CorvairJim

Crown Manufacturing made one of two popular mid-engine V-8 Corvair conversions. Theirs kept the Corvair transaxle in it's standard position, attqaching it to the engine via a bellhousing mounted to the front of the transaxle. This was made possible due to the fact that that the transaxle itself was basically a Borg-Warner T-10, with the input shaft from the clutch routed to the front of the unit THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE HOLLOW OUTPUT SHAFT! That made it simple to just mount a clutch at the front end of the unit. That also made for a somewhat cramped interior, since the engine came well forward. For instance, at 6'3", I can't drive a standard Crown conversion safely - I'm just too tall. Another popuilar conversion was made by Kelmark, more famous for their VW parts and "Kit Cars". Theirs was called a "Corv-8" (which has come to be used in the Corvair club as a generic term for ANY mid-engine V-8 conversion). It differed from the Crown kit in that the transaxle was turned around and the engine bolted up to the "engine end". That moved the engine much further back in the body. I understand balance is slightly better in the Crown cars than in the Kelmark for handling purposes due to weight distribution, but the Kelmark is better for straight-line work. As far as I know, neither company is still around, but I could be wrong on this. Clark's Corvair Parts in Massachusetts offers many of the parts from the Crown conversion in their catalog, including the subframe. If you still have that Crown kit and it's getting in your way, you could give it to me... I know I could put it to good use some time in the future, even if it meant modifying the interior so that I could sit farther forward...

I'm already building a mid-engine V-8 powered Corvair for the Gumball Rally CBP, but I might be able to do a front-engine V-8 job for this one if I can find the time with all the OTHER CBP's I'm involved with at the moment!

That ol' Effie definitely looks stealthy enough, Lane. Is that a Hemi in there? That should be enough to get it there pretty quickly, but I sure hope the suspension is softer than stock or you and your navigator will have very sore backsides before you get halfway across Pennsylvania!

Thanks for the props, everybody! William, there are still plenty of Corvairs out there if you ever want to get back into the hobby. Mike, I always do my best to inform other hobbyists about the background of my builds. If I inspired you to look further into the Yenko Stingers, I feel I've done my job. If I've inspired you to build a model of a Corvair, I'll be thrilled. And if I've inspired you to actually consider getting a 1:1 Corvair of your own, well, I will feel satisfied down to the soles of my feet! They're great little cars, even in stock form. They adapt well to modification and parts are readily available from a number of sources. Maybe not as plentiful as Camaro or Mustang parts, but easy enough to find. And due to their undeserved bad reputation, they're among the least expensive collector cars out there... but they're getting more expensive every day! From what I've seen, they seem to be appreciating at a faster rate than many seemingly more popular cars. Those cars already had their appreciation phase; Now it's the Corvair's turn.

She's a beauty... and she builds a pretty great model too. Face it, the kid's got talent!

John, I've seen a few of your other builds. Every time I think "He can't possibly outdo THIS one", and every time you prove me wrong! If I lived out in your neck of the woods, I'd ask for your address so I could come shake your hand... Maybe some of that talent would rub off! Alas, I'm here on the right coast and you're out there in Cali, so that's not gonna happen anytime soon... Keep on proving me wrong, buddy!

That Biscayne is a work of art! Brutal beauty.

Keep in mind, that was a very complex panel to be stamped in production back in 1959. It has a large surface that is supposed to have a very shallow, gradual curve to it with sharp drops where it meets up with the rear window channel, the trunk opening, and the vertical portion of the quarter panel. I'm sure that most of these quarter panel tops were wavy to at least a minor extent, but not enough that it would be noticible to anyone not paying close attention to it.

Guys, I can't tell you how good it feels to have my old build getting such a great response. My clinical depression has been acting up for the past few days and my computer is one of my refuges when I get "down" like I've been recently. Thanks for your support and kind comments. And William, I have a mid-engine, Corvette Z06-powered Corvair model in the works for the "Gumball Rally" CBP. If anything, the bodywork will be even wilder than it is on this one. I've already widened the fenders about 4" scale in back and 3" in front, and the front trunk lid has a big hole in it (Ford GT40 style) to let out the cooling air from the front-mounted radiator.

Michael, you messed with this shtuff REAL well!

The self-employed guy we bought the house from used the attic as his home office. For the first several years it served as our oldest daughter's bedroom until she moved out. That's when I took it over for my workroom. The first A/C unit died that summer. I bought a new one, which lasted all of 2 years - until my then-teenage son accidently fell against it while clowning around, PUSHING IT RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW!!! (You shoulda seen the sparks from the electrical outlet that was pulled halfway out of the wall!) I found a used unit cheap to replace it, and that's the one that died last fall. Fred, I'll box up some heat for you and send it off by Express Mail tomorrow (I don't think e-mail will work). You're welcome to all I can cram in the biggest box I can find. I don't know if it will stay fresh until it gets there, though. Give me your address and I'll let you know how much it costs to ship it.

Now I don't feel so bad about modifying MY Jo-Han Plymouth wagon, but then I didn't start with a glue bomb... I tore the shrink wrap off'a mine!

One question: How're you planning on dropping those bombs?

Just a suggestion: You might consider some minor body damage. No 45 year old car, especially one with enthusiast interest like an Impala SS that's rough enough to be considered for Demolition Derby duty instead of restoration, would be completely without bumps and scrapes, and probably some rust-out as well. You could also radius the wheel openings some so that they don't cut down the tires as they get battered in the Derby.

My work will be slow to nonexistant until I can replace the window air conditioner in my attic workroom. It's currently about 95 degrees outside, so past experience tells me that it's in the 130+ range up there at the moment. Some time, I gotta insulate the crawl spaces off to the sides of the workroom area, and drop the ceilng panels and insulate up there too. I know that I need to sweat off some weight, but I'm no glutton for punishment!

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I took my folks out to dinner at a nice little restaurant in Morgantown, about 20 miles from Reading PA. This was parked out in front of the place: ... and the legend himself was siting inside enjoying a pleasant PA Dutch dinner with his wife and a couple of friends (There had been a huge Mopar event at Maple Grove Raceway that weekend).I was raised to be too polite to interrupt a man when he's eating, so I didn't actually get to meet him.

Like just about every other person who doesn't live in Texas (unless they buy into that stupid "America's Team" hype), I can't stand the "Dumbass Cowpies" either. The car looks pretty good, but I can imagine it in Eagles "Midnight Green" where yours is blue. Just sayin'... A guy I work with loves his Cowboys. Every time he wears his "Got Five?" Super Bowl ring shirt in to work, I have to say to him, "I see you're wearing your Steelers shirt again... Oh wait, that's right... the Steelers got SIX"! I also love to remind him that the Cowpies have only won ONE post season game this CENTURY!

You hit the style from the era right on the head! Someone in my area has a Corvette that he found in a barn (!) that was customized that way (less the rear spoiler) back in the day. He brings it out to local shows from time to time, still riding on it's old, rock-hard, no-name extra-wide bias-ply raised white letter tires.

I'm glad Joe asked that question about the wheels and tires, because I was just about to! I've seen it done before, but I've never been able to get a straight answer as to why it's done that way.

Nice catch, Maxx. That is one of the problem areas of this body that AMT never did get right. The front panel isn't supposed to be concave between the headlights and the central peak like they molded it. I just went slow and easy, filling it a layer at a time until it was level, and evening it out between rounds of filler with a sanding board. I had to re-scribe the trunk lid line while the putty was still soft each time or risk losing it completely. Removing the trim bar made this a lot easier! Now if someone would come out with a photoetch set for the Corvair kit (Yeah, fat chance of that ever happening!), I could smooth out the front panel on all my "Late Model" (1965-69) Corvair builds, since I wouldn't have to worry about losing the nameplate beside the driver's side headlights.

This is a "What If" phantom that I built about 20 years ago. As a little background: Back in late 1965, Cannonsburg, PA Chevy dealer and parft-time road racer Don Yenko decided that he wanted to get involved in SCCA racing in a major way. He went to the authorities at SCCA to ask if the Corvair Corsa would qualify for the D-Production class. He was told that it was a compacrt car, not a sports car, thus it didn't qualify. He proposed modifying the car to comply to the letter of the rules for their description of a sports car. They said "Fine, you show us 100 cars that are modified to the rules of the class and it will qualify as a production car... Oh, by the way, you have until the end of January to show us the cars"! Yenko sprang into action. He got in touch with Chevrolet's Fleet Office and ordered 100 Corsa coupes in white with black interiors, 3.89:1 limited slip differentials, and quick steering and shift setups. In six weeks, his shop modified the cars to SCCA specs, removing the back seats and finishing the rear of the interior with plywood, reworking the suspensions for handling with firmer springs and shocks and an additional steering snubber, and modifying the engines up from the factory 140 gross h.p. in four states of tune. Stage I was good for 160 h.p., Stage II, 180 h.p., Stage III, 220 h.p., and Stage IV (NOT legal under SCCA rules, but one hell of a street car!), 260 h.p. Meanwhile, he farmed out the painting duties to several body shops in the area, so there were several variations on the width of the blue stripes that all of the cars received, as well as shades of blue paint! These "Yenko Stingers", as he called them, went on to a fair amount of success. In fact, they were still competitive as recently as a decade ago, when Stage III Stingers won their class in a pair of SCCA National divisions. My "Super Stinger" phantom is my take on what I think Don Yenko would have done had he decided to go road racing in a major way instead of concentrating his efforts on the dragstrip starting in 1967. (He did produce a further 10 Stingers in 1967, and a single example for Goodyear for tire testing purposes in 1969). I built it to conform, as closely as possible, to the F.I.A. rules for Endurance racing as they were in 1967. The tires fit entirely inside the fenders. There is a 5-point rollbar that comes up to at least the height of the top of the driver's seat, and there is a passenger seat. There is a fire extinguisher within reach of the driver. I modified the AMT 1969 Corvair Monza coupe kit by cutting the chassis plate to accept the flat-12 engine I built for it by mating a pair of kit Corvair sixes. The cooling fans, one over each bank of six cylinders, are driven by a shaft on a spur gear at the center of the crankcase. It gets it's fuel from a set of 12 single-barrel Weber carbs. Thak a look at the wheels and tires on the model: They're the stock pieces from the Monogram 1:24 "High Performance Series" 1987 Pontiac Trans Am GTA kit! (If you happen to have any of those tires and wheels just sitting around, let me know - I WANT MORE OF THEM!) I shaved the lips from the wheel wells for aerodynamic purposes. I made the front air dam by cutting down the custom nosepiece from the Corvair kit, but the rear wing was scratchbuilt, as is the fire extinguisher. The shifter is a straight pin. The seats are the rqacing buckets from the Corvair kit, but the passenger-side seat is cut down some to keep the backrest down out of the air stream as much as possible. That very yelloewd "white" paint gives you an idea just how old this model is! I love the look of those wheels on this model! White with blue stripes were the official American racing colors, as dictated by the FIA. When sponsorship became such a huge deal right around that time, the traditional national colors went by the boards. I kept as much of the Corvair's character alive in the Sports Prototype version as I could, keeping the standard taillight area intact, for instance, and running the lower body character line back through where the original rear wheelwells were. Sorry it's so dusty in there! It's hard to keep an open-bodied model clean on an open shelf! Anyhow, the fire extinguisher is entirely scratchbuilt, and I added several gauges to the instrument panel. A flat-12, several years before Porsche had one! Underneath, I probably should have done more with the exhaust headers than just letting them dump the spent gases under the car!

Decal?

The AMT 1969 Corvair has them, in the Corvair's unique pointed oval headlight surrounds.You should be able to modify the surrounds for your purposes. If you need a set or two, let me know.

You know, Sam, I'm not a Mustang fan, but that model has the stance NAILED! Not only that, but the tire and wheel combination is perfect for it.

Well, Harry, I'm stuffing the chassis, running gear, and engine bay sheetmetal from the AMT '57 Chrysler 300C under one at the moment for the Cannonball CBP. It's an almost perfect fit, and takes care of the missing wheel well problem just fine!