In June 1987, the night before the Michigan bar exam, I drove to Brighton, Michigan to buy a Corvair. It was a '65 Corsa 140 coupe, Regal Red, with LOUD stinger exhausts. The interior was faded but intact, the paint had turned to some sort of chalk color, but the car was all there, right down to the wire wheel covers. I bought it for $3,200, as best I can recall. Might have been $2,900. Anyway, the car was the most rust-free old car I have seen before or since.

I have spent the last fifteen years trying to restore this car.

The first lesson that I did not learn completely was that 140 motors have a propensity for dropping valves. This happened within a few months after I bought the car. I took the car to a friend of a friend who supposedly knew something about Corvairs. I remember asking frequently about my motor. I remember retrieving most of the parts from some guy's shed in a bad part of town when the "friend's" shop closed down. I remember searching in the snow behind some other guy's house for my input shaft. In vain.

The motor and car went to a local dealer that claimed to have an "old-timer" who used to work on Corvairs. When I got the car back, it leaked oil and pinged badly in warm weather.

Meanwhile, I decided to proceed haphazardly on the business of getting the car painted. I took all the trim off, all the glass out, removed the interior, and tendered the vehicle to another friend who is an excellent painter. In the way of excellent painters who paint old cars, it took several years, but the car was returned to me in magnificent condition, with a fresh, straight lacquer paint job.

A fresh Clarks interior was also installed at this time.

I got a fine summer out of the car, driving all over the state and even to Illinois. That was the summer of '97, I believe.

Of course, the engine problems continued to plague me, gripping me in a cold sweat like a vise squeezing my chest in the dead of the night. Well, not that bad. Anywho, I had a client who had an engine shop who said that he could rebuild my motor. Fool that I am, I believed him.

Fast forward one year. My car was returned to me. It still leaked oil; several shroud parts, the thermister, and some wiring were missing. And the car had been repainted. There was orange peel, overspray everywhere, sags, runs, dust, and even grinder marks on windows.

A reputable engine shop determined that the cause of the oil leak was the crack in the bell housing that had been epoxied shut. A $30 used part from Clarks fixed this. The insurance company cut a check for most of the bodywork and my car disappeared into the body shop for another two years....

It reemerged in April 2002, resplendent in a new base/clear coat of Regal Red. I drove it six happy miles, and then stopped for a Happy Meal. I went out to the car to leave the restaurant, and it dropped a valve seat. Not happy any more.

I decided that there was no way the body of the car was leaving my custody ever again. The engine came out, and the heads went off to Larry Shapiro, who did a great job of reworking them. Pat Delaney, a local engine builder in here in Lansing, is in the midst of putting the motor back together. It is my task to make ready the home for my rejuvenated power plant, and thus begins...

I know, it's a bit pretentious, but humor me.

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All images and text copyright Norman C. Witte 2002.