America's Most Radical Pickup Truck - Jay Leno’s Garage

the fun thing about these they're easy to restore because they're basically putting together a model you know you you really don't need the instructions to figure out everything goes everything is nuts and bolts and and and no electronics no computer that's what makes it easy well another episode of Jay Leno's Garage the vehicle featuring today 1961 Chevrolet Corvair ramps I'd this was one of the most innovative vehicles ever developed by General Motors because what it is is a pickup truck and realize pickup trucks have looked the same I don't know for the previous 60 or 70 years since the Model T pickup truck they all looked the same engine and front cab and then the bed this was truly innovative engine in the rear independent suspension actually the first I think truck to have independent suspension and it really was a bit of a gamble a man named Edie Cole was president of General Motors at the time and Ed was one of those mechanical geniuses you know as funny General Motors always works best when they have an engineer at the helm you know during the 70s and 80s you marketing guys and whatever now you got mark Royce who's in there he's a real engineer and they're doing great things with Corvette and Cadillac and Edie Cole was like that too very innovative guy he was enamored of the Volkswagen so you have to remember after the war Chevrolet was going to build a car called the cadet which was a small economy car but we'd won the war and money was you know being flashed around and people wanted big expensive cars 1958 was probably the most excessive year in the history of American automobiles they put chrome on everything you've ever seen a 58 Buick unlimited or any of the Oldsmobiles from that period in fact even President Eisenhower at the time there was a recession in the late 50s and he said I think it's because of the 1958 models have you seen these things and that didn't help at all because everything was so ornate and overdone and heavy and gas guzzling but Edie Cole was behind the scenes developing the Corvair both in the truck form and in the passenger car and as I said he was enamored of the Volkswagen the Tantra these are air-cooled automobiles and you know the automobile industry lease in America pretty conservative back in the thirties Chrysler came out with a Chrysler airflow now they made an imperial version of the Chrysler airflow and the imperial prior to that looked like Packard's and Duesenbergs big grill on the front and a you know a long hood and you know very prestigious looking car and the airflow was a true aerodynamically designed car it just didn't look like anything else on the road and consequently it was a huge bomb because it didn't look like a big impressive car and the auto industry said we can't move too fast on this stuff so when Cole came up with the the idea for the Corvair it was uh it was a huge deal when the Corvair was on availed in 1960 Oh cover a time magazine I think in 59 or 60 with Ed Cole on the cover it was seen as the most innovative automobile ever introduced Edco Lycoris was riding on the success of the small-block Chevy the 265 v8 was his they produced their 100 million version of that I think in 2011 it's still basically the same engine they're using today so that shows you the innovator he was he he come up with techniques to make engines lighter faster and more efficient I mean the Chevy small-block weighed less than the six cylinder it replaced and it had more cylinders and a lot more horsepower so when he introduced his Corvair this was another innovation from Ed Cole unfortunately the six-cylinder engine cost a lot more to produce than he thought because you had cast-iron heads and he had six individual cylinders as opposed to you know stamping out of the core and making a block that way that could be done a lot cheaper and more efficiently so the Corvair wound up costing more and weighing about 78 or 80 pounds more than the target weight but that is neither here nor there let's get back to the RAM side it's called the Corvair 95 because that was the wheelbase the normal wheelbase in the Corvair I think with 108 inches this was shortened to 95 inches for this application now you might notice this one looks different than some of the other videos you're doing because we're social distancing and all of that here I'm here in the garage by myself and we have the camera on a tripod and I I stop and run over and then move it again we show these out of order you might see the next one might be one we taped prior to all this coming down but we're doing a few like this we just did one with 57 Christ so people seem to like that one so in some ways it's kind of interesting because a bit more personal you know I'm here at the garage by myself and it's quiet and we can just take our time a little bit here but let's get back to let's get back to the Corvair this is a vehicle I found right up the street less than a mile from my shop or in an industrial area and this is behind a building with a bunch of junk piled on it as you can see from these photos it's a little right it's a little rough I paid $600 for it this is the kind of vehicle you buy it for 600 you put 50 grand in it you sell up to 12 five yeah it's uh it's just like the stock market you know I like to collect unusual vehicles you know it's funny when you collect stuff like Ferraris I know Ferrari guys have all these fancy fries and someone asked me why don't you have any Ferraris I like them they're wonderful cars I just can't afford the books like when you go to the book store to buy a Ferrari book it's always in a limited-slip case and it's leather and it's signed by chef boyardee or somebody you know and it's like $490 I went down to a used bookstore right here in Burbank I found three Corvair books assassination of the Corvair the Corvair decade excellent book and Corvair by Chevrolet I said how much were these three books guy said maybe 25 bucks it's a fine you don't the library cheaper when you don't collect the fancy stuff plus I don't know with what's going on now with the pandemic this is the kind of V if they want to drive it a pandemic you don't wanna be driving around in a Lamborghini with open exhaust pipes looking like some deposed dictators idiots none you know and and and when people see this kind of thing they smile and they wave and it's just a real friendly goofy looking vehicle and it was really startling when they came out in 61 because it didn't look like anything else on the road this is the very first cab forward you know the Ford Econoline and Dodge they all came out with their version which had traditional engine in the front with rear-wheel drive this is rear-wheel drive also and you know this was not certainly the safest automobile this is the kind of vehicle the only advantage is when you have an accident you're the first one on the scene because you're sitting right here your legs are right here okay so you're you're never more than literally six inches from the crash I mean this is where my legs aren't when I'm in the car as I said this car was $2,200 brand new and these were popular for deliveries and with the ramp side you'll see that in a minute that it's called ram side because it folds down and the phone company like these because they could wheel those big spools of wire into these so they bought a whole bunch of these for fleet sales 61 was their biggest year I think this old 11,000 of them and then they kind of they weren't quite as practical as the Ford and Chevy version see the trouble is you got the engine in the back so the bed is higher in the back where the engine goes they built three of these there was the core van which was a van version the load side and then the RAM side which which this one was I think this was the most popular version of the RAM side not a lot of options am/fm radio it always makes me laugh stuff that we accepted back in the day you'd never except now let's see a vent window so you open this vent window but oh gee it hits Samara yeah sorry about that you know you couldn't get away with that today why you can move them and do that in one but just the idea that it actually hits the mirror is it just just makes me laugh it comes from the factory like that you know you know when I started this website 13 years ago this is one of the first vehicles we did but it's never been on YouTube so I just been going through the garage during this whole pandemic thing trying to find vehicles that never been on the YouTube channel I realize this is one of them I love driving this thing it's just so goofy with having the it reminds me of my Mercedes transporter see what the wheels being back further here and the Corvette had some advantages over other cars power steering was not necessary because the engine was in the back so it's very easy to steer being air-cooled obviously no radiator no water pump no coolant all that kind of stuff disadvantages the heater was not good because it was air-cooled there was a gasoline heater that they had as an option you got about 26 miles per gallon but when you turn on the gasoline heater you got less than 10 and somehow a gasoline heater in a car doesn't the safest thing you know but again safety was not a priority in 1960 the way it is today I believe this is the first unibody that chevrolet did I mean this really caused a big ruckus when it came out it was it was because no truck had ever looked like this I mean we it's it's it's a shape we've sort of gotten used to over the years but much like the minivan or the Mustang this this made some waves and and it was pretty popular let's go around the back and I'll show you sure the engine how that works the way you access it a little different than the standard than the standard Corvair inch and the head I think stronger more durable exhaust valves because it was doing work it was a truck actually this thing weighed 2600 pounds about at a gross vehicle weight of about 4,700 pounds so you could carry 3/4 of a ton in this thing so it was pretty durable you access to check the oil through here you open this door and this is your dipstick right there and then you have your cross your oil filter there and this should slam shut there we go now to access the engine you drop the tailgate and you unscrew these two here we added these wooden slats this is just a regular truck bed we added the wood here just to give it a little bit more style as your engine there 145 cubic inches 80 horsepower 128 foot-pounds of torque as I said more durable exhaust valves a few different things this would be the normal place to check the dipstick in a Corvair there was one of these rubber plugs here and I touched it and it disintegrated because it was so old so I stuck that plug in that is not stock as I mentioned before dual carburetors which made it a bit more expensive very rare to have an American car with dual carburetors there wasn't some big high-performance thing like a Chrysler with two four barrels or something so that was a little unusual larger alternator I can't remember originally had it generated and we put that all thinner in there I think it came with the olive you know I can't remember that sorry about that but wonderful little motor not just the fascinating piece of kit this thing you know the original Corvair was supposed to have a four-cylinder engine like a Volkswagen but they felt Americans like horsepower you know if we're gonna copy Volkswagen let's make it bigger stronger faster which is what they did you know the Volkswagen in the period head was 36 horsepower or 42 or something I did so with 80 it gave it a distinct advantage over the Volkswagen Transporter at the time which is what they were going for but it was still just a little odd for people you know because here you see you had this high bed so to load stuff in here and then I could fall down in there so that was kind of advantage the battery is right in here in that little door there Chevrolet never missed an opportunity to show you how the RAM side worked and it was actually pretty clever come on come around the other side and I'll show you I kind of moved the camera again here by myself okay this is why they call it the ramps I just door opens of the 11,000 they sold that first year 11 or 12,000 80% were the ramp side people like this feature the clever part is it's got a heavy rubber bumper for lack of a better word here so it doesn't scratch the paint all ramp sides almost all these Corvettes pickup trucks rather were were two-tone paint jobs that's the way they came from the factory I feel funny calling a pickup truck I don't really think of it as a pickup truck but that's what it is and that's what they called it you see this would open right here okay you got the safety catch and you lower this down and you got a motorcycle in there or you could get a lawnmower or whatever you wanted as I mentioned these were popular with the phone company they could roll those huge spools of wire gardeners love them because you could just you know drive the lawn mower right on on off the thing for other types of applications not really good because you had that step there it was Ford Econoline van or a Dodge or even the Chevy the the pickup normal Chevy pickup truck was cheaper than this could carry more had a bigger bed on it but interesting idea just an interesting way to look at a pickup truck just a totally different interpretation four-wheel drum brakes like not the safest thing if you get hit but this part is built pretty strong the bed is well like I say and you can't refuse of a ton in this thing so that's that's pretty good you know fun thing about finding a vehicle like this is it's easy to restore in that everything is mechanical laches you know there's no electronics to just drive you crazy the only electrons you have wires going to taillights and stoplights that's about it it's just a lot of sandpaper a lot of metalwork a lot of prep work but really there's really not a whole lot to it it's pretty pretty simple you can take every piece off of this and know what it does you know modern cars but what does this come up with this go what is that where is this it's pretty easy come on let me let me shut this I'll show you what the interior looks like there we go come come around this side let's show you the interior okay I think Spartan is the best way to describe this although this was an option the armrest the mirror was like two dollars it kind of actually see your feet are right here where as I mentioned but you've got his lights wiper cigarette lighter you have to have that everybody smoked in 61 your ignition speedometer fuel gauge ashtray gotta have that everybody smoked in 61 and a radio that's an am/fm radio it's just AM back then you have some air vents down here got your emergency brake and a four-speed gearbox which seemed really sporty when you're a kid you know most most vehicles than 61 had three on the tree and that was kinda know where is this wow so four-speed stick shift you know it seemed pretty cool come on let's put it next door we'll bring it up on the lift and we'll show you what it looks like underneath well feel those 80 horses huh once again I'm here in my silent garage because all the guys are off because of the pandemic thing but we're taking care of them don't worry about that we've got the pickup up on our sterile communal if these lifts are the greatest thing you know you can lift up 40,000 pounds of this thing because this is only 2,600 now we restored this car what about 14 almost yeah 13 14 years ago and we use it quite a bit and it's just stayed so pristine underneath you know George you know George Swift our chief mechanic here he's did a wonderful job on this motor normally these are not that oil type but this one is as you can see no leaks no drips there you go right there underneath very nicely done and I I haven't cleaned it you know we just put it up on the lift after driving it and I'm surprised at how pristine it is under here this is your shift linkage here for your 4-speed transmission seems very sporty although this is probably the most unsporting vehicle you could imagine there's your independent suspension all the way around and of course your unibody deal here and your front end look it just stayed nice nice and clean hard to believe this is a 14 year old restoration but nicely done dual master I know I can't remember if we put that on or whether it was standard on trucks back in 61 so if you're a Corvair guy you can let me know about that one I'm not sure I didn't think 61 had dual masters but maybe it did you know it's been such a long time since we did this one but I just wanted to show you what it looked like underneath so as people interested in that and probably time now to set it down and take it for right let me show you how these lifts work pretty cool we go up unlock it see I got one hand on the phone it's okay here we go got it okay now bring it down and safety precaution they got to have your hand on the lock and the cool thing about these lifts is they actually recharge as they come down the the read regenerating energy back to the battery as it comes down so that's that's pretty cool all right let's take it for a ride actually this thing goes pretty good for having only 80 horsepower I guess it's at 128 foot-pounds of torque that seems to help I think these came with a standard final drive ratio 355 something like that the engines a bit more robust than the standard standard Corvair engine but you know I like it because it's a driving experience you don't get its unique enough being ahead of the front wheels or simply sitting on the front wheels it might as I said before it reminds me of driving that Mercedes transporter which is the strangest thing to drive you sort of sit up here and got four speeds which as I said 1961 seemed extremely exotic four speeds Wow and the complete complete lack of any safety equipment at all just makes it almost hilarious I mean you have no crash protection in front of you get out metal dashboard the glass is right here the car is right here but it was easily twice as powerful as the competing Volkswagen version and six civiles instead of four as I said Edie Cole was the genius behind the Corvair I you know it got such a bad reputation I I don't get annoyed when I pick up magazines and they have as well not so much mag news anymore but especially on the Internet the 50 worst cars of all time and they'll mention the Corvair without any technical and engineering reason why it's the worst you know most Corvair enthusiasts hate Ralph Nader I don't hate the guy met him at a Hmong Tonight Show a couple of times not the most humorous guy you've ever met but hey that's okay I think he did a lot of good I disagree with him he brought a book called unsafe at any speed the problem was they didn't want to put the Latasha bar the sway bar they told people just to run low tire pressure 15 pounds in the front end but most people don't pay attention to what's in the owner's manual they were just put 32 pounds or 40 pounds of the front and this would cause it to buckle under and change direction and it caused a bunch of accidents but by the time the book had come out they corrected the problem but by that time the writing was on the wall General Motors and so incensed at this twenty year old lawyer went after them that they tried to set him up in a compromising situation with a young woman and of cause that blew up in their face and backfired and and suddenly the Senate wanted to know why John Paul isn't one it's trying to go after this young lawyer and they just made it way worse than actually what but the real truth is situation is the Society of Automotive Engineers I think in 71 or 73 one of those they publish a paper the Corvair this is unbiased and he said it was no better or no worse than any other car in the pier in fact there's actually better because independent suspension and like weight and a few other things so I think the Corvair was vindicated but by that time it was too late you know people just you know I had somebody the other day I was driving one of my club arrows a guy goes I like those but they blow up right I go now that was the Pinto sir and they don't just blow up and you know people people are not real bright when it comes to automotive things they just believe what anybody tells them but anyway I think the Corvair certainly the most innovative American car ever developed I mean just a complete at least in America clean sheet of paper so different than anything else anyone had ever done before and this was the strangest pickup truck anybody had ever seen just because it didn't look like a pickup truck you know kids loved it to this day when I Drive this thing around people point and wave and you know it seems to get a pretty good reaction from people and it's kind of fun to drive that just the handling characteristics it's so goofy you just have to respect it and drive it properly remember when I was a kid then I think in Lawrence Massachusetts the next town over there was a Honda dealer and he had one of these and he would deliver new Honda's to people you know just and the 50cc stepped through you put it up there and you drive it and put the ramp down and drive it off and big deal but the fun thing about these kind of vehicles are they're easy to restore because they're basically it's basically putting together a model and you know you you really don't need the instructions to figure out everything goes everything is nuts and bolts and and and no electronics no computer that's what makes it easy just a lot of sanding painting and prepping and that's about it this is one of the first vehicles we did at my garage and it turned out great I'm told that there are people who make a five-speed to these which got to be pretty interesting if you like Corvairs you might want to go back and look at the YouTube show we did on my Yenko stinger Don Yenko was a well I guess he was the Carroll Shelby of Chevrolet he took Chevy's and and race them competitive competitively and what he did was he bought 100 Corvairs in white got his own serial number I have gotten above 54 and set out to build a car to take on Porsche which he hit in 1966 and I believe he won he won the Sen yeah it was very impressive he had a stage 1 to stage doing a stage 3 I have a stage 2 with the four carburetors and it's 180 horsepower and it goes great you realize the Porsche Turbo didn't have that until God probably that looks middle late 70s it's so funny to drive this because there's no foot you can't look that mean as it ends right there which makes it easy to position the car as much as I like driving the supercars you know this thing is uh is a lot of fun too it's just it's just so different than from anything that you could buy now it's very light very spindle II I love having a four-speed right here it's kind of it bounces our it just makes you smile can you get three people in the front I mean 80 horsepower doesn't sound like much but you're only moving maybe 2600 pounds I think that's the way to this thing air conditioning was even an option on Corvairs although I never saw kind of a Corvair with it Corvair was also the first turbocharged car technically it was the Oldsmobile but they didn't sell enough nose to make any difference so the Corvair was pretty advanced Edie Cole was quite a guy he's pickup Chuck's never quite caught on people and kind of like their traditional American looking pickup Chuck and I thought it was just a great idea I mean it's literally you would think discard power-steering if you didn't know cause on the big drawbacks especially if you were in Minnesota or someplace like that you basically had for all intensive purposes no heater I mean it had a heater but blowing hot air and not much well you know it's fun to drive your hands and feet are always doing something that's what I like about it commanding view of the road pretty softly sprung you know it's funny I really wash my guys they just wipe them down with some of our detail spray that we have and they last forever you know watered we'll just rust and and all the drain gutters don't drain properly and then you wind up with them but you know if you can keep an eye out of the wet weather as I said this thing was just stored probably 13 14 years ago still looks brand-new even underneath if you don't get it wet I mean it's not possible on most climates but in California it is there's any positive side to this whole pandemic thing is the fact the roads are empty you can kind of drive without sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic I like having a vehicle that needs me you know needs me the shift needs me to do so you know modern cars are so maintenance free that you don't don't really bond with them at all and the great thing about Corvairs is the clubs are terrific since they built 1.8 million of these there's plenty of engines available plenty of parts available place call Clark's we get a lot of parts in Clarks core their parts and the people in the club were all terrific you know it's fun to collect sort of regular cars cars or you can find parts at a reasonable price and that's what's great about Corvairs they haven't gone nuts I mean obviously if you find a Yanko stinger that's gonna bring you some serious money but god you can find courses and Monza's or you know ten grand something like that and they're a lot of fun to drive there there's 40 and I can remember when I was a kid pick up road and track they used to run ads in the back of road and track for a company called mg MIT and these have all these kind of things you know you get the string back driving gloves and the little cap and the guy with the pipe you driving there you know sporty Corvair Monza convertible with a four-speed these of a come become quite we're a rare these ramp sides if just not many of them left moeslem are owned by the phone company or by fleets and they just got beaten to death and then trashed every now and then Hemmings would have one in the sitting in a junkyard or something like that but not very ill now as much as I enjoy doing the Pagani's and the zondas and the McLaren's and the Ferraris there's something about these kind of cars it just I think touch more people because more people have experienced them more people have memories things they did places they went kids they raised whatever it might be you know so it's kind of fun and this is the kind of car that's not gonna break the bank if you go to a store you know it's just a fun hobby car with a a great club to back it up and have great spare schemes you can get plenty of parts and all that kind of things so and with the pandemic going on like I said you'll be driving around it's on a fancy day you know something like this this kind of makes people smile or Fleck back perhaps a simpler time and just all this up the boy this was a simpler time wouldn't you get the crash in this thing and you were simply dead like that that's it this there's no protection so you know you screw up it's your fault it's your fault pal that's the way it works anyway listen I hope you can drive enjoyed this little Drive and we'll see you next week with some more stuff then [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,360,750

Rating: 4.9404798 out of 5

Keywords: Corvair, Ed Cole, air-cooled, pickup, truck, flat six, Ralph Nader, car porn, GM, General Motors, Chevrolet, Rampside, motonerd, Unsafe At Any Speed, chevy, chevy corvair, chevrolet corvair, chevrolet corvair jay leno, Jay Leno's Garage, vintage cars, old cars, cars, car gear, car collection, cnbc, Jay Leno, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, sports cars, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour

Id: OY6X_603MMc

Length: 33min 24sec (2004 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AceCombat_75]

I love when it's only Jay for 30 minutes. I don't know how long he'll do youtube forit but I really appreciate his video especially during covid .

[u/an_actual_lawyer]

I have always loved these, even when I was a little kid. They offer impressive cargo capabilities in a very small package.

The central - and unfixable - problem is that your legs are your crumple zone.

[u/Drzhivago138]

Despite driving better unloaded and having room for a third passenger up front, buyers greatly preferred the front-engine Econoline and A100 over the rear-engine Corvan/Greenbrier because of those vans' flat load floor.

[u/Bukimari]

In 2010 my first car was a 1965 Corvair Manza and my dad had a 65 Corvair Corsa. We had an issue with mine and took it to a friend we had in town that had a Corvair Spider and one of these trucks and I remember freaking out at this glorious beast.

[u/lostboyz]

A co-worker has one of these. I've never even heard of it before. He built a new motor for it and carries around the original in the bed when he goes to car shows. Has great patina on it too.

[u/hitssquad]

What you came here for: https://youtu.be/OY6X_603MMc?t=13m59s