<VV> Corvair Anti Corrosion

[Brent Covey]

Tony wrote-

> Too bad the General wasn't doing this with Corvairs.   Maybe we'd
> have more cars with original floors.   Today, many manufacturers dip
> their car bodies.    It's one of the reasons modern cars don't rust much.

Corvairs built in Canada in 1965-'66 seem very corrosion-resistant
contrasted with US built jobs from the same era and especially the 1968's
and '69's imported here.

Theres a sort of gunmetal blueish primer or something sprayed on Canadian
cars wherever it is practical to spray that is obvious inside the box
sections and on the underbody that I imagine is some kind of zinc based
compound. I have not detected this material on US built cars and it might be
something only done in Oshawa production. Whatever the case, it does seem to
work, Canadian cars have pretty good resistance to rusting and Corvairs
lasted MUCH longer than most cars used in salty road environments up here.
Its unusual to see rust on a Canadian assembled late Corvair car extending
very far from a body seam, the flapping in the breeze quarter panels and
holes in the roof above the windshield pillar sort of things just never
happen much here. This isnt to say its not possible to rust out a Canadian
car but the rust progresses very slowly and realistically, if you took pains
to keep one washed you could expect decades of service out of it without
major rust.

Does anyone have any information on what this blue paint stuff is? Was it
applied in the US to cars produced at plants there? It seems to have started
with '65's here, but from '67 on Corvairs here were imported from the US,
and '67's are rare in Canada, I would imagine due in no small part to large
numbers of unsold '66's left over- 1968's were more popular here than '67's
it seems, Corvair sales didnt seem to plummet quite as fast here as in the
US.

Brent Covey
Vancouver BC