Mid-engine 1:1 Corvair autocrosser, very cleanly built...

[Ace-Garageguy]

 

[Bainford]

When I was a car crazy teen, the widely reconised 'fastest car around' was a Corvair with a hot LT-1 where the back seat used to be. A clean, well built car, and generally untouchable. 
 

At the time I actually preferred his brother's car, another late Corvair, but lowered on wide steelies all around, stripped interior, and the hot rodded air-cooled six. It looked like a well prepared SCCA club racer on the street. 

[meechum68]

Beautiful car and the engineering is awesome.  Love unique cars getting a second and third life!   

[espo]

First of all, this has to be one of the ultimate Corvairs I have ever seen. Living in southern California in the '60's I had a chance encounter one evening with a Corvair that had a conversion that was done using a kit from a company called Crown Enginering. I was returning from a dinner party in Orange County and was heading back towards San Bernardino where I was living at the time. There is or was a winding canyon area that the hiway went through as you approached the Riverside area. I was driving my '67 El Camino 396 4-speed when this Corvair pulled up alongside of me and jumped on the throttle a couple of times as sort of a challenge. Being young and dumb I took the challenge and promptly found myself looking at his taillights getting very small very quickly. 

[sfhess]

There was a guy near my home in Granada Hills, Ca who had a Corvair with a Olds Toronado drivetrain mounted in it.

Someone in Provo, Utah in the early 70s had a shortened 4-door 65-up Corvair with a front-engine/rear drive that was powered by a small block of some sort.  It looked pretty wicked at the local autocross. Very nimble.  Driver did most of the steering with the throttle

Edited August 30 by sfhess

[Mattilacken]

That’s cool! I does like this one better though, a Swedish built Covair, midengine supercharged Audi RS6 V8. Öhlins pushrod suspension built by one guy.

 

 

 

[MeatMan]

Beautifully engineered!!!

[TECHMAN]

In the mid/late 70's, in Longview Texas, we had a "local" that had a 65-up Corvair with a Crown adapted 292 inch Small Block Chevy sitting mid-ship.  Talked Steve into bringing it out to our local dragstrip one weekend, he only made one pass,(he wanted to see what the car would run), did not abuse the car, and ran a mid-12 second pass.  Not "earth-shattering" now days, but in the mid 70's, for a daily-driven street car, that was pretty quick. 

The featured Corvair is one beautiful vehicle, thanks for sharing it BILL

DJ 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by TECHMAN
additional info

[Kenmojr]

Love both Corvair mid engines...

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 8/30/2025 at 10:28 AM, Bainford said:

At the time I actually preferred his brother's car, another late Corvair, but lowered on wide steelies all around, stripped interior, and the hot rodded air-cooled six. It looked like a well prepared SCCA club racer on the street. 

Many many years ago, my street ride for a while was a very rough ex-SCCA D-production "Marina Blue" '66 Corvair 140horse, a Yenko Stinger in every respect but its origins. Stripped interior, sounded like a steel trash can when you closed the doors. It was a step "up" from the similarly prepped '62 Bug autocrosser (Porsche 356SC-powered) that was my daily driver some years earlier.

Fun car, decent autocrosser, loud and obnoxious inside, not that loud outside thanks to twin "turbo" mufflers, on old hardened race tires that were totally illegal on the street here at the time, but hey...it had a state inspection sticker (wink wink). Not date-friendly with the roll bar and noise, but I always had overnight or weekend access to interesting customer cars in those days.

One of the ones I wish I'd been able to hang on to, though not being a real Yenko or having a very successful racing history, its value today would be limited.