Hell yes they're cool. Stand back & look at that coupe body...it's a beautiful thing (please, not the four-door). I had a new '63 Spyder back in the 60's & I couldn't stop looking at the thing. It was incredible.
How could we know what you think is cool?? If you thought it was cool, you wouldn't have to ask. If you like it. Buy it. We're not the ones you need to please. We're just keyboard nazi's, doing something till bed time.
Camber issues made the first ones pretty squirrely. I want one of those sixes. Flip a certain ring gear and it's wheelie time.
I think they are cool box stock. I have 2 '65 convertables projects now and my 1st car was a '63 Spyder convertable. Cool is a state of mind.
That's good enough for me! Buy it! That tool has never been on the right side of anything cool in his life.
As if the wonderful body style wasn't enough, guys would do a lot to these cars to make them go. I had the factory 150 H.P turbo charged version, but it lacked throttle response on the low end...there was some pretty bad turbo lag. Don't get me wrong...it was FUN. There were dual carb, four barrel & (I think) four carb conversions, as well as supercharging kits. I can remember at the Allentown fairgrounds there was an eighth-mile dirt dragstrip (or was it a tenth-mile) that was immensely popular with the "run-what-you-brung" crowd & one of the best contenders was a Judson supercharged early coupe. It was a thrill to see it mop up the V-8's in the dirt.
Cool as in...hot rod ? Most definitely not. Cool as in...a quirky little car that Chevy gave half the name of the Corvette to fool the public into thinking it had some relevance as a sports car...mmmm...still no. Cool as in...another odd ball detroit reject that even though its considered hideous and stupid by the vast majority of real car enthusiasts, seeing one on the road will generally attract attention? Ok, yes. But then so do Pacers, Gremlins, Pintos etc.
A buddy had one like that in school, with the gear selector on the dash. If you flipped the selector up to "R" while you were going down a snow covered road, instant donuts! I thought it was cool.
I learned to drive in my parent's 62,and friend had a 64 spyder turbo convertible in high school. the girls sure liked it. But there was no room in the backseat for sex!!!!!!!!
I'll admit that was one drawback. Ya just had to make do in the front. On the positive side, there were heat vents in the back...not too many modern cars can say that. I once put a stack of my buddy's albums back there on the floor & warped them all. I think one of them was "Big Sounds of the Drags," too. The rear seat also folded down for some bizarre reason.
Those heater vents in the back sucked.It took forever to heat up in the winter and the windshield would fog up. I bought my daughter a 65 for her 1st car in high school she loved that car but the engine finally gave out.
The mid engined ZL1 McLaren M8E suspended Corvair built by Ian Richardson was pretty fucking cool - hauled ass round the racetrack too.... Chevrolet Corvair Engine: Chevrolet 7600cc Configuration: mid-engine Driver: Ian Richardson Class: Special Saloons over 2500cc and Super Saloons Date Built: 1973-4 Date taken: C circa 1974 at Silverstone Bodyshell mostly original steel with the addition of a tubular spaceframe and fabricated bulkheads. All of the suspension came from Ian's McLaren M8 CanAm car, and was independent with rising rate springs and shock absorbers. Brakes were ventilated disks, inboard at rear. Wheel were 11x15ins (28X38cms) at the front and 17x15ins (43x38cms) at the rear; tyres used were Firestone. The engine also also came from Ian's CanAm car and was a 7600cc Chevrolet V8 with 4 IDA 40 Webers and a Weaver Brother dry-sump. The 600bhp+ power was fed through a Hewland LG6000 transaxle with a triple-plate clutch.
Got a friend here in colorado that put a 347 stroker in the mid engine configuration and a narrowed rear. Car halls ass and handles incredibly well. Kind of noisy but so what. Hell yes they are cool.
Not real engines? Really? Tell that to Ed Iskenderian, who made some pretty hot camshafts for those Corvair non-engines. These days you can still get a lot of cool performance stuff for them from Clarks Corvair Parts (no relation ). Early models (60-64) had swing axles, which had a tendency to fold under in hard cornering. That was what Ralph Nader got worked up about. GM patched the problem in 64 with a cross-member that can be retrofitted to earlier models. In 65 they went to a Corvette-style trailing arm setup, which mostly fixed the problem, although the cars still had rear-engine, tail-happy quirkiness. GM also upped the horsepower on the late models, and those engines will bolt right into an early model. Takes about an hour to switch one out with a floor jack, once you know what youre doing. Corvairs dominated Auto-Cross well into the 90s against much newer cars. They were an inexpensive performance juggernaut. I had a 4-carb 140 Monza that just screamed. I put a Porsche badge on it just to piss off the Porsche guys. If you buy this one, first thing youll need to do is replace the leaking O-rings in the pushrod tubes. Cheap and easy fix. But be forewarned: the heater really does suck.
i know the engines are . here is a 220hp salih engine that i put in an off topic car i built. i an hooked on corvair engines. this one sounded nasty. i now would like to built a corvair .
A friend stuffed a 340 HP, 63 Vette engine in the rear of one in 1963. The thing looked totally stock except for a couple of rectangular holes in the front panel for cooling air to the Radiator and the bottom of the harmonic balancer which was visible from the rear under the bumper. It fooled a whole lot of "fast cars" on the streets of St. Paul MN. Hot Rod magazine featured the car in their Magazine. I think the guys name was "Skip Huth".
I remember that article. Even better was the one from Staten Island with the Buick aluminum 215 V8. That engine was much closer to the original in weight. Later mods put the engine in the back seat. Today I would look at a Honda V6. Reason, Hondas are the only car where the engine runs backwards like a Corvair. At least the 4 cylinder ones do.
A friend had a '64 back in high school in the late '70's. He did manage to roll it (ala Ralph Nader). Later, maybe '67 and later, had better rear axle design. Fun car, but you have to like "different". Oh yeah, carry a spare fan belt or two. Break a belt and you lose cooling (no fan). The engines are highly sought after by the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA)crowd. Very cool in a plane. Not too crazy about the car.