<VV> RE: Triangular glass windshield washer refill bottles

[Kent Sullivan]

Hi,

Another question: According to Dave Newell's research, beginning in 1968,
the 1050001 triangular bottle was replaced by the new "Optikleen" bottle,
with a number of 1050418. Could those of you with 1968 or 1969 Corvairs
please take a look and see if your car has a bottle, and if so, the 1050418
one? 

Thanks.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Sullivan [mailto:kentsu at corvairkid.com] 
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 6:43 PM
To: 'virtualvairs at corvair.org'
Subject: Triangular glass windshield washer refill bottles

Hi,

I've been doing some research into these for U.S. and Canadian Corvair cars
built in 1965 & 1966. According to research that Dave Newell did to help me,
the bottle sold by U.S. dealers in 1965-67 has a part number on the label of
1050001. I would LOVE to obtain a photo of one of these. Do any of you have
one? For some reason, they seem to be hard to find, at least in my area.

The factory-installed bottle, which was discontinued beginning in 1966, when
windshield washers became standard equipment, has part number 3789848 on the
label (1964-1965). These are pretty common. Clark's makes a repro of the
1965 label, in fact (but unfortunately the label is only two-color instead
of the correct three-color). Besides the part number, the way to tell that
it's a factory-installed bottle is the label includes "Not for resale".

In case you're wondering about what I said above, yes, the ONLY way to get
the triangular refill bottle starting in 1966 was from the dealer. In 1965,
the factory provided a bottle (3789848) if you ordered the RPO that included
the windshield washer. In 1965 that was the Comfort and Convenience group,
which was RPO Z01 or Z13, depending on whether you wanted a standard outside
mirror or remote outside mirror.

The factory and dealer bottle labels were different in Canada and had
different part numbers. We have photos of several originals, fortunately.
Factory was 5772464 and dealer was 5772465. They are quite different in
appearance. The Canadian factory bottle label was "no frills" -- black and
white printing, kind of dated-looking. The dealer refill bottle was
tri-color and more modern-looking.

Trivia: Do you know why the bottle was triangular in shape? Dave Newell told
me it was a merchandising play. If you got the factory-installed setup, it
meant that you would probably go to the dealer, once the bottle was empty,
to buy the GM refill bottle because theirs was the only one with the
triangular shape! Of course, this seems silly now since anyone can buy their
own refill fluid from a parts store in a gallon jug...

Thanks.