VairMail Connecticut Corsa October 2010

Transcription

1 VairMail Connecticut Corsa October 2010 ***CLUB FALL FOLIAGE DAY October 10 TH (info below) Next CT Corsa Meeting Sunday November 7th, 1:00 at Cindy & Andy s Home 100 Toddy Hill Rd, Sandy Hook CT Connecticut CORSA ctcorsa1@yahoo.com PRESIDENT Ron Manwaring 136 October Ln Plantsville, CT ramanwaring@cox.net VISE PRESIDENT Cindy Hughes 119 Toddy Hill Rd Sandy Hook, CT Cynthia.Hughes@yale.edu TREASURER Art Linden 39 Teapothill Rd Wilton, CT arthurwlinden@aol.com SECRETARY Marion Ryall 14 Cleveland Ave Devon CT mryall1@juno.com NECC REP John Ryall 14 Cleveland Ave Devon, CT jryall@juno.com The next (and last of 2010) meeting will be at Cindy & Andy s on Sunday, November 7 th (all info above). We ll talk about this past year and start planning for Please give a call to Cindy or ctcorsa1@yahoo.com if you plan on attending. Again, this will be our last meeting/get together until our annual club brunch in early February. ***As mentioned above, we will have the club s year end Fall Foliage Day on Sunday October 10 th (weather permitting) deciding to return to the Jones Farm in Shelton and ending the day with a picnic lunch on the river ( ). So pack a picnic lunch and we ll see you then. The following are the details: *Start with 11:00 morning meet at the Dunkin Donuts located at 230 Roosevelt Dr (RT 34) in Monroe CT. (just south of RT 111). *Travel to Jones Farm pumpkin fields to get ready for Halloween. *Head over to the Jones Winery. *End the day with a picnic Lunch at Indian Wells State Park just down the road. Our 2 nd Air Cooled show at Lyman Orchard was a success. We had a gorgeous day with a nice turnout of over 30 Corvairs from four states. It looked like everyone had a good time and it was great to have John Lyman there to present the award for his pick of the day. A big THANK YOU goes out to Lyman Orchard for allowing us to hold our show there and it looks like we will continue our relationship with Lyman Orchard in Also, Thanks to all our club members that donated items, helped out in any way, and attending. Bay State had their 10 th Fall Classic Show at Clarks and what a day it was. There was the beautiful weather, 102 Corvairs showing up including an Ultravan, and great people to mingle with all day. Many took the opportunity to purchase parts with a lot of Vairs going home stuffed with packages. I believe I counted 13 CT Corsa cars in attendance with 5 taking home a trophy. Finally, I am always looking for material for this newsletter. If you have a car tip or a car story (heck, it doesn t even have to be corvair related), write it up and send it to me. Maybe a little something about a show you attended or if you run across something of interest, please, PLEASE send it to me. You can either snail mail it or it to ctcorsa1@yahoo.com. Thanks Ron Manwaring Club President

2 Air Cooled at the Orchard II A Tradition is Born On August 28 th CT CORSA held the second annual Air Cooled at The Orchard all Corvair car show at Lyman Orchards. Many of us were enthused by last year s turn out, but the 2010 show really helped establish this event as a yearly tradition for New England and New York Corvair owners. From start to finish this year s show was a huge success. The weather was fantastic, the cars were awesome and participants from several New England clubs had a chance to share their Corvair Stories This years show also featured a wider variety of vehicles as we had an increase in the number of Vans and Wagons. Of particular note were the two Lakewoods in attendance, Kevin Gaudette s beautiful Red wagon, a twelve-year project, and Courtney Kissam s awesome Lakewood with its unique dual exhaust. Aaron Albert was also in attendance with his super cool red Greenbrier, love the pin striping dude. Of course the 2010 edition of Air Cooled also featured many great early and late coupes and sedans. Our Lyman award winner this year was none other than Ray Bombardier from Milford Massachusetts with his cherry1962 Black Coupe sweet ride Ray! As usual Lyman s was serving up some great food from breakfast through lunch. If you did not partake in one of their omelets this year make sure you get one at the next show, to quote Rachel Ray deeeeelish. Linda, Jacquella and I also checked out the Sunflower Maze, very cool and only took thirty minutes to navigate. And of course everyone got a chance to check out the Apple Barrel for some great fruit, veggies, and baked stuff. There were also some reports of an Afterglow party at the Gouveia winery in Wallingford after the show. party on oh great Corvair enthusiasts. Many CT CORSA members contributed to the success of this show. Thanks to Cindy Hughes and Andy Worobell for working on Dash Plaques and the unique Mug Awards that participants received this year. I know I have put the mug to good use at work, it holds a lot of coffee! Thanks also have to go out to Linda Forgey and Jacquell56666; a Carpenter, my companions, for all of their help with the sound system, signs for registration, and general morale support. Ken Kane helped out with Car Show signs that helped guide everyone to the right spot, thanks Ken! Of course a huge thank you has to go out to Club President Ron Manwaring for his tireless efforts in keeping the club running smoothly and his work with Lyman s to make this great event possible. And thanks to all of the CT CORSA, Bay State Corvair, and Colonial Corvair members that attended our show sorry if I missed any other clubs. At the end of the day I could not help but overhear John Lyman talk about how pleased he was with the show, and he made it clear that this is an event that he plans on making a permanent part of the Lyman s calendar. Air Cooled at the Orchard has made the transition from yearly Car show to Annual Corvair Destination. Vair on my friends.

3 2010 FALL CLARKS By Ron Manwaring The Bay State Club just held their 10 th Fall Classic at Clarks Corvair Parts and what an event this turned out to be. After attracting 87 Vairs to the last Fall Classic and with this being the 50 th anniversary of the Corvair, Bay State was hoping to hit the century mark this year. The weather report a few days before the weekend was looking real good and so was the 100 plus car count. Barb & I along with Jim & Linda planned on making this a weekend getaway and booked two nights at the Red Roof that Bay State had worked out a group rate. Right after work on Friday, we loaded up the Spyder, met up with Jim & Linda with their Brier and hit the road. We decided to take the back roads up route 10 into Mass before jumping on I-91 near Mt Tom for only about 10 miles of highway. After checking in and running into a few Corvair people, we headed over to Wolfie s for some chow. We awoke Saturday morning to a beautiful day and after a quick stop for coffee and bagels, we headed over to Clarks. Along the way, Corvairs were spotted at several breakfast stops and as we pulled into Clarks, there were a good number of cars already parked including Dave Clark s Ultravan. This was looking to be a great day! All morning, the Corvairs kept coming. There were Corvairs in all shapes and colors. There were convertibles, wagons, coupes, FC s, and sedans, earlies, lates, stock, and modified. You name it and it was there. Did I mention the Ultravan? Yes, even an Ultravan. This was the first time that I have actually seen one and they are cool. A big Thanks goes out to Dave Clark of Bay State for making the effort to bring it. As mid day arrived, it looked like the century mark would just fall short as the count was at 99 cars. But just then over the pa it was announced that the 100 th Corvair was coming up the hill. It was a yellow 64 convertible that parked right up front to a huge round of applause. By the end of the day, the final count was 102. I finished making my voting picks and all I can say is it was not an easy task. There were so many really nice cars (I think 24 late convertibles alone) that deciding on the best two in each class was quite difficult. Around mid afternoon, they started pulling numbers for all the great gift baskets in the Chinese raffle and Barb somehow got lucky and won twice. I wish she had that kind of luck at Mohegan Sun. They also had a 50/50 raffle with Jim & Linda having that winning ticket. It was now time for the class winners to be announced, but really everyone was a winner just for attending this great Corvair event put on by the Bay State and Clarks. As the afternoon came to an end, all the Corvairs started heading home with some heading back to the hotel, most loaded with parts from Clarks. We took our time Sunday morning enjoying one last swim in the pool before hitting the road. I think we were the last two Vairs

4 out of the hotel lot. We stopped for some breakfast at the Bridge Side Grill, and then decided to check out the view from the Mt Sugarloaf State Reservation Tower before heading to Shelburne Falls for some window shopping. After managing not to buy anything, it was time for a nice scenic drive home. This time we traveled south on route 112, then route 20 into Westfield where we got on route 10 back into Connecticut. All was going great until I observed from my rearview mirror Jim pull off onto a side street just past Simsbury followed by my cell phone ringing informing us of a slight problem with the Brier. It seems the number 2 plug decided to exit the left head. After some inspection, it looked like there wasn t enough thread material left to hold the plug anymore. I gave it my best MacGyver try by taking the washer off the plug hoping that one extra thread would be just enough to hold. It did as we managed to make it the rest of the way home. It was a great weekend spent with great people all enjoying our Vairs. I want to thank the folks from Bay State who did a fantastic job putting this show together and everyone from Clarks who were hustling all day to get everyone s parts orders filled and do the tours. See you in two years!

5 The Great White Whale (on wheels) It has been called many things, Whale on Wheels, The Grub, Motorized Mothra, World s Happiest Corvair, yet its true name lives in infamy, THE ULTRAVAN. Many of our club members got their first glimpse of this phenomenon in Corvair history at the Clark s show on September 11 th. Dave Clark had purchased his Ultra van in upstate New York a few months before the show and was generous enough to get the vehicle to the show by trailer so that each member of the Corvair family tree could be represented, Several of us were astounded the night before the show as we pulled in to the Red Roof and were greeted by Moby Dick on a trailer, They call me Ishmael I thought to myself. I thought we might find Captain Ahab and Quieeqeg on board at the hotel. The designer of the Ultra van was one Dave Peterson. Apparently an avid camper who was tired of having to tow both trailer and boat on outdoor adventures. Norm Helmkay, Ultra van owner and historian tells the story like this: Back in the fifties, what did one do when you had both trailer and boat to tow? That's the dilemma Dave Peterson faced every time he wanted to go on vacation with both his Spartan trailer and boat at the same time. Peterson an aircraft designer, at Beech and Boeing, dreamed of motorizing the trailer, so he could tow his boat. The idea was to put the motor in the rear under the bed, design it low to the ground with a flat floor, have an unobstructed forward view with seating for four and insulate it well for winter use. A true, Class A rig, just 22 feet long, over 8 feet wide with more than 6 feet of headroom. In this rig you can really rise from the seat and walk into the living area in a standing position, one of the true tests of a Class 'A' motorhome. When General Motors announced the Corvair in 1959, the power-package was just what Peterson needed for his dream. Living in California, in the fall of 1960 (a year after the Corvair was introduced), he rented a large garage and four months later, the Go-Home as the first Ultras were named, rolled out with its 80 horsepower, 140 cubic inch engine. Soon he was asked if he could build more. Using a unique technical school apprentice program, Peterson and his students built around 15 early Ultra Vans which were advertised for under $7,000. During 1964, John Tillotson, a Kansas publisher noticed the Ultra Van and made enquiries about getting the rights to build this unique vehicle. In 1965, Tillotson negotiated a license with Peterson and then formed Ultra Incorporated, at the World War II Naval Air Base near Hutchinson, Kansas, home of many skilled workers, who built thousands of military aircraft during the war in the Wichita area. Peterson was retained as a consultant. As a true monococque structure, the Ultra Van has no chassis. It is constructed like an airplane with aluminum ribs covered with riveted sheet aluminum on the top and sides. Compound curved areas (front and back corners) are fiberglass. All wheels are independently sprung with coil springs and tubular shock absorbers. These units cruise easily at 55 mph and deliver 15 plus mpg. More than 250 of about 370 units produced are still on the road, many with between 100,000 and 500,000 miles of use. ** Quite a story indeed for the little motorized blimp! During the Clark s show Dave was kind enough to let everyone tour the camper and he talked about several features on the vehicle, including the refrigerator, shower, central vacuum, and the handy grinder for the toilet. Who knows, this feature may have been an early prototype for the Cuisineart just kidding. We all wish Dave the very best of luck with his awesome new toy, it is truly a unique ride. Check out the specs and pics of the Ultra van.

6 Specifications Length: 22 feet Wheelbase: 152 inches Height: 8 feet Width: 8 feet Price (New): $8,500 - $12,500 Dry Weight 3-4,000 Ibs Price (2009) $5,000 - $15,000 Touring Weight:4,500 Ibs-5800 lbs ** from an article written by Norm Helmkay for CORSA

7 2010 CALANDER OF EVENTS October 10 Club Fall Foliage Day JONES FARM ###################################################################################################################### FOR SALE >>MOTIVATED SELLER, MAKE OFFER!!! Dear Club, I have inherited a 1963 corvair convertible. Interior is immaculate, new top and parts for it. Owner paid 5000 for car and put another 4500 into top and other trim pieces and labor. Car runs OK, but I don t think anytime or money was put into the motor. We just want our driveway space back and will entertain any reasonable offer. I am in Danbury CT and you can contact me via e mail and we can exchange numbers if needed. Thanks for any help in this sale. Scott Meserve, or s_meserve@comcast.net ###################################################################################################################### FOR SALE: 1961 Corvair Monza, White with red interior, under miles. All original and running. Asking price $3900. Contact Dennise Carter, 1 Hackmatack St., Manchester, CT ######################################################################################################################## WANTED: AM/FM Radio for an early model. Working or not.contact Dick Saunder work # ######################################################################################################################## Club Specialized Tool Box As mentioned in the last newsletter, many of us have specialized tools for various repairs that we may use just a few times in our Corvair work. If you have a special or helpful tool that may come in handy and would be willing to lend it out to fellow club members, let me know and I will add it to this list. Here is an updated list. Yoke Puller (from Clark s) Jim Forgey Tube Bender (Brake Lines) Jim Forgey Tie Rod Ball Joint Pickle Fork Jim Forgey Uni-Syn Carb Balancer Jim Forgey Harmonic balancer puller (shorty) - Ron Manwaring Gas tank sender tool - Ron Manwaring Nut Buster for splitting rusted bolts off studs Art Linden *Editors note: This is a great idea. If you have a specialized tool that you are willing to lend out (with a deposit if necessary), write or me and I will update the list for club members. Ron Manwaring