<VV> Corvair In Print

[Scott Morehead]

Misplaced my roster  - does anyone know if they are CORSA members?


http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_094012139

Car collecting couple keen on Corvair


					




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IBy Doug Hill






	
		
			
															
															
		


		
			
				
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Michael Belisle and Candace Looper will
never be accused of being indecisive. Just a little over a year ago the
married southern California natives who had lived in the same Orange
County home for over 28 years moved to Norman. It was essentially on a
whim.







In 2006 they were visiting central Oklahoma
on vacation because their daughter Lacey was attending a musical
theater summer program at Oklahoma City University. During the short
time here they looked at a few homes for sale and liked what they saw.
No matter that they had no roots here and knew nothing about the Sooner
state. Looper had goose bumps on her arms when they crossed the
threshold of a big brick house in southwest Norman. She turned to
Michael and said, "This is our new home."







Looper is now a special needs teacher in
the Moore Public Schools and Belisle is retired from various careers,
including the restaurant industry. During their time of transition to
Oklahoma they also decided to begin collecting classic wheels.
Currently they have 1956 and '57 Chevrolet Bel Airs, a 1959 Triumph
TR3, a Shay Model A Super Phaeton Roadster (1931 replica) and a 1965
Chevrolet Corvair convertible.







But there's another Corvair, a 1966 Monza
hardtop, in the garage that has a special place in Michael's heart.
That's because it's a dead ringer for the one he'd driven in high
school. Belisle had to give up his first one when he went into the Army.







"I had been looking for a Corvair like the one I'd had as a kid and finally found it," he said.







A grizzled GM retiree in the Oklahoma
panhandle burg of Buffalo owned the Monza and had advertised it on the
internet. He told Michael he was the car's second owner, also saying
he'd actually worked on the exact Detroit assembly line when and where
it was produced. Sounds like a line of UAW malarkey, but who knows,
stranger things have happened. It certainly has no impact on the car's
value, one way or the other. Although assembled at plants from Van
Nuys, CA to Oshawa, Canada, during a decade of production, most were
built in Willow Run, Mich., which is 25 miles from Detroit.







"The original owner, an old lady, had lived
in Wisconsin," Belisle said. "He bought it from her and restored it,
doing 90 percent of the work himself."







The brake lines and some pans had to be
replaced due to corrosion, but otherwise the car that he named Philip
is original. Although the couple's cars all have names, Belisle had no
explanation for his favorite Corvair's moniker.







Belisle disagreed with my statement that mechanics don't like Corvairs.







"They're different, but actually pretty
easy to work on," he said. It was one of a very few American cars with
a rear mounted, air-cooled aluminum six-cylinder engine. Horsepower
ranged from 80 in the earlier models to 180 by the last year of
production in 1969.







Amazingly, there was no engine oil leak on
the pavement under Philip's 110 hp power plant, and it had been parked
where I found him for a couple of hours. Corvairs are infamous for
leaks.







"Philip was kept in a garage and is in really good shape," Michael said. "What I like most about the car is its color."







The factory name is Aztec Bronze. Unlike a
new car my wife picked out for herself once that I compared to the
color of an old pair of wingtip shoes, Philip is not brown. He's a
snazzy shade of vermilion.







"Michael also likes his Corvair because it reminds him of his teens," Candace said.

			Car collecting couple keen on Corvair
		
		For The Transcript
		

		
	






"On my first Corvair, I completely rewired
the electrical system and added a switch panel. My mother borrowed it
once and couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on or shut the
engine off," he said.






	
		
			
															
															
		


		
			
				
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I have some teenage recollections of a
Corvair too. My mom had a '65 for awhile. When I was 15 her Corvair was
light enough to push out of the driveway in neutral and down the hill
where it could be started without waking my folks up. The little car
also shared the distinction with a neighbor's VW bug of being the only
ones that could make it up our steep snow-packed street after a
particularly heavy Kansas blizzard. This was, of course, due to all the
weight in the caboose.







"He's an idiot," Michael said when asked
his opinion of Ralph Nader. He wasn't referring to Nader's siphoning
Floridian votes away from Al Gore that may have been critical in
helping elect G.W. Bush in 2000. Belisle was talking about Nader's 1965
book "Unsafe at Any Speed" which has a chapter criticizing the
Corvair's handling characteristics.







"Any car is unsafe at any speed, depending
on how you drive it," Belisle said. Suspension upgrades to subsequent
Corvair models corrected any real or perceived issues. In 1965, Car and
Driver magazine was enthusiastic about the improvements although they
sniffed, "It still doesn't go fast enough."







Belisle and Looper enjoy exhibiting their cars at local shows. The competition aspect has been a learning experience.