and anybody could work on it and get the parts at the corner parts house.

And I am a Corvair owner and lover but they have their limitations.

And, you would save lots of money on the cost of oil too!

But the leaking oil keeps down the dust....
To be honest with the modern seals and O rings a Corvair can be made quite leak proof.
To get one road ready can take a small fortune or a lot of work, The expensive and hard to get rear wheel bearings should be replaced before any serious driving is done. All the brake and fuel lines should be replaced and on and on. The good thing is most of the parts are being reproduced.

Yep, the leaking oil does keep down the road dust, but the DEQ highly frowns on Corvairs oiling the roads without their approval.

Back in 61 i had a 60 model Corvair coupe that had dual exhaust and dual carbs on it and 3 on the tree. I drove the fire out of it driving to road construction jobs. I figured out how to stop the oil leaks for good on it. I drove it up to 1964 and it had 115,000 miles on it. One time I drove it into high water and it floated and was washed sideways, it was a good thing I was going 60 or 65 it had enough forward momentum to catch the road way on the wrong side before it washed completely off the roadway, I grabbed second gear and away we went!!

JYD,
I am so dissapointed that you of all people would come on this forum and perpetuate the myth about Corvairs leaking and using oil. You are the guy who usually comes along to set prople straight when they do this kind of stuff. The Corvair is one of the most malignied automobiles of all time and usually with no first hand knowledge on the part of the guy who is running his mouth.
There is so much more I would like to say on this subject but I just remembered, I need to go add a quart of oil to my Corvair.

Mike

MrMack,
It might have had three, but it wasn't on the tree.

Mike

Mike: After each posting I have the "big laugh" icon ( ) which means that my comments are all in jest. Chev Nut, who also owns a Corvair, played along stating that "the leaking oil keeps down the dust...." Obviously, the postings were all in fun.

I know Corvair people are very special folks and would go along with the banter.
I know Mike's son (who has a Corvair) but have never had the honor to meet Mike.
That being said I don't know if I would recommend an old Corvair as a daily driver making a long comute.....as a way to save money.

Maybe a Corvair wouldn't make a good daily driver now a days. due to the scarceness of repair parts ETC,.
But back in 1961 when I bought mine I thought it was perfect!
I remember the first day that I drove it to the construction job site. Our Bucyrus Erie 52B shovel olerator (an old man of 55)raised the rear hood and said
"Hey this thing has a generator on it just like a real car!"
On the way home that evening I blew him away in his 52' Ford F150! That little Monza would fly! I had a 59 Pontiac Executive 4 door hardtop before the Corvair. I had some money problems and the Pontiac became too expensive for me. So it went and the Corvair came in.

A customer traded in a 1958 Pontiac on one of the early 1960 Corvairs. This was in the fall of 1959. As the weather turned colder he came back complaining about the gas milage. It had dropped to 13 MPG which was worse than the big Pontiac. Using the gas heater cut the milage in one half. In 1961 the Corvair had the "Direct Air" heater that took of heat from the exhaust manifolds. This worked well - untill the exhaust leaks and oil leaks filled the cabin with all kinds of fumes. There was nothing like the smell of a Corvair heater. The heater also pulled its fresh air in through the louvers on the rear engine compartment lid. If it was raining or there was snow on the lid it would cause the incoming air to steam the windows. The 1965 had the air intake "relocated". Other than that the heater would work well on a well maintained car.
The removal of the heater from the front luggage compartment in 1961 plus moving the spare tire to the engine compartment almost doubled the capacity of the front trunk compartment. It surprising how much will fit into the later trunk.

My 60 model coupe must have been a later in the year car, it had an excellent hot air heater and the defrosters even worked. I never noticed the oil or burning oil smell. My car leaked very little oil, and what did leak always dirtyed up the little air grill below the trunk. The dual exhaust was outside of that grill. I drove it a couple of winters and once it got warmed up it was nice and warm. It had vents in the small back seat that you could close and drive all the heat up front. But it hardly ever got below 20 degrees F so that may have been a factor

Got lots of friends locally with Corvairs, but one buddy has either five or six of them. As I remember, he had a lot of problems sealing up the oil leaks on his 1965 Corsa Convertible, mainly on the valve covers, but once he got the valve covers sealed correctly there were no more leaks..or darned few anyway. All of the car dudes in the area used to accuse him of carrying two to three cases of oil in the trunk for ballast.

One time back in the late 1980's we were at a VCCA Northwest Meet up in Portland, Oregon and three of us were in his 1966 Corsa Turbo-Charged Coupe on the freeway. We were heading over to see some vintage Chevrolets at the time. Anyway, this one dude pulled along side of us in a brand new Porsche and looked over at us. It was obvious that he wanted to race the Corvair. He had absolutely no idea what he was up against. Anyway, he kept egging Mikey on (he was the owner of the Corvair and he was driving at the time) so we told Mikey to "go for it". As soon as it was clear ahead both dudes "put the pedal to the metal". The Porsche didn't have a chance.....when Mikey's Turbo kicked in that Corvair was gone and the poor Porsche never could catch that Corvair.

Within seconds the Corvair was pushing 120 MPH. We looked back and that new Porsche was way back there. Mikey finally slowed down and let the Porsche come along side. We all looked over at the driver of the new Porsche and he had a very sheepish look about him and then he gave that Corvair a big thumbs up! And then he slowly drove away. I was really impressed with how fast that Corvair could go. After my heart finally returned to my chest from my throat because of the "neck snapping" power of that Corvair, Mikey said..."hey, that was nothing...you should see what this Corvair can really do if I could get some good high octane gas to run the Turbo!"

Then there was the time that we were on a Junkyard Dog Adventure in Mikey's Corvair van. It was snowing outside and the van heater was running full blast. However...it was still warmer outside than it was in that van! But....that is another story.

Your 1960 Corvair was not a 1960 Corvair if it had a hot air heater. That was new for 1961. The engine shouding, body rocker panel structure and all the duct work, thermostats and so on were changed to make room for the 1961 hot air heater.Also highly unlikely it was a 1960 as the 1960 Monza coupe was a late arrival and not too common.
I think you had a 1961 Monza coupe. Also the 2 carburetaded Corvair never came with dual exhaust but it was available later as an after market add on. Duals came only on the four carb. cars and that began in 1965.

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!

Hey JYD,
My comments were also in jest, hence the line about going to add oil to my Corvair.
I bought a 1964 Monza coupe in 1967. It was my everyday car for 5 years or so. It was very reliable but I never took the trouble to get the heating system sealed up so it would work properly. There were times when I swore it was colder inside the car than it was outside. I retired the car but kept it stored in a fence row. Later I bought a '64 convertible to restore using the driveline of my original car. My Son, Sam, was a kid at the time and he became interested in Corvairs.
He Purchased a '64 Spyder coupe which was the same color combo as my original car and the convertible. I bought him a '64 Greenbrier which he restored mechanically and drove regularly intil about the time of his bike accident. He decided he wanted a wagon and also an automatic transmission so his wife would drive the car. He now has a '62 Monza wagon. The mechanical restoration is almost complete. We installed hand controls on it a year ago on New Years Eve and he took his first drive the next day. I marvel at what he has accomplished from his wheelchair and with help from his Corvair buddys.
He knows more about Corvairs than I ever have, or ever will.
When I parked my Corvair in '71 or '72, I replaced it with a '38 Chevy 1/2 ton as my daily driver.
Sam received a '38 Chevy 1 ton as a birth gift from his Grandfather. We fixed it up and he drove it to high school. He retired it when he bought the Spyder, reversing what I had done 15 years earlier.
Sam was born in 1979. His first automobile ride (home from the hospital) was in our 1935 Standard coupe. It's never too early to introduce young people to our great hobby.

Mike

I don't know how the horse icon got on my posts. How can I get rid of it?

Hi Mike! No problem. I wasn't sure about your posting since it could have been taken two ways. When I first read it the posting appeared to be in jest....but when reading it for the second time I wasn't really sure. Anyway, glad that my first thought was correct.

Regarding the horse icon, you can't get rid of it. The icon automatically appears when you post the initials for "Junkyard Dog" (like this.....JYD). Billy Boy Barker dreamed that one up and I think it's way cool! I laugh every time it appears and I told old Billy Boy to keep it on the site in the future as well.

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.

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.

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?

Dad had a '57 4 door olds. 3 duces progressive linkage with the J-2. Wishes he had it back now! What a car...

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.