1965 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Convertible

1965 marked the first model year of the Corvair's second generation. While it retained the basic air-cooled, rear-engined flat six layout of the first generation, the styling was completely refreshed and way ahead of its time, with clean, attractive looks.

The lineup began with the fairly spartan Corvair 500, moved up through the Corvair Monza, and was crowned by the Corvair Corsa.

The middle-of-the-lineup Monza could be had as a hardtop coupe or sedan or as a convertible, like the Regal Red example in the photos.

Base engine in the Monza was the 95-horsepower version of the 2.7L Turbo-Air 164, with 110- and 140-horsepower versions available as options. The 140-horse version had four single-throat carbs and dual exhausts, and the car in the photos has a lone tailpipe, so it's got either the 95 or 110 pony motor. The fact that it has optional wire wheels with knock-off hubs and a four-on-the-floor would have me betting it's got the optional engine.

This one was photographed in May of 2026 using a Canon EOS R and an RF 70-200mm f/4L IS zoom lens. It had just sold at the Mecum auction.

1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Club Coupe

1964 was the last model year for the first generation Corvair. While its external styling was largely unchanged, there were significant differences beneath the sheet metal.

The Corvair Monza was the highest trim level, above the Corvair 700 and the bargain basement Corvair 500.

The Turbo-Air flat six that came standard in the Corvair Monza had the stroke increased to bring the air-cooled motor's displacement to 164 cubic inches from the previous year's 145. With an 8.25:1 compression ratio, the base motor put out 95 horsepower, nearly 20% bump from the previous year, while the optional motor had a hotter cam re-jetted carbs, and made 110 ponies. You could get three- or four-speed manual transaxles or a Powerglide auto.

A transverse leaf spring was added to the swingarm rear suspension, and a front anti-roll bar was now standard rather than optional.

Sales had continued to crater, and the introduction of the more conventional Chevy II/Nova in 1962 ate away at Corvair's market, and the launch of Ford's Mustang didn't help.

This Silver Blue Iridescent example was snapped with a Nikon Coolpix P7000 in Alliance, Ohio back in July of 2015. 

1961 Chevrolet Corvair 500

1961 was the second model year for Chevrolet's daring new entry into the compact car market, the Corvair. The lack of bright chrome side body molding on this Ermine White sedan marks it as a Corvair 500, the entry-level budget model of the line. Base price was under two grand, at $1,974, or roughly twenty grand when adjusted for inflation.

Under the hood was...well, a luggage compartment. In the trunk was the 80 horsepower 145 cubic inch air-cooled Turbo-Air flat six. Optionally the Corvair buyer could spring for the 98 horsepower Super Turbo-Air. Both engines could be paired with a 3- or 4-speed manual or 2-speed Powerglide automatic transaxle in what Chevy called a "Unipack", behind the rear swing-axle independent suspension in the Corvair's "Monostrut" unibody chassis.

Motor Life magazine tested a high-zoot Monza sedan with the optional 98hp Super Turbo-Air and four-speed gearbox and noted a zero-to-sixty time of 18.8 seconds and an elapsed time in the quarter mile of 21.3 seconds with a trap speed of 63mph. Top speed was 91 miles per hour.

This one was photographed with a Samsung Galaxy SII in November of 2013.

1966 Chevrolet Corvair Monza

All through the Fifties, Detroit's "Big Three" produced pretty much nothing but big cars. Longer, lower, and wider were the watchwords for every model year.

While the various marques of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler sold varying models in that decade, they were all just variations on the same full-size platforms.

Not every consumer wanted a car that big, though, and they came with other problems. If you live in a neighborhood like Broad Ripple, where many of the garages predate the '50s, you can see the alterations that were made to some garages that had been built during the age of the Model A to allow them to accommodate the much longer new cars. It's also daunting to imagine navigating these narrow streets in a tailfin-bedecked twenty-foot chromasaurus with numb on-center steering and a hood ornament 'way out there in another zip code from the front seat.

The smaller manufacturers like American Motors and Studebaker offered smaller cars, and sales of imports like Germany's Volkswagen began to take off and Detroit realized they were leaving money on the table, so all the Big Three launched compacts in the early Sixties. The Fords and Mopars were fairly conventional shrunken versions of their full-size cars, but Chevy went with something truly different.

The Corvair used an air-cooled horizontally-opposed six cylinder motor mounted aft of the rear axle. In an era of increasingly large V-8s, the 140cid 80hp Turbo-Air six in the 1960 Corvair was a little twee. Note, please, that "Turbo-Air" was just the name hung on by the marketing department; actual turbocharged Corvairs were still a couple years off.

Chevrolet launched the Corvair as a full line of vehicles: Sedans, coupes, convertibles, station wagons, even vans and pickup trucks.

While sales started off briskly, they started trailing off almost immediately. The non-turbo Corvairs were woefully underpowered, handling could be quirky, and the sedan and coupe versions lacked any pillarless hardtops which were very much in vogue at the time. The wagons and pickups had to have higher load floors to clear the engine.

The cars were redesigned for the 1965 model year. The wagons and trucks were dropped, hardtops were added, and the new cars had gorgeous lines, more power, independent rear suspensions...but nobody cared much.

Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed is sometimes credited with the demise of the Corvair, but when it came out in '65, it was basically just throwing dirt on the coffin. Small sedan buyers were buying Falcons and Valiants, while sporty coupe buyers were snapping up Ford Mustangs as fast as Dearborn could churn them out.

Chevy halted further development of the rear-engined oddity and concentrated on their Chevy II compact and the forthcoming Camaro small sporty coupe. The Corvair was left to coast through the 1969 model year before finally getting the axe.

The pictured car is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvair Monza 110 convertible in Regal Red with the 164 cubic inch flat-six in 2x1bbl 110hp trim.

It was photographed in November of 2023 with a 36MP Nikon D800 & 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens, so those photos can be embiggenated rather a lot.