1962 Chevrolet Corvair

Gifted engineer and manager, Ed Cole, joined Chevrolet in 1952 working his way through the ranks before becoming the Vice President of Chevrolet Motor Division. His aggressive design team pushed to have a smaller, more economical car to compete with imports such as the Volkswagen Beetle and sporty Porsche 356. Few American manufactures were building a compact vehicle in the 1950s, so this venture was unique for Chevrolet. The concept was built upon a first ever Fisher unibody chassis, with a rear mounted air-cooled, aluminum 6-cylinder engine, 4-wheel independent suspension, low profile wheels, and a great variety of platform models! It hit the showrooms with huge success in 1960 and became the Motor Trends "Car of the Year!" By 1962, after swift showroom sales, Chevrolet introduced a Monza Spyder performance option for the coupe and convertible models. This Spyder package provided a Turbo-charged engine, multi-cluster instrumentation with dash tachometer, intake manifold pressure and cylinder head temperature gauges, as well as special Spyder body badging! The Corvair was Chevrolets first ever production car to feature a turbocharged engine! It was also Americas only car of its day to be powered by a rear engine platform. The name Corvair comes from a combination of Chevrolets Corvette and Bel Air, and came with multiple variants including a wagon, van and truck setup. There was much to love about the style of the Corvair with its iconic accent body line, slanting nose, small quad headlights, and lack of grille made the car very distinctive and fresh, especially for an American car as it sported no fins or other similar era styling. Chevys Corvair faced some unnecessary negative press in its early days, but the car held strong with a good community of enthusiasts and dedicated part suppliers who see it for the unique car it is. Sales for the Corvair really took off when it debuted its Monza model with the Spyder performance package. A total of 6,894 Spyder coupes were made compared to just 2,574 convertibles like this example were produced in 1962. We are happy to represent this 1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder finished in Roman Red with a White convertible top and Black vinyl interior. Powering this largely original Corvair is its sporty air-cooled 2.4-liter turbo flat 6-cylinder engine producing a stout 150 horsepower and mated to a 4-speed manual transaxle. Along with the Spyder performance package this Corvair also features a 3.55 axle ratio, heater, defroster, power convertible top, floor shifter, AM radio, dual side mirrors, de-luxe steering wheel, sun visors, electric windshield wipers, and 6.50-13 U.S Royal tires surrounding the Monza hubcaps. This desirable Corvair Spyder shows 60,458 miles on the odometer and had been resting in its former, large-scale collection for many years driven only sparingly. Since its arrival at our museum we have installed a rebuilt Carter YH turbo carburetor unique to these engines, v-belt,