Corvair Corsa is one lucky penny

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This article was published 23/06/2022 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Aztec Bronz paint job on Ally Salamon’s 1966 Corvair Corsa reflects the lucky nature of her ride.

“When we’re doing the first look over and checking things out and pulling things apart, we found a 1965 penny,” Salamon said.

According to the tag on the back of the ride, the Corvair was built in Oshawa, Ont., in the fall of 1965. Salamon thinks someone hid the penny in the bones of the vehicle to mark the occasion.

Salamon christened the car “Lucky Penny” to honour the find.

“We didn’t have to worry about her name — it was already there.”

Graphic decals were added by local artist and autobody repair man David Lesack to commemorate the “lucky penny.”

She described the graphics as a subtle design of maple leaves with 1965 on the back with a smaller decal at the front to balance things out.

“It’s that little homage to it being Canadian made and finding that little penny,” Salamon said.

The car was painted Aztec Bronze, reminiscent of the copper of a penny, to match the original colour. The colour was in use for one year only 1966 for Chevrolets. Several Chevy models were splashed with the colour, but it was soon discontinued due to wear issues.

Colour matching the Aztec Bronze for the car proved to be one of the more difficult tasks, Salamon said.

“When you take a look at the ‘frunk,’ the front part of the car. That wasn’t painted, that was the original colour. You can take a look at that to the outside and it’s pretty accurate,” Salamon said. “We threw a little additional gold fleck in it just to pop it a little bit, but even back then it had quite a bit of gold in it.”

The rear engine hidden in the trunk of the car is a flat-six with air cooling that can hit about 140 horsepower. The creator of the Corsair, Chevy chief engineer Ed Cole was influenced by his time working with Porsche in Europe before crossing the pond to work with Chevrolet. The design lasted just under a decade, Salamon said, and the engine is almost a replica of a Porshe engine.

The Corvair is unique because the engine is located in the trunk of the car creating a back-heavy feel when driving. Salamon added the suspension of the Corvair was built around the location of the engine.

“You have this sort of movement when you hit bumps or something rough, but when you get it up to speed it goes pretty fast. It’s not a heavy car.”

She described the ride as a precursor to the muscle car. While it was advertised as being a family vehicle with a roomy interior in its initial release, it boasts a powerful engine that can pick up speed.

“But, it was fast,” Salamon said. “For as small as the car is, it’s got a lot of power.”

Salamon was driven to own a ride like the Corvair Corsa ever since her childhood.

“Even when everybody was buying teen magazines, I was buying hot rod magazines,” Salamon said. “I always had this ideal idea of someday owning a ’72 Chevelle but as the years go on that was no longer the priority.”

All the little things she loves about the Chevelles, including the dual backlights and dual front lights, are present in the Corvair.

“It’s those little touches.”

A couple of years ago, both of her grandmothers died, leaving her a small sum of money. She debated how to spend the funds and decided to follow her dreams and find a car to fix up and park in the garage.

She eventually found the Corvair in Regina during COVID-19 in the summer of 2020 when inter-provincial travel was possible.

She made the four-hour trek with a buddy and her partner Larry to Saskatchewan’s capital only to discover upon their arrival the car would not turn over. Her friend quickly realized it was an easy fuel pump issue to fix and the car returned with them to Brandon.

There was some work needed on the Corvair once it arrived in Brandon, she said, even though the interior was good as new. One of the most notable challenges was fine-tuning the four carburetors to fire in sync.

The restoration of the vehicle was an interesting undertaking, she added, as the accessibility of car parts proved challenging due to COVID-19 supply-chain hiccups.

Eager to get the rubber on the road, Salamon opted to begin bodywork first and take on mechanical updates as parts become available.

She connected with Lesack to complete the auto body work, filling in the back where needed and creating new pieces for the Corvair “out of thin air.”

“Slowly but surely, we got everything pieced together,” Salamon said.

Salamon has no plans for major changes to the ride. The ideal would be to keep it as close to the original as possible.

“I think it’s one of the most misunderstood cars,” Salamon said. “It kind of just got written over once the muscles cars came in — it kind of just faded away.”

» ckemp@brandonsun.com

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