Recently, we took a look at a solid late-production Chevy Corvair coupe in a Denver junkyard, and some readers couldn't believe that anybody would throw away such a rare classic. Hold onto your hats, Corvair fans, because eight Corvairs just showed up in the inventory of a yard in Colorado Springs. Because we just saw a coupe from the final couple of years of Corvair production, I've selected an early four-door sedan from the eightsome to follow it in this series.
Corvair production came to about 2 million from the 1960 through 1969 model years, and there are still plenty of project Corvairs sitting in garages and driveways, so they're not particularly hard to find in American wrecking yards nowadays. I'll run across two or three per year during my junkyard explorations, but finding this many at once at a U-Pull facility is a new experience for me.
The Corvair, with an air-cooled rear-mounted engine, was a radical design by the Detroit standards of its era and remains the most controversial American car ever made. Sales peaked in the 1961 and 1962 model years, began a gradual decline after that, then collapsed in 1966. Production continued through 1969, but by then hardly anyone was paying attention. Perhaps you blame Ralph Nader, or GM's clumsy attempts to squash Ralph Nader, or the government regulations inspired by Ralph Nader, or the comfortingly traditional Chevy II/Nova, or even the Renault Caravelle.
This car was built during at the Oakland Assembly plant in California, where production of the Chevrolet Four-Ninety kicked off in 1916. Oakland Assembly shut down in 1963, to be replaced by Fremont Assembly (which became NUMMI in 1984 and is now the Tesla Factory) about 25 miles to the southeast. The site of Oakland Assembly is Eastmont Town Center today.
This car does have the Powerglide, which was shifted via a little lever under the dash, to the left of the radio.
Below the AM radio is a Pace CB-143 23-channel CB radio of mid-1970s vintage. This unit was sold around the time that C.W. McCall's CB-centric song "Convoy" was #1 in the music charts. By the way, you can download free MP3s of C.W.'s advice to truckers crossing the Rockies on Interstate 70 — called out via mile marker — via his website.
The 700 was the mid-grade Corvair in 1962, sandwiched between the base 500 and the sporty Monza 900. The MSRP for today's Junkyard Gem with automatic transmission would have been $2,268, or about $23,704 after inflation. A 1963 Ford Falcon Futura sedan with two-speed Ford-O-Matic automatic started at $2,377 ($24,843 in today's money), but it was a bigger car with a real coolant-fed heater.
This "VAIRFIGNEWTEN" sticker must be some Corvair Society inside joke from decades past.
Worth restoring? There's very little rust-through plus you'd find a lot of parts donors nearby, but I think it would take at least $20,000 to turn this into a $15,000 car.
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