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

The fun thing about these is that they're easy to restore because they're basically putting together a model that you know, you don't really need the instructions to figure out that everything works, it's all nuts and bolts, and no electronics, no computer, that's what makes it. easy, well, another episode of Jay Leno's Garage, the vehicle that features the ramps of the 1961 Chevrolet Corvair. I wish this was one of the

most

innovative vehicles ever developed by General Motors because what it is is a

truck

and I realize that the

truck

s look the same. I don't know, for the previous 60 or 70 years, since the Model T

pickup

truck, they all had the same engine and front cab and then the box, this was a really innovative engine in the independent rear suspension, in fact, I think it was the first truck that had independence. suspension and it really was a gamble, a man named Edie Cole was president of General Motors at the time and Ed was one of those mechanical geniuses that you know as funny.

General Motors always works better when they have an engineer at the helm, you know? during the '70s and '80s, the marketing guys and whatever, now you have Mark Royce, who is there, he is a real engineer and they are doing great things with Corvette and Cadillac, and Edie Cole was a very innovative guy, he was in love with the Volkswagen, so you have to remember that after the war, Chevrolet was going to build a car called the Cadet, which was a small, economical car, but we had won the war and the money was, you know, circulating and people wanted big and 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 of that era. In fact, even President Eisenhower at that 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? That didn't help at all because everything was so ornate, exaggerated." , heavy and gas guzzling, but Edie Cole was behind the scenes developing the Corvair in both truck and passenger car forms and like I said, I was in love with the Volkswagen, the Tantra, these are air-cooled cars and that's it.

You know, the auto industry in America is pretty conservative back in the thirties, Chrysler came out with a Chrysler airflow and now they made an imperial version of the Chrysler. The airflow and the imperial before that looked like the big grille of the Chrysler. Packard and Duesenberg on the front and, you know, a long hood and you know, a very prestigious looking car and the airflow was a real aerodynamically designed car, it just didn't look like anything else. road and consequently it was a big bomb because it didn't look like a big impressive car and the auto industry said we can't move too fast on these things so when Cole came up with the idea of ​​the Corvair it was uh it was a big deal when the Corvair became available in 1960.

Oh, Time magazine cover. I think in '59 or '60 with Ed Cole on the cover, it was seen as the most innovative car ever introduced. Edco Lycoris was based on the success of the little one. -block Chevy, the 265 v8 was theirs, they produced their 100 millionth version. I think in 2011 it's still basically the same engine they use today, so that shows how innovative it was. He came up with techniques to make engines lighter and faster. and more efficient, I mean the small block Chevy weighed less than the six cylinder it replaced and had more cylinders and a lot more horsepower, so when he introduced his Corvair, this was another Ed Cole innovation, unfortunately the engine six cylinders cost a lot. produce more than I thought because it had cast iron heads and he had six individual cylinders instead of, you know, stamping the core and making a block that way, which could be done much cheaper and more efficiently, so what the Corvair ended up with.

It costs more and weighs about 78 or 80 pounds more than the target weight, but that's neither here nor there, let's go back to the RAM side, it's called the Corvair 95 because that was the wheelbase, the normal wheelbase on the Corvair, I think at 108 inches, this one was scaled down to 95 inches for this app, now you can notice this one looks different than some of the other videos you're doing because we're social distancing and all that here, I'm alone in the

garage

and we have the cameraman on a tripod and I stop and run and then I move it again, we show these out of order, you might see the next one might be one that we recorded before all this went down, but we're doing some like this that we just of doing. one with 57 Christ, so people seem to like it, so in some ways it's interesting because it's a little more personal, you know, I'm here in the

garage

alone and it's quiet and we can take our time here a little bit, but let's go back a Let's go back to the Corvair.

This is a vehicle that I found on the street, less than a mile from my shop or in an industrial area, and it is behind a building with a lot of trash piled up, as you can see. From these photos it's a little okay, it's a little rough, I paid $600 for it, this is the type of vehicle that you buy for 600, put 50 grand on it, sell it for 12 fives, yes, it's like the market values, you know? I like collecting unusual vehicles, you know, it's fun when you collect things like Ferraris. I know the Ferrari guys have all those fancy fries and someone asked me why you don't have Ferraris.

I like them, they are wonderful cars, I just can't. pay for books like when you go to the bookstore to buy a Ferrari book, it's always in a limited cover case and it's leather and it's signed by chef boyardee or someone you know and it's like $490. I went to a used bookstore. right here. in Burbank I found three Corvair books The Corvair Murder, The Corvair Decade, excellent book and Chevrolet's Corvair. I said how much these three books cost. The guy said maybe 25 bucks, that's a fine. The library doesn't get cheaper if it doesn't pick up the fancy stuff.

Plus, I don't know what's going on now with the pandemic, this is the type of V if you want to drive during a pandemic, you don't want to drive a Lamborghini with open exhaust pipes that look like deposed dictators. idiots, none, you know, and when people see this kind of thing, they smile and wave and it's just a really friendly, silly looking vehicle and it was really surprising when they came out in '61 because it didn't look like anything else in the In the way, this is the first cabin onwards. You already know the Ford Econoline and the Dodge.

They all came out with their version that had a traditional engine in the front with rear-wheel drive. This is also rear wheel drive and you know it certainly wasn't the safest. car this is the type of vehicle the only advantage is that when you have an accident you are the first on the scene because you are sitting here your legs are here okay so you are never more than literally six years inches from the accident, I mean, This is where my legs aren't when I'm in the car as I said this car was $2,200 new and they were popular for deliveries and with the ramp side you'll see that in a minute.

It's called side ram because it folds up and the phone company likes these because they could wind those big spools of wire on these so they bought a bunch of these for fleet sales. '61 was their biggest year, I think these old 11,000 of them and then In some ways, they weren't as practical as the Ford and Chevy versions. The problem is that you have the engine in the back, so the deck is higher in the back, where the engine goes. They built three of these. There was the main truck, which was a

pickup

version, the cargo side and then the RAM side, which was this.

I think this was the most popular version on the RAM side, there weren't many options, am/fm radio, always makes me laugh, things we accepted in the past. One day you would never do it except now let's see a vent window so you open this vent window but oh wow hit Samara yeah sorry you know you couldn't get your way today why You can move them and do it in one go, but? just the idea of ​​it actually hitting the mirror makes me laugh, it comes from the factory like this, you know, when I started this website 13 years ago, this is one of the first vehicles we made, but it was never on YouTube.

So I've been going through the garage this whole pandemic trying to find vehicles that have never been on the YouTube channel. I realized that this is one of them. I love driving it. It's so ridiculous to have it. Reminds me of my Mercedes transporter. See what the wheels were further back here and the Corvette had some advantages over other cars. Power steering wasn't necessary because the engine was in the rear, so it's very easy to drive being air cooled, obviously, no radiator, no water pump, no coolant like that. of things cons the heater was not good because it was air cooled there was a gas heater they had as an option you got about 26 miles per gallon but when you turn on the gas heater you get less than 10 and somehow a gas heater in a car it's not the safest thing, you know, but again, safety wasn't a priority in 1960 like it is today.

I believe this is the first monocoque that Chevrolet made. I mean, this really caused quite a stir when it came out, it did. It was because no truck had ever looked like this, I mean it's a shape we've become accustomed to over the years, but like the minivan or the Mustang, this made some waves and was quite popular. the back and I'll show you for sure how the engine works. The way you access it is a little different than the standard Corvair in inches and head. I think the exhaust valves are stronger and more durable because it was running, it was actually a truck.

This thing weighed 2600 pounds with a gross vehicle weight of about 4700 pounds, so you could haul 3/4 of a ton in this thing, so it was pretty durable. You have access to check the oil over 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, let's now access the engine, you lower the tailgate and unscrew these two here, we add these wooden slats, this is just a truck bed normal, we added the wood here just to give it a little more style since its engine there 145 cubic inches 80 horsepower 128 pound-feet of torque like I said longer lasting exhaust valves a few different things this would be the normal place to check the dipstick on a Corvair There was one of these rubber plugs here and I touched it and it disintegrated because it was so old so I put that plug in which is not original, as I mentioned before, dual carburetors which made it a little more expensive.

It is very rare to have an American car. with dual carburetors there wasn't something big high performance like a Chrysler with two four cylinders or something, so it was a slightly larger and more unusual alternator. I don't remember they originally generated it and we put it all thinner there, I think so. it came with the olive, you know, I can't remember that, sorry, but a wonderful little engine, 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 that Americans like it. horsepower, you know, if we're going to copy Volkswagen, let's make it bigger, stronger and faster, which is what they did.

Did you know that the Volkswagen in that period had 36 horsepower or 42 or something like that? I did it with 80, it gave it a clear advantage over the Volkswagen. Transporter at the time, which is what they were looking for, but it was still a little strange to people you know because here you see you had this high bed to carry things here and then it could fall down there, so it was nice. The best thing is that the battery is right here, in that little door there. Chevrolet never missed an opportunity to show them how the RAM side of things worked and was actually pretty smart.

Come on, come the other way and I'll show you that I moved the battery. camera again here alone, okay, that's why they call them ramps. The door simply opens of the 11,000 that were sold that first year, 11 or 12,000, 80% of which were on the ramp side. People like this feature. The smart thing is that it has a heavy rubber bumper to Lack a better word here so it doesn't scratch the paint. All sides of the ramp. Almost all of these Corvettes, rather, were two-tone paint jobs. This is how they came from the factory. I find it strange to call a van.

Don't know. Really think of it as a pickup truck, but that's what it is and that's what they called it. See, this would open right here. Okay, you have the lock and you take it down and you have a motorcycle there or you can get a lawnmower. or whatever you wanted, as I mentioned, these were popular with the telephone company, they could wind those huge spools of wire. Gardeners love them because, you know, you can turn the mower on and off for other types of applications, it's not really good because you had that step there, it was a Ford Econoline truck or a Dodge or even aChevy, the regular Chevy truck was cheaper than this one, could haul more, had a bigger bed, but interesting idea, just an interesting way to look at a truck. just a totally different interpretation, four wheel drum brakes aren't the safest thing if you get hit, but this part is built pretty strong, the box is fine, like I say, and you can't turn down a ton on this thing, so That's pretty good.

You know, the fun thing about finding a vehicle like this is that it's easy to restore because it's all mechanical latches. You know there are no electronic components that will drive you crazy. The only electrons you have are wires that go to the taillights and brake lights. That's all. It's just a lot of sandpaper, a lot of metal work, a lot of prep work, but there's really not much to do, it's pretty simple, you can take every piece off of this and you know what it does you know modern cars but what comes up with this? what's that?

Where is this? It's pretty easy come on, let me close this. I'll show you what the inside looks like, here we go, come, come. This side, let's show you the inside, okay, I think Spartan is the best way to describe this, although this was an option, the armrest, the mirror was like two dollars, I actually see your feet are right here where, as I mentioned, but you have your lights windshield wipers cigarette lighter you have to have everyone smoked in 61 your ignition speedometer fuel gauge ashtray you have to have everyone smoked in 61 and a radio that is an am/fm radio it's just AM back then you have some air vents down here you have your emergency brake and a four speed gearbox that seemed really sporty when you were a kid you know most vehicles except the 61 had three on the tree and that was knowing where it is this wow, so the four speed shifter, you know, it looked nice. cool, come on, let's put it on the side, we'll take it up on the elevator and show you what it looks like underneath, we'll feel those 80 horses, uh, one more time.

I'm here in my quiet garage because all the boys are gone. due to the pandemic, but we are taking care of them, don't worry, we have pickup in our sterile community. If these lifts are the best, you know, you can lift 40,000 pounds of this thing because this thing only cost 2,600 now we restored this car, how about 14, almost yeah, 13, 14 years ago and we used it quite a bit and it stayed so pristine underneath, You know, George, you know George Swift, our chief mechanic here, he did a wonderful job on this engine? normally these are not that type of oil, but this one is as you can see, no leaks or drips, there you go right under it, very well made and I haven't cleaned it.

You know, we just put it on the lift after I and I drove it. I'm amazed at how pristine it is down here. This is the shift linkage for your 4 speed transmission. It looks very sporty, although this is probably the least sporty vehicle you can imagine. There's its all-round independent suspension and, of course, its unibody arrangement. here and its front appearance was kept nice, nice and clean. It's hard to believe this is a 14 year old restoration, but it is well done with double mastering. I know I don't remember if we put it in or if it was standard on trucks in '61. so if you're a Corvair guy, you can tell me about it.

I'm not sure I didn't think 61 had a double master's degree, but maybe you did know. It's been a long time since we made this one, but I just wanted to show you what it looked like underneath so people are interested in it and it's probably time to let it go and take it for granted. Let me show you how these elevators work. We go up and unlock it. Look, I have one hand on the phone, okay, here we go, okay, now put it down and as a safety precaution, they should have your hand on the lock and the nice thing about these elevators is that they actually recharge as they go down and They read the regenerating energy back to the battery. low, so that's great, okay, let's give it a spin.

This is actually going pretty well for only having 80 horsepower. I guess it's 128 lb-ft of torque that seems to help. I believe these come with a standard final drive. 355 ratio something like that, the engines are a little beefier than the standard Corvair engine, but you know I like it because it's a driving experience that you don't get, it's unique enough being in front of the front wheels or just sitting on the wheels front. Maybe, like I said before, it reminds me of driving that Mercedes transport truck, which is the strangest thing about driving. You sat here and got a four-speed, which, like I said, 1961 seemed like an extremely exotic four-speed.

Wow, and the complete lack of safety equipment. not at all makes it almost funny, I mean, you have no crash protection in front of you, take out the metal dash, the glass is here, the car is here, but it was easily twice as powerful as the Volkswagen version of the competition and six civilians instead of four. Like I said, Edie Cole was the genius behind the Corvair. You know he has such a bad reputation. I don't bother when I read magazines and they don't have that much magazine news either, but especially the 50 worst ones on the Internet. cars of all time and they will mention the Corvair for no technical or engineering reason why it is the worst.

You know, most Corvair enthusiasts hate Ralph Nader. I don't hate the guy who met him on a Hmong Tonight Show a couple of times, not most. funny guy you've ever met but hey okay I think he did a lot of good I don't agree 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 What did they say. people just use 15 lbs with low tire pressure in the front but most people don't pay attention to what's in the owner's manual they just put 32 or 40 lbs in the front and this would do to bend and change direction. and it caused a lot of accidents, but when the book came out, they corrected the problem, but by then the writing was on the wall, General Motors, and so incensed with this twenty-year-old lawyer he went after them that they tried to arrest him.

They found themselves in a compromising situation with a young woman and for a cause that blew up in their faces and backfired and suddenly the Senate wanted to know why John Paul is not one of those who is trying to go after this young lawyer and They just made it much worse. that actually what, but the truth is that the situation is the Society of Automotive Engineers. I think in '71 or '73 one of them published an article about the Corvair, this is unbiased and he said it was no better or worse than any other car on the dock.

In fact, it's actually better because the independent suspension and the weight and a few other things, so I think the Corvair was vindicated, but at that point it was too late, you know, people just know I had someone the other day, one of my club was driving. arrows that a guy says I like those, but they explode, now I go, that was Mr. Pinto and they don't just explode and you know, people are not very bright when it comes to automotive things, they just believe what someone tells them. but anyway, I think the Corvair is without a doubt the most innovative American car ever developed.

I mean just a blank sheet of paper, at least in America, very different than anything anyone had ever done before and this was the strangest truck anyone had ever seen, just because it didn't look like a truck, you know. , the 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 fun to drive. The driving characteristics are so silly that you just have to respect them and drive them correctly. I remember when I was a kid, I think in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the next town over there was a Honda dealership that had one of these and they gave out new Hondas to people. you know, and the 50cc happened, you put it there and you drive it, you go down the ramp and you take it out and big deal, but the fun thing about these types of vehicles is that they are easy to restore because basically they are Basically it's about putting together a model and you know you don't really need the instructions to figure out it all works it's all nuts and bolts and no electronics no computer that's what makes it easy just a lot of sanding and painting and prepping and that's it.

About this, this is one of the first vehicles we made in my garage and it turned out great. I was told there are people making five speeds for these, which was pretty interesting. If you like Corvairs, you might want to go. Go back and watch the YouTube show we did on my Yenko Stinger Don Yenko was good, I guess he was the Carroll Shelby of Chevrolet, he took Chevys and raced them competitively and what he did was he bought 100 blank Corvairs and got his own own. The serial number was over 54 and I set out to build a car to take on Porsche, which crashed in 1966 and I think it won, the Sen won, yes it was very impressive, it had a stage 1 to stage doing a stage 3. a stage 2 with four carburetors and it has 180 horsepower and goes great, you realize the Porsche Turbo didn't have that until God, it probably looks like it's from the late 70's, it's a lot of fun to drive this because there's no foot that doesn't can seem so bad. since it ends right there, which makes it easy to position the car as much as I like driving supercars.

You know, this is also a lot of fun. It's very different from anything you can buy now. It is very light. very spiny II I love having a four speed right here, it's like it bounces, it just makes you smile. Can you put three people in front? I mean, 80 horsepower doesn't seem like much, but you're only moving maybe 2600 pounds. I think that's the way to this. Air conditioning was even an option on Corvairs, although I never saw a Corvair with it. Corvair was also the first turbocharged car, technically it was the Oldsmobile, but they didn't sell enough to make a difference.

So the Corvair was pretty advanced. Edie Cole was quite the guy. Chuck's truck never caught people's attention and looks like his traditional American truck. Chuck and I thought it was just a great idea. I mean, literally, you'd think they'd rule out power steering. If you didn't know, the big drawbacks, especially if you were in Minnesota or somewhere like that, it basically had no heater for all intensive purposes, I mean, it had a heater but it blew hot air and not much, you know it's fun to drive. your hands and feet are always doing something, that's what I like, a commanding view of the road, with a pretty gentle spring, you know, it's funny, I really wash my boys, they just clean them with a little of our spray for details that we have and last forever.

I know if we're watered, we'll just rust and all the drainage gutters don't drain properly and then you're done with them, but you know, if you can keep an eye on wet weather, like I said, this thing was probably just stored 13 14 years ago yet It looks new even underneath if you don't get it wet. I mean, it's not possible in most climates, but in California there is a silver lining to this whole pandemic thing: the fact that the roads are empty, you can do it. Driving without sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I like to have a vehicle that needs me.

You know he needs me. The shift needs me to do it.. Then you know that modern cars don't need maintenance and you don't really bond with them. everything and the best thing about Corvairs is the sticks are fantastic as they built 1.8 million of these there are lots of engines available lots of parts available call Clark's we get lots of parts at Clarks their major parts and all the people in the club was cool, you know, it's fun to collect regular cars or you can find parts at a reasonable price and that's the good thing about Corvairs, they haven't gone crazy, I mean obviously if you find a Yanko Stinger, it'll bring you a lot of money, but gosh, you can find courses and Monza or you know, ten thousand dollars and something like that and they're so much fun to drive.

There are 40 of them and I can remember when I was a kid taking the road and track, they used to post ads on the back. road and track for a company called mg MIT and these have all this kind of stuff, you know, they give you back the driving gloves and the cap and the guy with the pipe that you drive there, you know, the sporty Corvair Monza convertible with four La The speed of these is quite a bit, we are rare on these sides of the ramp if not many of those who left Moeslem are owned by the telephone company or fleets and they simply beat them to death and then destroy them from time to time.

Hemmings would have one. sitting in a junkyard or something, but now I'm not too sick as much as I enjoy making Paganis and Zondas and McLarens and Ferraris. There's something about these types of cars that I think touches more people because more people have experienced them more people have memories things that made places they were kids raised whatever, you know, it's fun and this is the kind ofcar that's not going to break the bank if you go to a shop, you know it's just a fun, fun car with a great club behind it and great parts schemes, you can get a lot of parts and all that kind of stuff, and with the Pandemic, like I said, you'll drive, it's a classy day.

Be something like this, this makes people smile or Fleck comes back, maybe a simpler time and all this, boy, this was a simpler time. Wouldn't you crash into this thing and just be dead like that? That's all. there's no protection so you know you messed up it's your fault it's your fault buddy that's how it works anyway listen I hope you can drive, you enjoyed this little Drive and I'll see you next week with more stuff.