'69 Chevy Corvair street machine

The second generation Corvair is one of my favourite shapes from the sixties. I built my first one of these back in the early seventies, and have bought them up whenever I've seen the kit!
I've built six so far, this is a bit different from my normal builds. Most of mine are stock, or nearly so.
For this one I used the kit's four-carb engine option, with straight pipes and aluminium tube mufflers. Wheels are from the Resto-Rods issue of the AMT '66 Galaxie. Paint is Tamiya candy green over gold.

Nice work farmer the colour suits it as do the wheels as well.

Cheers Tony.

top model.. love the colour..

That looks awesome - what a tough little car!

Very Kool, nicely done!

Nice Corvair , Farmer I also built one of these a long time a go as a custom out of the box with the fastback roof add -on and painted it 50's Pink. I must say yours looks good in green though , I like !
Cheers Ron

niiice! im a sucker for a green car, never heard of a convair though, looks awesome!

slowlylearning wrote:niiice! im a sucker for a green car, never heard of a convair though, looks awesome!

Here's a short history:

The Corvair dated from 1960-1969. In the later fifties smaller cars were beginning to make serious inroads into the American market. The VW Beetle was so popular that Chevrolet adapted the Beetle's mechanical layout to a Holden-sized sedan with an air-cooled 2 1/2 litre six slung out behind the rear wheels.
Unfortunately they didn't realise that a layout that works for a 30hp small sedan might not be so good for a 90hp bigger car, and it had problems due to its tail-heavy weight distribution. If you tried to corner too fast, the tail would swing wide, the rear wheels would tuck under (swing-axle rear suspension), and you'd roll. Also when the horsepower race really got going, Chevrolet had engineered themselves into a corner. Everyone wanted V8s, and the Corvair couldn't take a V8, so they wound up turbocharging the six (at least ten years before the earliest Porsche Turbo!).
Eventually they fixed the suspension, but by then some smart guy called Ralph Nader had sunk the boot in. Also it didn't sell all that well compared to the Falcon and the Valiant. They supplemented it with the Chevy II/Nova, which eventually wound up replacing it.
The AMT kit is of the second-generation car (1965-69). I've read that it's actually a '68 by the interior trim patterns, but I don't let things like that worry me! It's an old fashioned three in one kit that can be built stock, mild or wild custom, or as a rally version. Or you can of course mix and match the parts like I did!

Something different, but it looks good. Well done.

Nice kolor on a kewl lil car

Great job, good colour I think the quote was "unsafe at any speed"

cool

Very nice model. The compact Corvair was certainly a troubled car. It ran for ten years from 1959 to 1969 and fell victim to its own inherent suspension problems, oil leaks, and the newly released Ford Mustang (then looked on as a sporty compact). Possibly the best version of the Corvair was the Monza.