Here a unique ‘One Owner’, car .. a burgandy 1964 Chevrolet Corvair of my generation; which was ‘Unsafe At Any Speed‘ which has had only one owner!.
1964 Original owner Corvair
Charles bought this 1964 Chevrolet Corvair brand new for $ 2,298 from Bill Becker Chevrolet on Archer Ave; and when he went into the dealership, they only had automatics but Charles wanted a stick so he gave them a $ 34 deposit and waited two to three weeks for this car. He drove it as his regular car for five years until they had three kids and more room was needed.When ‘the time came’ he took the car in for trade at a Berwyn Chevy store and they offered $ 25! Charlie just held onto it and this is his 48th proud year of ownership.
The car ‘sat’ from 1976 to 2006 until Charles returned it to working order. When he wanted to restore it, he took it to a shop in Frankfort, Il. His Corvair needed motor work, brake work and original color paint (the inside of the doors wells and trunk lid are still original and look slightly different). The repair shop offered to sell him another fully restored Corvair for the same price as restoring this car, so he “wouldn’t have to wait”. “But it wasn’t my car !” said Charlie and he chose to have the original car restored. Now he “wouldn’t ever sell it”. One unusual addition is ‘wind noise silencers‘ to reduce noise from the swing out vent windows; these were stashed away in his father’s garage in the original packaging (in the picture too).I asked him if Ralph Nader’s 1965 book killed the Corvair and Charles said no .. it made the cars known and made him happy to have held onto the vehicle.
Charlie attended a Cruse Night in 2007 in Morris, Illinois and was briefly mentioned (with an error) in a Morris Daily Herald article publishd 11 June 2007. The reporter said:
Charles and Irene xxxxx came to Morris on Saturday for the Dulcimer Festival and they stayed for the fun of Cruise Night when they came across a red Corvair that they looked over. They are waiting for a 1964 Impala (of course, it should have said Corvair !!!) to be restored that they have owned their whole lives to be restored, and hope to get it back in time to bring it to a Morris Cruise Night.
