The Chevy Corvair debuted for the 1960 model year. The Corvair moniker came from a blending of Corvette and Bel Air, with the “air” portion a direct reference to the Corvair’s air-cooled, horizontally opposed six-cylinder engine. When it was introduced, the Corvair was offered in base and deluxe sedan configurations, with the entry-level sedan sparsely equipped to keep the sticker price under $2,000. Both sedans were propelled by the 145 cubic-inch Chevrolet Turbo Air air-cooled six producing 80 horsepower. The Corvair was intended to compete with offerings from Porsche, Volkswagen, and other compact imports.
Coupe versions of the Chevy Corvair arrived in January of 1960, in base and deluxe versions like the sedans. The coupe was well received, selling over 14,000 of the base coupe, and more than 36,500 of the deluxe coupes in the first year. The Corvair was named Motor Trend magazine’s 1960 Car of the Year.
With the early success of the Chevy Corvair, Bill Mitchell, Vice President of GM Styling thought sleeker styling might let the Corvair compete with imports on their own turf. Mitchell shipped a Corvair to Pininfarina. The Italian design house transformed the basic coupe into a beautifully modern styling exercise that graced the cover of Road & Track magazine in March of 1961. The 1960 Chevy Corvair Coupe Speciale Concept would eventually be re-styled and updated by Tom Tjaarda.
The Chevy Corvair was kept as part of the Pininfarina collection until 1996. It was subsequently sold to a California collector, traded hands a twice more before landing in La Jolla, California in 2001. It has been featured at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in 2007, and at the 2010 Quail Motorsports Gathering.
Finished in a brilliant bright red over a white interior, the Chevy Corvair Coupe Speciale Concept is a true rarity; it is one of the few concept cars that has survived. It has covered just 3,700 miles from new. It retains its original 145 cubic-inch air-cooled flat six-cylinder engine fed by a pair of single barrel Rochester downdraft carbs. The flat six produces 80 horsepower and is backed by the four-speed manual transaxle. The Corvair has four-wheel drum brakes, front independent coil spring suspension, and a rear swing-axle suspension with coil springs.
This sleek 1960 Chevy Corvair Coupe Speciale design concept crossed the auction block at the Gooding & Co. Monterey Car Week event, where it failed to meet reserve at a $260,000 high bid.
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Comments
Interesting, very european. The actual gen 1 Corvair was shown at car shows in Europe and its styling was a big hit, influencing that of cars such as the NSU Prinz.
I’ve a gen2, ’66 Corvair Corsa coupe with turbo which still looks stylish in today’s world.
While this is attractive, the 1st and especially 2nd generation Corvairs have nothing to envy from this car. I think it actually looks worse than the 2nd gen car.
Kind of looks like a knock off of a Ferrari GTC.
It pre-dated the 330 GTC and was crafted by the same design house.
Not a bad looking car for this time period. It sure looks very European with the large glass areas “greenhouse”. It has a NSU or BMW similar styling appearance from the side view. I am sure glad GM decided to do their own American style with the generation 2 Corvair. I agree with many of the comments. 🙂
I had a ‘65 Monza, loved it, put 155,000 on it and traded it in 1972. I’ve regretted it ever since but had no choice at the time.
Definitely and improvement on the Gen 1 Corvairs, I am only ever drawn tot he 65-67 variants. this is not that far off.
“The Chevy Corvair debuted for the 1960 model year… Both sedans were propelled by the 145 cubic-inch Chevrolet Turbo Air air-cooled six producing 80 horsepower.”
1960 (only) Corvairs had 140 cubic-inch engines. In ’61 the engine was enlarged to 145cu.
Definitely better looking than the first generation Corvair. It’s amazing to have survived!
GM should have kept on building the Corvair even after they fixed the safety issues but I guess the damage was done already. I once saw a cool resto mod Corvair with a V8 engine awesome looking car… Different then anything else on the road it even looks good in 2022 that’s over 59 years ago. Leave it to political BS to ruin something I know people where getting into accidents but after it was fixed they could have given it another chance a car like this today built properly would probably sell well