Before the Corvair became Ralph Nader’s favorite punching bag, it was Chevrolet’s most unconventional production car: rear engined, air cooled, independent suspension at all four corners, and marketed as Detroit’s answer to European engineering. However, today we’ve got a Vair where the transmission was flipped around and a 283 cubic inch small block Chevy is […]
If you thought a Corvair was quirky with its rear-mounted flat-six, imagine what happens when an engineer spends four decades transforming one into a mid-engine, Crown-converted monster packing a 400-horsepower aluminum Donovan small-block. This next feature is a Chevrolet Corvair Corsa Crown V8 that is less of a restoration and more of an engineering thesis—complete […]
Chevrolet may have designed the Corvair with a rear-mounted air-cooled flat-six, but someone looked at this a classic Monza and said, “Hold my beer…let’s do the opposite.” The result is a glorious act of mechanical defiance—a front-mounted LT1 V8 paired with a TH350 automatic and a 4-link S10 rear end, transforming this once-aircooled compact into […]
A rear-mounted engine with rear-wheel-drive was the preferred configuration for amazingly popular cars like the Volkswagen Beetle, Renault 4CV, Porsche 911, and Fiat 500…but not in the USA. Almost all cars built in the USA featured an engine located in the front, but the Chevrolet Corvair remains (to this day) the only mass-market American car […]
The first generation Chevrolet Corvair (1960-1964) was much maligned (particularly by Ralph D. Nader) for its swing axle suspension that would pogo-stick you into a spin at the first chance it could get…but the 2nd generation (1965-1969) fixed that with a fully independent rear suspension with coil springs at all four corners that would keep […]
The partnership between Warren “Bud” Goodwin and John Hebler turned into the business called Fiberfab 1964. From their Palo Alto, CA-based facility, they produced hot rod body panels for Mustangs, Corvettes, and Jags before building a Frankenstein’s monster called the Aztec GT that used a VW pan to create a Ford GT40 lookalike. By 1968 […]
There is such a thing as a custom motorcycle, and then there’s what we have here: a custom whatthecycle. It started as a Honda motorcycle and a Chevrolet Corvair, and then some diamond plate enthusiast decided that he needed to combine the two of them into the bike that can’t cut traffic lanes and a […]
Whenever I see a claimed “barn find” vehicle that looks covered in dirt, I assume it must be a staged recovery. But today’s next barn find looks like it was recovered from an ancient tomb and the asking price is so low that I’m tempted to believe the story. Find this 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Monza […]
The second-generation Chevrolet Corvair remains to this day the only mass-market American car to feature a rear-mounted air-cooled engine. This was the preferred configuration for amazingly popular cars like the Volkswagen Beetle, Renault 4CV, and Fiat 500 (and even the single-motor Tesla Model S if you think about it)…but Americans wanted their cars to be […]
If you are going to drive something classic, it might as well be something that turns heads. Like a really expensive car that you can buy at one of those auction sites where everybody overpays? No. You don’t need to liquidate your 401K or own a gold mine, you need to buy a customized El […]