It’s weird how classified ads line up sometimes. In just a few minutes of searching, I found two cars today by the same manufacturer, for the same price, with the same body style, the same number of cylinders, and almost the same mileage. They’re just thirteen years apart, and have their engines at opposite ends. The coincidence was too good to pass up, so I’m going for it.
Yesterday’s choices had a lot in common too, but the details made all the difference: Carb versus EFI, manual versus automatic. In the end, putting up with a carburetor appealed to many more of you than dealing with an automatic in an underpowered car, and the Chevy Sprint won easily. Many of you, though, said you’d have preferred the Ford Festiva if it had been a stickshift.
I’d take the Sprint as well, but the automatic isn’t what kills the Festiva for me. It’s the motorized seat belts. I just don’t want to deal with them, or go through the hassle of changing them out. Honestly, though, I’d rather have a Metro (or better yet, a Suzuki Swift) than either of them.
I can’t even begin to imagine how many four-door sedans Chevrolet has built over the years. It doesn’t build any anymore, of course, but for a very long time, a Chevy sedan was a staple in American driveways. Usually they weren’t anything fancy, and they rarely got any glory, but they did their job with dignity. Plain or not, these two were probably someone’s pride and joy once upon a time. Now, though, they’re just old, and looking for new owners to give them a nice quiet life in retirement. Let’s take a look at them.
1961 Chevrolet Corvair 500 – $3,500
Engine/drivetrain: 140 cubic inch OHV air-cooled flat-6, two-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Odometer reading: 40,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives, needs new tires
Fun fact: My mom’s first car was a Corvair, the same spec as this one, a 500 sedan with an automatic. Hers was light blue, though. Combine that with my dad’s Packards, MGs, Triumphs, and slant-six Plymouths, not to mention the Opel Manta they brought me home from the hospital in, and I guess my love of oddball cars was baked in from the very start. The Corvair was an odd choice for my grandfather to buy for his eldest daughter – he was traditionally a Buick man – but the bare-bones 500 model was right up his alley.
The Corvair is, of course, powered by an air-cooled flat-six mounted in the back, just like a Porsche 911. This will have the basic 80-horsepower version, with a special version of Chevy’s two-speed Powerglide automatic. The odometer shows only 40,000 miles, which may be accurate, considering its condition. It runs well and is drivable, but the seller says it needs new tires. I get the feeling they’re too old to still be safe. And if there’s one car you want good tires under, it’s a Corvair.
The Corvair 500 came with plain vinyl bench seats and rubber floors. This one still has the vinyl, but it looks like someone added carpet to it at some point. I imagine the seats have been reupholstered, too. It looks really nice inside, actually. No one ever added seat belts to it, though; personally, I’d remedy that. I can’t imagine driving a car with no seat belts.
The 500 model also eschews most of the exterior trim that fancier Corvairs wear, and I really like it that way. It’s clean and simple. Someone added door edge trim to it, but that should come off easily. I really like the color of this car, too, and the dog-dish hubcaps suit it.
1974 Chevrolet Nova – $3,500
Engine/drivetrain: 250 cubic inch OHV inline-6, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Standish, MI
Odometer reading: 40,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
The Corvair was a big swing for GM, and it sold well at first, but not as well as Ford’s more conventional Falcon. Chevy responded in 1962 by supplementing the Corvair with the Chevy II, a traditional front-engine design like the Falcon. The fancy version of the Chevy II was called the Nova, and as happened later with the Silverado pickup, the name of the fancy version eventually became the name of the whole line in 1969. And everybody has pretty much called them all Novas ever since.
The Nova models everyone remembers are the high-performance SS, and even more exotic versions like the Yenko. But Chevy sold a hell of a lot more of them in this spec, with four doors and the good old “Thriftpower” inline six. I guess it was pretty thrifty for the time, but it was never anyone’s idea of powerful. The good news is that it’s essentially indestructible, as is the Turbo-Hydramatic transmission behind it. This one was daily-driven all summer long this year, according to the seller, and it did great. It also shows 40,000 miles on its odometer, but there’s a good chance this one has rolled over.
The interior isn’t all that different from the old Corvair, actually: a long vinyl bench seat, crank windows, and a simple dashboard. It’s in pretty good shape, but it looks like it could use a good cleaning. It also looks like the rearview mirror needs to be glued back up. It’s just sitting on the dashboard.
I get the feeling this car was fixed up, repainted, and then damaged in an accident. Most of the paint is shiny, but the hood and left front fender look like junkyard replacements, and the grille and rear bumper are missing. The seller says the floors, rocker panels, and rear quarter panels have been repaired in the past, and it looks like it’s more or less rust-free now. Repaint the hood and fender, get a reproduction grille and find a bumper, and it would probably look pretty sharp.
You probably wouldn’t want to daily-drive either of these, and neither one is a valuable collectible. And they’re certainly not performance cars. But that’s no reason you can’t enjoy taking them out for a drive on a Saturday afternoon. Not everything has to be about how fast something is, or how much money it’s worth. Which one would you rather give your attention to?
As someone who owned a Nova, the car isn’t that unique or desirable. Corviar for the win
This is a perfect one for the question from the other day of old me and now me. 1980’s me – Nova Nova Nova. 2020’s me – No No No.
I’d probably still have one over the equivalent Dart, but not over this Corvair.
Okay, so the Nova seems like it would be a fun project.
But.
That Corvair is so, so worth it at the same price. Plus I’ve never been a fan of Novas. Yes, I hate that the Corvair’s a two speed auto. I would rather swap in a manual given the opportunity, but there is something to be said for paying the same money for a car that’s already good.
We had two Corvairs for sale at opposite ends of town recently – a second-gen convertible and a ’60 sedan, both red, the latter significantly rougher and more faded than it was when I first saw it at a car show 15 years ago. (I recognized it by the Saab wheels it wore, of all things.)
This one’s not half as rough as that one and less than half the asking price, and both local Corvairs have disappeared, presumably sold on to someone who’ll love ’em.
Also, I’m irrationally partial to anything I’ve helped push [edit: which, thinking about it, could help explain why I still want an early RX-7…], and Hooniverse ran a green-and-rust Corvair sedan in LeMons.
I’ll have this one. The Nova’s probably okay for the money, though.
The Corvair is a beauty. Even Rick Hunter wouldn’t drive that Nova.
My only experience with the winning corvair is a neighbor had one, the only single guy home owner in a posh neighborhood. His was a two door and he always served apple cider for Halloween trick or treaters
I’m frankly shocked that the Nova is getting nearly 15% of the vote. I’d have guessed closer to 5%.
A beautiful Corvair or a shitty Nova that looks pretty much like the beat up cars my generation drove in high school. Not feeling nostalgic for high school at all, gimme the Corvair.
Corvair for me. It looks like it needs very little. And what it does need is straightforward.
Though I’d want to be sure it has a camber compensator kit installed.
Having owned a ’76, I can attest that the Nova’s 250 six and slushbox will get the job done. That Corvair? Have fun with it if you must, but I’m not interested in a museum piece.
Never liked Novas of any ilk, so the field was slanted from the start. But honestly, there’s a certain flair to even the pedestrian cars of the early 60s, and its showing on this Corvair as well. I simply love the space age aesthetic that shines even here on this humble car, especially the dashboard. The Nova is dripping with the kind of “mailed it in”-ness that just says “meh”
Went to high school with a guy who owned a 70-ish Nova. Decent car, no performance pretensions. Except the previous owner had installed dual quads on an otherwise bone stock 350. Not even headers. Ran like crap.
Corvair may be interesting, but the Nova can take a big block. Enough said.
This one is easy – the Corvair is a much more interesting car. I don’t know much about the Corvair, but I was around a lot of 6 – 7 year old Novas back in the high school days and they were trash. My buddy had one that went down the road sideways.
I don’t remember this at all, but apparently my folks had a Corvair when I was a toddler. Family lore says I used to call it a beep beep (wasn’t I adorable?). The story also goes that there was a big hole in the rear floor board and my mom made my dad get rid of the car because she was worried one of us kids would fall through. According to my dad, the hole was “pinhole” sized. According to my mom, it was the size of a small child. Yes – good times.
Nobody is ever gonna ask you about the Nova at a gas station. In the Corvair you can meet new friends just by checking the oil.