Two 1970s Corvair Powered Customs From TV Movie Condor (1986)
Sharp eyed readers of our previous feature might have noticed that the crazy looking Volkswagen Concept Car wasn’t the only piece of oddball fiberglass in the dusty garage…and a quick look at the seller’s other features netted these two beauties; First is this 1970s Corvair powered Tedham Special offered for $6000 CAD ($4485 USD) and this 1970s Corvair Custom thing offered for $5000 CAD ($3738 USD), both in Bradford, Ontario, Canada sold by the Guild of Automotive Restorers. You might think this was a simple case of find the movie pics online…but no, this involved me watching an hour and 15 minutes of a campy 1986 TV show pilot turned made for TV movie called Condor that was supposedly set in Los Angeles in 1999 and features seriously cheesy acting from Ray Wise, an android named Lisa, and a serious setup of odd custom cars…including these two. You can watch the entire “movie” on Amazon prime here…but I don’t recommend it. Â Tip from MNMunky.
First up is the car that the seller describes as built by Tedham in Pheonix Arizona in the 1990’s. It is a tube frame, Corvair powered fibreglass car. Purported to have been used in the Orion Movie “Condor”. It has been stored for many years. But it is certainly from an earlier era when custom cars were long, low, and glued together with fiberglass.
The car only appears in the “movie” for a few seconds around 07:16 when the hero uses his plus sized in-car computer (in what appears to be a Porsche Speedster kit car) to pre-order a burger and coffee from Pirate Pete’s.
Corvair flat-6 out back look dusty and missing a few parts.
The interior shows a manual gear shifter and some basic 70s non-adjustable sport buckets.
The next car is a platypus faced custom that also only appears in one or two scenes in the movie (I can’t believe I’ve watched the entire thing…)…but it has a trick under the hood…errr..trunk.
This Corvair has a draw-thru carb setup ahead of its turbocharger, which will make 180 horsepower on a good day.
The interior in this one is more 60s than 70s, but it matches the exterior in a funky way.
I can’t believe I watched the entire Condor movie. See another odd movie car? tips@dailyturismo.com
Here’s a few more pictures from last week.
https://barnfinds.com/wild-70s-turbocharged-custom/
So… it this the real quilted northern (kit car custom)?
Wow, you found the movie!
I’m going to have to give that a look, just to see the speedster you mentioned…
I don’t want to brag, but my googlefu is pretty strong…for bedtime stories I always read my kids a few chapters of the now declassified NSA’s Guide To Untangling The Web. https://www.governmentattic.org/8docs/UntanglingTheWeb-NSA_2007.pdf
Also, I think I short changed you the credit for tipping us on these sweep pieces of junk, so I added a note in the article.
1986 movie set in “futuristic” 1999, but with cars distinctly stuck in the 1970s. Why was this not a big hit? At least the producers didn’t assume we’d still be driving 80s econoboxes at the end of the century.
Robocop came out a year after this and in it the cops were driving the new Ford Taurus. At least that looked futuristic in 1987.