I wish I had seen this car during our CC Corvair week from awhile back, but better late than never. I spied this Corvair sedan out on the road last week, and managed to snap this windshield shot.
I have been watching cars for a long time, and there were a lot of these still on the road when I was a kid. But I do not ever recall seeing a Corvair with fender skirts before. I can’t tell if there are fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.
I wonder why the owner stopped here. Why not a Corvair continental kit? And wide whitewalls are a must. Why not paint it turquoise or pink above the chrome around the beltline? OK, I know I’m getting a bit silly here. In truth, the idea of a Corvair with fender skirts is actually starting to grow on me. Anybody else?
The only other Corvair I have seen with fender skirts was at a car show in Atlanta several years ago. IMO, they don’t add anything to the car’s lines.
Maybe it’s just me but hear me out.
Corvair – fender skirts, continental kit, chrome lower rockers, two tone paint job in the 1950s style (white and pink, white and turquoise, or white and yellow), lighted fuzzy dice on the rear view mirror, and curb feelers. That to me would be a social commentary on the custom cars of the 50s done in 7/8 scale.
Add a sound system. Remember the old CARtoons comic book? Once they had a Corvair challenging a major street rod at the light, with all kinds of “vroom-vroom” “waaaaah” sounds coming from under its hood. The rod peels out big time, leaving the Corvair driver laughing his *** off. He lifts the front lid to reveal a monster “hi-fi” setup with giant speakers.
It seems to me that Corvair skirts could be purchased through the J.C. Whitney catalogue. I believe they were available in a choice of primer or chrome. Also, I remember seeing Falcons with skirts in the early Sixties. Never saw a Valiant with skirts, though.
Valiant spats exist though thankfully are very rare
Wouldn’t a continental kit make handling even worse, like the ’56 Thunderbird?
Well, for a Corvair, the Continental kit should probably go on the front. 😉
+1 Absolutely.
Definately not an improvement I see a lot of cars fitted with spats and most look stupid this is merely another one. Nice clean windscreen JPC no bugs out your way ?
The first Corvair’s lines are clean; but spartan…utilitarian. They don’t go well with bling.
Putting skirts on this car…are like lipstick on a pig. Frederick’s lingerie as a gift to your grandmother. Pick your example of ludicrousity…this is right there with it.
Yeah, they were sold by Whitney. So was a LOT of ridiculous JUNK – as all of us who remember Whitney in its glory years, can recall.
Put me down as +1 for spats. A set of fender skirts looks good on most cars IMHO. Contenental kits? Unless you’re driving a Continental, fugheddaboudit.
When I was Corvair shopping earlier this year, I looked at a ’64 sedan with skirts. I didn’t buy the car for other reasons, but I told the seller that if I did buy the car the skirts would disappear really quickly. For some reason they seem to be confined to the early sedans; I have never seen them on a coupe or convertible, or on any late (65-69) Corvair.
Back in the day, many D3 cars offered skirts as an option. Even in that case,
the factory option ones almost always looked well integrated, because the designers had them in mind from the outset. An example would be the ’74-’76 Gran Torino, which looked equally good with or without.
However, I think any car with aftermarket skirts looks like crap if the car wasn’t designed with them in mind and never had them as a factory option.
The worst offender I ever saw was an early Mustang with them. It just looked hideous.
The only way that would work on a Mustang is if it were the “Grande” model with vinyl top. Truly gag-worthy, but as a statement it would work (though I’d be more likely to just remove the vinyl top and forget the skirts).
On a Mustang II Ghia, they’d look totally appropriate, although you’d have to have them custom made to duplicate the vinyl rub strip that bisected the wheel wells.
I have a ton of old car brochures and they show Torinos with the skirts, and I agree they look good, but I have never seen one on a Torino in person. I wonder how rare they were when the cars were new? Just don’t put them on a Starsky and Hutch Torino, that would be wrong.
Nice. I posted this one of a skirted Corvair before, in the Corvair week kickoff article.
Wouldn’t add them myself, but if the car came with them I’d leave ’em on there.
Oooh – I found one! Skirts AND a continental kit.
That looks so cool. Unfortunately it’d kill the handling though.
I’m looking for a continental kit for my 1963 corvair convertible. can you help or point me in the right direction? Thx…
I have to go on memory, having sold my Chevrolet showroom floor catalogs (’58, ’59, ’60, ’62, ’63) about four years ago, but I seem to remember the Chevrolet offered fender skirts as a bolt-on option to the car. You found them in the back of the Corvair (for that matter, there was a section for each Chevy model) section of the book. Along with the bolt on tissue dispensers, vacuum suction ashtrays, fake exhaust ports, dual antennas, etc.
It always cracks me up to see an antique car restored with all that crap on it. It may have existed in the showroom floor catalog, but very few cars actually got that stuff mounted on. The skirts were around, the tissue dispensers probably sold the best of any of the over the counter stuff, but very few cars had the other stuff added on.