Photos by Staxman, from the Cohort.
Not many of these Corvair-derived trucks have appeared here at CC, and the last time they did was quite a while back. No wonder, they sold poorly back in the day. But doesn’t that make them all the more special now?
Such curious neat-looking things.
As told previously at CC, it’s no secret that Chevrolet was chasing after VW when the Corvair was conceived. So much so, that van and pick-up spinoffs were offered as well. As such, the Corvair’s rear engine platform briefly became a family of vehicles. Much as it had happened with the veritable VW Beetle.
Now, was customer research behind the pickup and van idea? Or was it just GM’s tradition of jumping into niches explored by others? The latter, most likely. Besides, all US carmakers were trying to figure out what the rising utilitarian market truly wanted.
Ultimately, the corporation counted on its extensive dealer network to push the curious and the unwilling into GM’s products. A rear-engined, air-cooled pickup? They’re the rage in Europe, don’t you know?
I won’t deny that to my eye these are likeable failures. After all, I find their styling really appealing and I never owned GM stock to resent their lack of success. But looks aside, in pick-up form, the model did have a few compromises affecting its intended mission. In short, the Corvair 95 had to deal with the limitations imposed by its platform’s rear engine placement. In the end, some curious engineering decisions delivered a product that lacked a flat floor and had unusual loading access. There were workarounds to those, but from the looks of things, customers just weren’t willing.
Today’s Cohort find is -once again- a Rampside, the Corvair 95’s most common version, with its neat passenger-side loading door. The model’s true unicorn is the Loadside, which made do with a single tiny door at the rear. Only about 3K units were built. Time and numbers work against it, but will we ever come across one in these pages?
Further reading:
Curbside Classic: 1961 Chevrolet Corvair 95 Rampside – It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
Curbside Classic: 1963 Corvair Greenbrier – We Don’t Want A Better VW Bus
Nice to see another survivor .
What I remember about seeing ramp sides in actual service was the ramp was made of regular thin sheet metal, when used as designed they rapidly got bend and dinged up very badly .
-Nate
I wonder if any of the optional filler panels have survived.
Seeing these brings up my usual question pertaining to why Van-based pickups never took off over here. Nowadays you see some Transit and Promaster based flat tray ones (with enormously long and usually quite low beds a great available feature) and even normal vans such as the E-series and Savana/Express were/are available in 1ton van configurations with enormous engines along with the normal half-ton variety. And vans do all kinds of towing for many contractors. So why not Express or Econoline (or Ram Van) pickup versions, basically a cutaway with a rear wall and then either a normal less useful US-style pickup bed or a more useful Euro/Aussie drop-all-the-sides tray style? The big advantage would seem to be either a far larger bed area or a much shorter (less long) cab and rear. 4WD was an issue the manufacturers themselves didn’t tackle until later (but GM did eventually), but could have been handled from the beginning too.
There’s one nicely done Sprinter pickup here in Santa Cruz. Not a tray back. The bed is nicely done and well matched to the cab, but I can’t identify it. And I’ve never been in a situation where I can get a photo.
This?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AwesomeCarMods/comments/qhc8ta/mercedes_sprinter_van_turned_pickup/
I recently learned that the loadside version was only ~$58 cheaper (base MSRP) than the rampside. That’s about $600 in today’s money, but I guess the ramp was a cheap enough upgrade that more buyers chose it.
I’d bet the ones that got to “dealers” were largely equipped with the “loadside” door.
Think I used the wrong word. Anyway I expect they were equipped with the “side gate”..
My first real job was at a Lawn and Garden shop that was in the back of a bicycle shop in Norfolk VA. This was the summer of 1964, The shop had a Corvair Rampside pickup. For what it was used for it was the perfect vehicle. A large commercial mower could be loaded in the well area even if it didn’t run.
The next summer (after my first year in college) I worked for a company with a film library and since frequently I didn’t have much to do, I would go with the service manger to help him, We went to the Eastern Shore and picked up movie and filmstrip projectors from Northampton County schools to be serviced. I had two very interesting trips in their Corvair Greenbrier. First was picking up a load of new equipment for Norfolk City schools, it was a heavy enough load, the Powerglide never got out of low in the old Downtown Tunnel, second was taking all the Northampton County equipment back over the now 1 year old Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, same thing, up slope in each tunnel wide open in low gear at maybe 45 mph.
The only loadside I’ve ever seen was in the Corvair Ranch, an all Corvair junkyard in Gettysburg PA. Really a bad idea for accessing the cargo area
Another example of the illogical consumer. I’ve driven them all, and these Corvair based pickups and vans were far nicer to drive, provided much better traction, and were more economical than a contemporary “normal” 1/2 ton pickup or Econoline. Lower floor for easier access to cargo – especially with the rampside-door, and the higher section over the engine provided an upward slat to keep longer cargo from tipping/rolling out the back. The only downside was the lack of a perfectly flat bed and the inability to get a really powerful motor for heavy loads, but most pickups at that time only had a six so the power element wasn’t such a big deal. Yet they didn’t sell nearly as well as pickups or the awful Econoline.
Don’t believe me, see for yourself.
Remember seeing the “Ford model” on the streets as a kid. Not many though.
“Smiley” stowed away in the back of one on a “Hazel” episode. It’s how he got rescued.
My uncle bought a used rampside when he started his gardening business. He could load the heavy aerator by himself by using the loading ramp. It made a lot of sense. A while back I helped a guy load a couple of industrial sewing machines into a 4×4 p/u bed. I hope that he doesn’t do that a lot. If I had such a tall truck I’d rather rent a trailer.
One of the things that I think hurts these is that they “look” really nose-heavy, with implied poor traction and difficult steering, whereas in reality they have rearward weight-bias and (I assume) light steering.
Like Harley-Davidson dealers trying to sell anything except V-twins, I imagine Chevy dealers probably steered a lot of customers to the C-series sitting right next to it on the lot.
The Corvair trucks and vans actually have better (more even) weight distribution than the cars, especially when loaded in the center section of the load floor first.
One turned up for sale in Australia recently. You’d be the only one at a car show.
The Loadside was never built as engineering intended. It was to have a full-length flat bed and access doors on either (or both?) sides just behind the cab to a lower storage compartment. That feature was ruled out before production. I can’t find it at the moment but somewhere on the internet there is a picture of the original design proposal.
That’s how the VW pickup was; high flat floor and under-floor storage space. But its bed sides folded down, making it much easier to load. The Corvair 95 was a bit flawed either way.
I think the flaw of all Corvair FC’s was it was not an acceptable layout for American truck buyers. Volkswagen vans and trucks have a huge cult following, and believe it or not Corvair FC’s are growing in demand too, although nowhere near the level of VW FC’s, but for the most part Americans prefer the truck layout most used by American manufacturers today.
When Chevrolet went to the next generation van they no longer offered a pickup version. The same for Ford and Dodge.
As for the drop down sides, I agree that feature would be a plus, but you notice to this day no manufacturer in the US offers this on their trucks. The Fiat Ducato (RAM Promaster) and Ford Transit vans do come as a pickup version in Europe but are not available here to my knowledge. I seem to recall in earlier discussions on this forum that Europeans like the drop down sides because many of their pickup trucks are used at shipping ports and the drop down sides make it easier to load cargo from a forklift from the side.
Found it. http://rad_davis.sent.com.user.fm/FCart/lgfiles/ProtoRamp1_lg.jpg
Wow it really is a design proposal. It looks to be a Rampside proposal on the right and a Loadside proposal on the left. That was common practice.
I find it hard to believe these Ramp side trucks didn’t sell well. You’d think this would be ideal for a curbside business..eg, large appliances, etc. love the “Fisher-Price” sort of appeal. And the first (64) Chevy-van was a revamped (for front engine placement)Corvair van, used same instrument panel.
That makes sense for a project: How about a Corvair turbo power unit mated to a VW T1? These are still on the roads in considerable numbers but that weak engines call for an update!
Joe