slo crostic said:
That's a hot looking car Corvair, is it yours, or do you own a Corvair?
I owned a Corvair once (not the one that I use as my avatar -- that's an early '60~'64 model). The one I had was a late-model style, a 1966 Corvair Turbo Corsa, which was the crème de la crème of the late-model Corvairs. It had superb road hugging characteristics and a killer power-to-weight ratio. Let's just say that it was quicker and faster than a typical 350ci 4-barrel carburetor Camaro and absolutely no match at all for a Camaro on a mountain road. And, the Corsa's turbo-supercharger gave it even more of an advantage at higher altitudes on mountain roads.
I bought my Corvair Corsa in 1970. It's original paint had faded badly in just 4 years, so I sanded it down and painted it with grey primer. I intended to give it a proper paint job at some point, but it stayed primer-grey for the next 5 years until I sold it! In 1973, I gave the motor a major rebuild, and this time I modified it by adding a Weber side-draft 2-barrel carburetor, along with a special turbo muffler and exhaust system with a special turbo waste gate that wouldn't let allow the engine to be over boosted (i.e. -- blown up) and a water vapour injector system to control premature combustion (pings). Estimated peak horsepower at that point was 250 BHP, pushing a 950 kg motorcar (about 2000 lbs).
I also added special 14-inch alloy wheels (German-made Elektron brand) that were designed specifically for the late model Corvair (correct offset, etc), a particular model of Pirelli road rubber that the COrvair Racing Society of America (CORSA) had race-proven to be a phenomenal match with the Elektron wheel, and a complete street-tuned suspension package which allowed my to lower the chassis a tad and came with a small air dam that was designed to be used with this lowered suspension setup.
The result was a motorcar that only had two real threats (in them days) on mountain and/or winding roadways: Lotus Elan, Porsche Carrera, or modified Porsche 914. MG's were normally too underpowered, but there were a few that I encountered that could hang in there (barely). Other than that, there was NO competition other than Corvairs like mine (damned few, but there were some). All the rest of the Austin, Ferrari, Aston-Martin, Renault, Mazda RX-7, Datsun 240-Z -- er, NOPE! Camaros and Corvettes -- weeheehee!... don't make me laugh. Easily my worst competition was the Lotus Elan. There was nothing that could beat one. These friggin' things were basically go-karts! It was unbelievable that the Lotus Elan was a legal automobile in the USA. It was very low and it was very, very light in weight, at about 700 kg (or a bit less).
That's a hot looking car Corvair, is it yours...
No, the Chevy Nova is not mine. I have never owned a Chevy Nova. The Chevy Nova and its four door sister the Chevy II were hot cars in their day. I've seen plenty of hopped-up drag racing Novas over the years, but the most wicked Nova I've ever known was one that always took a lot of people by surprise (at the track). It was a Nova stationwagon! But, that was its secret, being that it had bit of extra weight on the rear wheels which the Nova SS or regular Nova coupe never had this car had great traction for drag racing. The cargo area of the stationwagon was also used to hide its truly huge drag racing slicks and narrowed rear axle through the use of some innovative sheetmetal work in the floorpan.
