Sad day in automotive history

[zarfnober]

Lol dude, defensive much? Calm down, I was just goofing around. I like Corvairs. Did you marry a Corvair or something?

Besides, my 1964 GTO sitting out in my garage doesn't care about no girly American Volkswagens.

So you missed the keepin' it fun part? Someday you might even learn what GTO stands for, and a Corvair is a whole lot closer to a Ferrari than your Goat will ever be. I mean really, they call them Goats. That's like a double insult to Ferrari. We need a goaticon just for this thread.

Didn't marry a Corvair, but I did propose to my wife in my Yenko Stinger on the 35th anniversary of the last Corvair. You do know what a Yenko Stinger is, don't you?

But American Volkswagen? Now THAT'S an insult, my father fought the Nazis in WWII. You could at least go one step up and call it a poor mans Porsche

BTW, I liked the reintro'd GTO.

Rocco

Rocco

[Greg_L]

I do know what a Stinger is. Still not impressed. Cool looking cars, but it's still unfortunately a Corvair - the Chevette of the 60s.

I'm also very familiar with the history of the GTO. Thanks for asking.

I don't know why you assume that I know nothing about cars. I will admit though that I don't know any Corvair enthusiasts. Are you all super defensive like this? heck I know Mopar guys that are less uptight than you are.

[vetovideo]

Just my 2 cents worth ..... I had a 62 Corvair Van! Bought it for $25. Bought a second one for parts. Had a BALL !!!!! Was 'decorated' with hand paintings all around. Didn't give it up until one day, with 4 of my friends in the back, something went 'BANG' and the van listed left/ back down. As THAT tire rolled past the front of the van, when we stopped laughing, we took it to the junk yard.

[zarfnober]

I do know what a Stinger is. Still not impressed. Cool looking cars, but it's still unfortunately a Corvair - the Chevette of the 60s.

I'm also very familiar with the history of the GTO. Thanks for asking.

I don't know why you assume that I know nothing about cars. I will admit though that I don't know any Corvair enthusiasts. Are you all super defensive like this? heck I know Mopar guys that are less uptight than you are.

Just having a little fun with you. Didn't say you know nothing about cars but, the reality is basically 100% of the folks that diss the Corvair always bring up Ralphs book, incorrectly assuming it was all about the Corvair. Really don't care if you like em or not. Didn't say that you know nothing about cars. But when ya call it a "girly American VW" and now a Chevette? At least you didn't call it a Vega.

Nothing wrong with a GTO, but stealing the name from Ferrari? What else would you expect from DeLorean?

And the Corvair is unique, and not a Tempest/Cutlass/Chevelle. And the Vair wins the multiple carburetor award at 4. I've driven numerous versions of the same basic car the GTO was based on. None of them handle or stop anywhere near as well as the Vair.

But the GTO is still a cool car. Have fun,

Rocco

[Greg_L]

Just having a little fun with you. Didn't say you know nothing about cars but, the reality is basically 100% of the folks that diss the Corvair always bring up Ralphs book, incorrectly assuming it was all about the Corvair. Really don't care if you like em or not. Didn't say that you know nothing about cars. But when ya call it a "girly American VW" and now a Chevette? At least you didn't call it a Vega.

I brought up "Unsafe at any Speed" as a dig towards the absurdity of it. A joke. I didn't mean for this to turn into a debate. I like Corvairs for what they are. My initial comment wasn't a diss at all. But when you got all super defensive, I had to run with it. At least Vegas could fit a small-block and didn't use some underpowered air-cooled italian reject mouse-wheel.

And the Corvair is unique, and not a Tempest/Cutlass/Chevelle. And the Vair wins the multiple carburetor award at 4. I've driven numerous versions of the same basic car the GTO was based on. None of them handle or stop anywhere near as well as the Vair.

Handling and stopping? Lol. Okay you got me there. The Corvair turns well and goes from slow to slower better than a GM A-body. Well done. My grandma would love it! Too bad those pesky F-bodies came along and stole all of the Corvairs thunder. Seriously though, the Corvair is a cool little car, relatively rare, and very unique. Their styling is fantastic. I'm not dissing them at all. But come on, no one takes them seriously as any kind of performance car - drag or road course. There are way better vintage road cars, like any F-body, and the Corvair doesn't even register as a grease stain on a dragstrip. That doesn't take anything away from the Corvair because they weren't made for that stuff, but you can't seriously favorably compare the Corvair to any of the serious performance cars of the 60's. Really, come on dude.

But the GTO is still a cool car. Have fun,

Rocco

I will. I'm planning a new engine for it right now. I got mine in 1990 and it was my daily driver for years until I started drag racing it. Since then it's been through a number of (reversible) changes for the strip, but I'm currently putting it back to near-stock to street drive it again. I've got the original 389, two 400's, and three 455's sitting around....but I'm strongly considering modern LS-1/6 conversion now that kits are readily available for A-bodies. 400 hp while maintaining 17-20 mpg in a 64 GTO sounds pretty nice these days. I just don't know. I want a big belching lopey cammed carb'd 455 sucking in small birds and shaking the earth, but on the other hand modern fuel injection and efficiency sounds great too. Argh. Both options are hard on the wallet.

[zarfnober]

V8 mid engine kits were sold from the 60's til about 5 years ago. Other than the Corvette(IRS in 63), no other American car had an independent suspension. Do you really want to compare suspensions from an F-Body? Really? A car with a solid rear axle? Come on dude! And I've actually driven all mentioned.

SDS-EFI sells a very affordable and tunable EFI kit, have it on my Turbo Vair. www.sdsefi.com

I'm just having fun too, it's called bench racing. I take none of this seriously, remember, I drive a Corvair.

Almost forgot: A Yenko Stinger won the D-Production SCCA Runoffs in '69. But remember, winning your class is not impressive

Rocco

PS: my wifes grandpa was famous in Croatia for playing a bagpipe made out of a Goats stomach. Seriously!

[vibramutant1965]

in the early 80s I knew a guy that was building a 65 with a ZL1 . I dont know if he ever got it done, probably still in his garage in Iowa......

[zarfnober]

Feel free to have him contact me, or get me his contact info. Ted Trevor, the guy who owned Crown Mfg and made the V8 kits used to run an L-88 in one, have pictures somewhere. I believe he may have gotten in the high 10's but kept breaking transaxles, not a surprise.

A friend has had a dozen ZL-1 Camaros over the past 30 years, last one he had was an original car with 14,000 miles on it. Hard to believe someone could drive one of those 14K! He had one that was in street trim with original size tires, took it to the strip and ran a 13 flat, smoking the tires the entire way down the track. Simply wouldn't hook up. Dick Harrel ran high 10's on a stock motor, open exhaust and slicks.

Rocco

[Greg_L]

V8 mid engine kits were sold from the 60's til about 5 years ago. Other than the Corvette(IRS in 63), no other American car had an independent suspension. Do you really want to compare suspensions from an F-Body? Really? A car with a solid rear axle? Come on dude! And I've actually driven all mentioned.

Haven't you seen "My Cousin Vinny"? The 63 Pontiac Tempest had independent rear suspension....and it came in metallic mint green!

F-bodies have no problems handling in SCCA, and they put out plenty of power, so I don't see what the big deal is. There's a trade-off somewhere. Ever wonder why Vettes suck on a dragstrip? Corvettes are terrible drag cars. You can thank their IRS for that. It's really easy to tune a 4-link solid rear axle suspension to handle with the best of them. That's what's nice about F-bodies. They kind of do both very well.

Almost forgot: A Yenko Stinger won the D-Production SCCA Runoffs in '69. But remember, winning your class is not impressive

About ten years ago I was working with a race team in the NMCA and in our class (Factory Street) was a true Yenko Camaro. I was shocked and appalled that these guys would run a real Yenko in a mid-level nothing drag circuit, but they did. This car was purely bad butt. It was about a second too slow for the class, but it had the horsepower because it's trap speed was right up there with the rest of them. The owners/drivers/crew just didn't know what they were doing. If they could have gotten that car to hook up and had a good driver, they could have won consistently. I and a few guys I crewed with would sneak over to their pit sometimes and help them out when we could. They had that thing tuned all wrong. That car was just too cool to watch it leave so much on the table.

[zarfnober]

Forgot about the Tempest in that post, it's rear suspension was Vairy similar to the 60-64 Vair, a good friend has one, haven't driven one though. That torque converter hanging off the diff sure is interesting! Never said an F-Body couldn't be made to handle, pretty much anything can, but not exactly what I'd call an even moderately sophisticated suspension. And if later years were anything like the newer Mustangs front end, all you can really adjust is toe-in, unless they have some sort of caster adjustment. Those MacP struts need quite a few mods to make the camber adjustable. As for the back end, modern tires , shocks and progressive rate springs go a long way toward getting them around a corner. But it's much cheaper than an IRS.

My brother in laws 66 Vette ran 12.20's stock with old cheater slick tires, must have been the ineffective IRS NO Corvair has traction problems!

Most guys with Yenko Vairs race them regularly, only a few are strictly show vehicles. A friend has one built for Goodyear Tire Testing Division, only Stinger built in 69, and one of the few with all the Yenko engine mods. Very nice car that he races/thrashes regularly. I'll try and find some photos for you, Hemmings recently did a small feature on it. As for the Camaros/Chevelees/Novas, other than appearance mods, they were all just COPO cars with no engine mods by Yenko, anyone could order them. But ya put one of them there Yenko serial numbers on it and voila, you got big value nowadays.

A couple years ago a guy had one of the factory race transaxles from Beswicks(?) car on ebay. Intersting stuff indeed.

Rocco