<VV> Vair ball

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Vair ball 
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Cars race, cruise and shine at club's annual get-together

By Paul Duchene
Special to the Tribune

August 7, 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Some 40 years ago, it made a name for consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

Now it's making a name with automobile collectors.

It, of course, is the Chevrolet Corvair: Once dubbed "unsafe at any speed" but forever unforgettable.

When is came out in 1960, "the Corvair found a market nobody knew existed," Larry Claypool, who has run The Vair Shop in Frankfort since 1972, said at the 34th annual Corsa International Convention in Portland last month.

"GM thought they were selling an economy car but everybody wanted four-speed stick shifts and bucket seats-sporty coupes and convertibles. Nobody sold more 4-speeds, they had to put on extra shifts just making them."

Some 1,200 owners of Corvairs attended the convention-Claypool for the 34th time-to celebrate the Chevy with the bad rap and escalating values.

Their eccentric rear-engined, air-cooled can cross the $20,000 mark as collectibles.

"Ralph Nader made the Corvair infamous but it made him famous," says Claypool. "This car started his career."

Nader's 1965 expose "Unsafe at Any Speed" launched his career. The Senate investigation that cleared the Corvair--or at least said it was as safe as anything else in the 1960s--wasn't completed until 1972, three years after the last Corvair rolled off the Willow Run production line in Ypsilanti, Mich.

Now Claypool is the club's national technical adviser and class chairman at the Concours d'Elegance. He's attended all 34 conventions but this is the first time he's flown instead of driving. "In the old days my wife, Marybeth, and I could alternate and drive straight through but you can't do that with kids," he says apologetically.

Claypool squints into the sun as judges run to and fro with scraps of carpet to kneel on as temperatures soar into the 90s. The carpet helped insulate them from the heat while judging. In a Concours d'Elegance, the judges look for cars prepared exactly as they left the factory.

Too bad only 3 percent of Corvairs had factory air conditioning. "The hotter it is outside, the more you want air-conditioning, but the more heat it adds to the engine," Claypool said.

It's a particular concern because of the Corvair's air cooling "At 70 m.p.h. in the desert, you're pushing your luck. It's marginal."

So marginal in fact, that 1968-69 Corvairs didn't even offer air conditioning.

On the Wednesday morning of the convention, around 450 Corvairs glitter in a hotel parking lot along the Columbia River. They represented the range of the 1.78 million Corvairs built from 1960-1969: coupes, convertibles, sedans and station wagons, vans and pickups, even some race cars.

Custom license plates range from Alaska to Virginia to Indiana and several Canadian provinces. A number spell UNSAFE in various ways.

Brentley Cooper drove his 1962 Rampside pickup from Hutto, Texas, with "Portland or Bust" on the rear window.

Claypool explains the rarest Corvair is the 1962 Loadside pickup. Only 321 were sold.

Estimates of surviving cars range as high as 60,000, and Claypool says he still gets cars for repair that have been stored for 20 years or more.

The rarest car judged in the concours was probably Kent Sullivan's electric blue 1966 turbo Corsa convertible. The subject of a "rotisserie" restoration only nine weeks ago, it was driven for the first time by Sullivan, of Kirkland, Wash., to the meet. It's a Canadian model, one of 10 survivors out of the 92 made. He is the fifth owner and the third and fourth owners (one of whom is 90) planned to come to the convention to see it.

"I've replaced every body panel," Sullivan says. "They were all banged up or rusty."

Canadian cars have 10 to 15 percent identifiably different parts such as glass, electronics and interior. And they are painted body color all over, instead of the normal bumpy primer under the hood and undercoat/primer underneath.

Bill Jabs of Tigard, Ore., has another Canadian turbo Corsa, a red-on-red '66 coupe that's one of 241 made. It was found in Calgary, and he has just finished a two-year restoration mouse damage notwithstanding.

"They were everywhere and really destructive," says restorer Duane Wentlandt.

Underneath, crimson paint gleams where you'd expect to see matte black. "It's just as pretty as the top, it's a pity people can't see it," says Jabs' wife, Wendy.

Claypool says that casual observers might miss another particularly rare car--a white "Plain Jane" 1960 sedan.

"That's the cheapest, stripped-down model," he says. "We've never had one of those here before."

At the other end of the scale is a stunning 1962 Devin-body fiberglass Corvair speedster that was at the 1962 New York Auto Show. It belongs to Tom Keosababian of Grants Pass, Ore. Alongside it is David Langsather's yellow street racer he built from scratch in 1974 to look like a Porsche 917.

"It cost me 6,000 hours and $10,000," Langsather says proudly. "I had in mind to go into production so I wrote to the Feds and they said: Congratulations, send us three cars to crash test."

Sports Car Club of America racers include a tangerine 1960 coupe owned by Warren LeVeque of Anderson, Ind. Below the window, it says "1 Cor 9:24," which roughly translates as "Lots of people run in a race but only one wins. Be that winner."

Convention goers have a busy week. They purred off on five tours of the Columbia River Gorge, Mt. Hood and the Oregon Coast, on economy runs, squealed around time trials and autocrosses at Portland International Raceway and traded stories of trials and tribulations.

The two biggest suppliers of Corvair parts took over most of a swap meet room in a hotel basement. Clark's Corvair Parts drove in from Shelburne Falls, Mass., while Lon Wall's Corvair Underground pops up from McMinnville, Ore., only 30 miles away.

Wall and his wife, Linda, have been in the Corvair parts business for 31 years, "since you could buy a car for $20-$200 and drive it home," he says. His inventory fills three warehouses, and he reckons it totals $750,000 not counting used parts. He publishes a catalog each year, and says 40 percent of his business is through the Internet (www.corvairunderground.com).

With their horizontal engines, Corvairs seemed suited to sports cars because of the low center of gravity with the engine. Several famous show cars were built--the Monza and Testudo for example. Chevrolet constantly sought more power--hence the turbocharged version--and flat 8 and flat 10 engines were tested but never produced. Pennsylvania Chevrolet dealer Don Yenko also offered four packages up to 240 horsepower in his Yenko Stingers, a high-end Corvair that goes for $25,000 and up.

But perhaps the most eccentric Corvair is the Corphibian, an amphibious pickup, which sold July 16 at an auction in Ohio for $29,425.

- - -

1959: Corvair is introduced as a 1960 model in coupe and sedan versions with a rear-mounted air-cooled flat 6 engine and the first four-wheel independent suspension in any General Motors car.

1961: The Corvan panel van, Greenbrier passenger van and Lakewood station wagon come out along with the Rampside pickup.

1962: Monza Spyder, a 150-horsepower, turbocharged Corvair, is introduced along with a convertible.

1964: Chevy upgrades the Corvair suspension. An additional transverse leaf spring couples the rear wheels to reduce the car's tendency to lose traction suddenly.

1965: - "Unsafe at Any Speed," an indictment by Ralph Nader of the Corvair's handling, is published.

- Chevy changes to a fully independent suspension based on that used on the Corvette.

- The normally aspirated Corsa comes out.

1966: Sales decline in light of Nader's book. Even the addition of a V-8 engine doesn't help.

1969: Corvair is discontinued after 1.78 million were built.

Sources: General Motors, Wikipedia


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