Tom Gilbertson

Personal Info:

P.O. Box 355

Cranford, NJ. 07016 USA

Member of CORSA
Local Chapter/Club:

None right now. I did own a 1968 Monza Convertible several years ago but that has been sold. I will buy another at some point.

This is a posting that I put on the Virtual Corvair Club forum about two years ago. The first memory I have of seeing a Corvair was Christmas time 1959. I remember seeing this car with a Christmas Tree sticking out of the front. We weren't at all used to rear engine cars at that time! My father liked the Corvair from the beginning and I have very clear memories of going to the Chevrolet dealer at age 11 in February of 1962 and picking up our brand new 1962 Monza Sedan. It was tuxedo black with a red bucket seat interior. It had the 84hp engine with powerglide. It had quite a few options and was a really nice looking car. I still remember walking into the dealers service department where the car had been on the lift. I couldn't figure out why the rear wheels were tucked under the car. The thing I remember best about this car was how hard it was to keep that black paint clean, but it sure looked good when it was clean! In July of 1963 my brother bought a new Monza coupe. This one was bright red with a red interior. (just like the current Sun Star diecast). This one had the 102hp engine with a 4 speed. Very nice car! My brother wound up selling this car about a year later when he went into the army. Sometime in early 1964 my father bought another Corvair. This was a used 1962 Monza coupe and it was white with a red interior. It had the 102hp with the 4 speed. Another very nice car. Now we had a matched set of 62's the black sedan and the white coupe. The Corvairs were really great cars and and I have fond memories of them. My only problem was that before I was old enough to drive they were both gone. Back in 1999 I finally decided to buy one. I got a 1968 Teal colored convertible with the 140 engine and a four speed. The car was a former senior division show car that was on the cover of the Communique back in the mid eighties. It looked great but drove me crazy constantly breaking down mainly due to carburetor troubles. My kids named it "flatbed" since that is where it usually ended up when I'd try to go anywhere with it. The problem with this car really had little to do with the fact that it was a corvair than the fact that it had been in storage for about 15 years before I bought it. Whenever it would break all I'd have to do was stand back and look at it because it was truly a beautiful car. I sold it after several years to restore a VW Bug that I had since new. I don't have a corvair now but I know at some point I'll be looking for another. A black '62 Monza sedan with a red interior would be great.

Last modified on August 24, 2008