His car may be close to a human's retirement age, but Murrayville resident Mark McKim doesn't baby his 64-year-old Corvair.
"It's my summer daily driver," McKim told the 91原创 Advance Times during a show and shine in Fort 91原创 by the western Canada Corvair Society of America (CORSA) chapter on Sunday, June 2.
"I put 7,000 miles a year on this thing. I beat the ever-loving crap out of it and it's never let me down, I drive it to Richmond and back every day from 91原创."
McKim described it as a reliable, "cool" car that gets good gas mileage.
"Its fun to drive, it's unique," added McKim, who was among several fans of the rear-engined sedans who displayed more than two dozen of the cars, and a unique Corvair-powered RV, in Fort 91原创 on Sunday, June 2.
Eric Hicks, president of the western Canada CORSA chapter, brought his 1961 Corvair Monza.
"The early model are little more classic looking with a bunch of different, cool, lines and very round," Hicks explained.
"People love to show their cars and talk about the history and talk about the modifications and how to get parts."
Hicks, a Richmond resident, described CORSA enthusiasts as "very passionate about keeping the heritage and the visibility of our cars in the forefront because Corvairs always had a bit of a bad rap."
Built in response to growing sales of imported small cars like Volkswagens and Fiats, Chevrolet produced a car that was powered by an air-cooled, rear-mounted six-cylinder engines that was considered a cutting-edge design - until the publication of "Unsafe at Any Speed," by American consumer activist Ralph Nader, who called the Corvair the most dangerous automobile on the road, one prone to losing control and rolling over.
By the time the book came out, most Corvairs had been modified, with early models altered to address the handling problems by many owners, while the design of later models was changed by Chevrolet.
As it turned out, a 1972 report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found "the handling and stability performance of the 1960-1963 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles, both foreign and domestic."
By then, however, sale were plummeting, and Chevrolet ceased production.
