When I married my wife, she owned a rental house. It was in Lebanon, a small town that is the county seat of Boone County, Indiana, about 20 minutes up the highway from where she lived. At the beginning of 2019, her tenant of ten years moved out with no notice, and suddenly we were spending a lot of time up in Lebanon working on the house. On the very last of those trips — in September — as I headed home I found three Corvairs parked on the courthouse square. The best of the three was this 1961 Lakewood wagon.
In 1961 Chevrolet was still giving “-wood” names to all of its wagons. It dropped the practice after 1961; this spot on the Corvair wagon’s flank was blank in 1962. Yet people seem to call any Corvair wagon a Lakewood. Most of them were genuine Lakewoods, at any rate, because wagon production stopped in the first quarter of 1962.
It’s a shame that the Corvair wagon wasn’t built for more years, as these are attractive and they appear to be capacious for their size. I love small cars with lots of utility, and this Lakewood checks all of those boxes.
The ’61 Lakewood was offered in two trim levels: the base 500 and the nicer 700. I gather that most of the 700’s upgrades were in the interior, with such things as body-color-keyed floor mats. This one has a 700 badge on each front fender.
Standing there looking at this lovely little wagon, I reflected on what we’d been through with that rental house. It was kind of a Frankenstein’s monster of additions, with the original three rooms built in 1890. The added rooms were a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. We discovered all sorts of shady construction practices as we began the work of updating the house for the next tenant.
The carpets were all shot and we decided to lay laminate flooring throughout. I stacked all of the flooring bundles in one of the added bedrooms. It was easily a ton of flooring. One of our sons has a friend who’s experienced in construction and he was over to remove shelves from this bedroom’s closet so it could be reconfigured. When he knocked out the first shelf, this whole side of the house groaned and the floor shifted beneath him.
My wife called her friend who’s a structural engineer. He came right out and after a little crawling around under the house declared that the main beam under the original part of the house had rolled. I forget the number of dollars he guessed it would cost to fix that, but it was a shocking enough number that Margaret and I locked up the house, drove home, and processed our shock for the next month.
Then Margaret and I argued for the next four months about what to do. She wanted to invest in the repairs and a complete renovation, and I wanted out from under this albatross, as I realized I lack any desire to deal with this kind of nonsense. I guess I’m not cut out to be a landlord. Our argument ended only because Margaret’s mother passed away; in her grief, Margaret lost her will to deal with the house. We put the house on the market, as is. Boy, what a rough time that was.
I went up every couple of weeks to cut the grass. The house had just sold this September day when I was returning from my final lawn mowing and came upon these Corvairs. I noticed the Lakewood first. It was only while photographing the Lakewood that I spied these two later Corvairs sort of hidden behind that big blue truck.
Both of these Corvairs are Corsas; one is obviously a convertible and the other isn’t. I prefer the hardtop. I’ve always thought the second-gen Corvair was show-stoppingly gorgeous, either in coupe or sedan form.
I’m claiming these are both ’65 Corvairs based on some research I did when I made these photos a couple years ago and the fact that the convertible has a ’65 Indiana license plate on the front.
The fellow who bought the house repaired all of the structural damage and did a surprisingly nice renovation of the house, inside and out. Here’s the listing at Zillow if you’re curious. It’s a far better job than we ever would have done. I’m sure he sold it for a nice profit — and good for him. I remain relieved that we didn’t have to deal with it.
Photographed in Lebanon, Indiana, on September 21, 2019.
Nice essay on house renovations (I have had some experience) and the Corvairs. I agree with you that the second generation of Corvairs are quite stylish. Thanks for the presentation.
The coupe and convertible are ’65s based on the front emblem location, the taillights, and, in the case of convertible, the engine badge. The coupe for some reason has a later badge (and a black painted cove rather than silver, which doesn’t seem all that uncommon on Corsas).
I too would love a Lakewood (or a ’62), but my ’65 is as much Corvair as I need in my life at the present time.
I think the Lakewood may be my favorite Corvair, and this blue one is gorgeous. It is funny, having spent my early childhood in a Y body Oldsmobile F-85 wagon from this same year, how small and chopped-off the Corvair looks even though both cars were so deeply related.
I will be the outlier, as I never liked the 2nd generation Corvair’s styling as much as I liked the first. The 4 door was the only one of the Gen2 that looked right to me. The coupe and convertible suffered in the same way the non-fastback 67-69 Barracuda did, with a deck that seemed too long in proportion to the greenhouse. I guess maybe the Mustang messed with my sense of proportion in sporty coupes.
In unlikely news, entire agreement here.
The chop-off in the Lakewood looks like an advanced custom, and removes any potential datedness of that flying wing business on the sedan. And the sedan Gen 2 is my second sweetest, for exactly the same reason as you, which is that the coupe has a disproportionate amount of bottom.
Corvair Lakewood was the ideal dog owner’s car because you could put the dog(s) in the wayback and the groceries in the frunk. VW Squareback too, but with two doors it’s less accommodating to human rear passengers.
Yes! When I had my dogs I had a couple of little Toyota Matrixes in a row, small wagons essentially. Couldn’t put them and the groceries in the wayback at the same time!
It’s hard to believe the rear windows of the wagon can roll down, they look bigger than the doors. Didn’t the strippo first gens lack the wraparound chrome strip?
I bet the right hand mirrors of the ’65s are aftermarket.
I’m with you on the 2nd gen Corvair hardtop. The sweep of the c pillar is just lovely. What a great find to have three of them in one place.
The house looks nice now. I know I sound like a broken record on this, but I cannot believe how low the value is.
What do you figure a house like that would see for in say, Grimsby or St. Catharines, Ont.? At least $800K? In Mississauga, with all that land, if would be touching a mill.
Are they undervalued, or are we overvalued? Some of each I believe.
The cheapest detached house in Grimsby right now is $700k according to realtor.ca
I think we’re massively overvalued, but the market disagrees with me and has so for the last 15 years.
I should have bought 10 of those $30k houses 20 years ago, and I’d now have millions to buy myself a nice Monza hardtop with a 4 speed.
Indiana is an incredibly inexpensive place to live, from a housing perspective. The current bubble has inflated prices some — what Zillow thinks my house is worth (about 280k) seems ridiculously high to me. But my friends who live on the coasts tell me this house is a mil or more where they are.
In SanFrancisco, the “before” version of this house would be a million dollars. NYC, Boston and Seattle are quickly following suit. No money left over to buy a nice Corvair
Real estate: location, location, location.
And supply and demand.
That’s the same thing. There’s greater demand for better locations.
Or in your case, relocation, relocation, relocation.
(someone had to).
Chevrolet revived the Brookwood as well as adding Kingswood and Kingswood Estate to the full size wagons from 69-72.
Yet the Bel-Air level wagon was called the Townsman. Nothing like a consistent naming policy.
Though one could speculate that the Townsmanwood may have had its issues.
The packaging of the Corvair station Wagons is a little bit like today’s Electric Vehicles, in that they have both front and rear trunks and a low center of gravity (with the engine under the rear floor).
Once again Corvair was a trendsetter!
I like the hardtop Cherry one the most.
Back then, even GMs failures looked good, didn’t they?
With more weight over the rear wheels the Lakewood exhibited even more snap oversteer characteristics than the already tricky sedan and coupe. The reasons for this have been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, but the widespread photo of comedian Ernie Kovacs Lakewood wrapped around a Los Angeles utility pole became the poster child for the car.
The poster child should read, “don’t drink and drive”
The story that I heard is that Ernie Kovacs was arguing with his wife Edie Adams because she was taking too long getting ready for a party. So he went to the party alone in a Cadillac. She followed later in the Corvair wagon. I always thought this was an odd choice for someone with their wealth. They fought at the party. She stormed out and took the Cadillac home out of spite. He followed in the Corvair while drunk and angry. Add excessive speed, rainy conditions and the unpredictable handling characteristics of the Corvair and you had five factors that had deadly consequences.
Contemporary accounts indicate their other car was a white Rolls-Royce. Many also suggest that Ernie was lighting a cigar when he lost control of the Corvair. I remember the news reports well when I was a kid. He was a tremendous talent who we all enjoyed watching on television and in the movies.
Kovacs’ fatal accident occurred in mid January 1962 and Corvair station wagon production ended that same quarter. Coincidence or not? Surely it couldn’t have been the only factor, but it might’ve been a contributing one.
The 60th anniversary of Kovacs’ death is tomorrow, January 13, 2022.
I’m going to go with coincidence. And the Corvair wagon was out of production at the time of Ernie’s accident.
The wagon was simply a slow seller. Chevy came out with the Chevy II, which included a new wagon. The Corvair was by then marketed as a sporty car, the wagon was dropped and the convertible and Spyder were available by April of ’62.
Count me in as favoring the second generation Corvair over the first.
That said, I love the Corvair wagons. The taillight treatment on those is excellent.
I wonder if all of these are the same owner. Either that, or perhaps they were on their way to a Corvair meet or something. What are the odds of finding 3 in the same place?
Great photography as always, Jim. You have a gift. That last shot of the marron Corvair reflecting the cirrocumulus clouds (or altostratus?) is perfect. Nice to see a post from you again!
Thanks for saying nice things about my photography!
I have always wondered what a second generation Corvair wagon would have looked like.
The 2nd gen Corvair remains one of GMs’ finest 60s designs; clean but very distinctive. A very nice example of a cohesive design in marked contrast to the disjointed things called vehicle design today.
Of course as most of todays vehicles are also achromatic unlike these 3 colorful Corvairs, well that doesn’t help my jaundiced retired designer eyes either!
Truly these 3 Corvairs were a eye pleasing find! Thanks for sharing… :):) DFO
Wow, those are all gorgeous.
I usually prefer the second-gen more but that wagon is perfect.
My three favorite Corvairs caught in the wild in the same place – drool! We had a 1964 Monza Coupe, but the Lakewood and 2nd generation coupe and convertible have always been my favorites. Outstanding find!
I would have really liked a wagon as I could have slept in it much more comfortably than in the back seat of my ’63 Monza four door. They were always pretty rare.
That house story sounds a bit painful; glad you were able to put it behind you.
When designers sketch a wagon based on a sedan, they face a decision – make the sedan’s rear doors work, or design a bespoke rear door just for the wagon?
A bespoke rear door, like this Corvair or the Volvo 122 wagon of (approximately) the same era has to be far more expensive to design and tool than using the sedan’s door, but sometimes the sedan door just doesn’t work, so you have to design a new one.
The third option happens when costs force designers to jam the round peg of the sedan door into the square hole of the wagon’s body. The Volvo 245 did that pretty unobtrusively; the second-generation Saturn wagon did it absolutely horribly.
Actually the entire greenhouse of the Corvair wagon is taller than the sedan or coupe. None of the windows interchange. Probably more similar to the Y body wagons from BOP.
The rarest Corvair wagon is the ’62 Monza wagon. It was the only Corvair wagon to come from the factory with carpeted floors. And although it was a ’62 model year car, Corvair wagons were discontinued by Jan of ’62.
All these Y Body cars shared the same basic body from cowl back, with the Corvair having a shorter front end. The sedans did have a different greenhouse from the Corvair, but the coupes share the same window class, except the B-O-P cars had a longer C-Pillar.
Here’s the very similar F-85 wagon.
I always thought that the Corvair was a total orphan and didn’t share a chassis with the other small GM cars. I thought the rear engine made it a totally different car from the Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac front engine cars which I always assumed were related. I always learn something from you Paul.
That’s actually how the B-O-P Y bodies came to be. GM had a huge investment in the Corvair and wanted to amortize it by selling it through other divisions. This is probably all off topic here, but the Pontiac proposal was called the Polaris. The Oldsmobile version (which looked to me like a Corvair with more gingerbread) was the 66. I don’t know what the Buick proposal was called. Buick and Olds rejected it immediately as too radical for their customer base. The Polaris was further developed until, according to John DeLorean’s book, he and Bunkie Knudsen saw a Corvair flip at GM’s proving grounds.
The divisions (they had a lot more autonomy then) agreed to use many major body stampings on their new compacts but chose to go their own way with engines and drivetrains. There is more to this but that is the jist of it. Please correct me if I’m wrong. This is how I understand the story behind all these cars.
Thank you Paul. I’m not real familiar with the B-O-P Y bodies. But I have heard a few Corvair wagon owners getting frustrated trying to replace a windshield or other glass on their cars. Those are valuable pieces on a Corvair wagon that was junked if the glass is in good condition.
Speaking of the windshield, this 700 wagon should have chrome (well, “bright trim”) around it rather than the 500 style black rubber.
Well, you learn something everyday…. Thanks Paul for the picture of the F-85. I never knew that the wagons shared the same greenhouse, but it’s obvious looking at this. Thanks for the lesson!
What I’ve never understood about the Lakewood is: why such a square rear passenger door? Would it not have looked better with the trailing edge of the windowframe canted at the same angle as the D pillar?
Many of the concurrent GM wagons, especially the full-size Chevrolets, feature square windows on the rear passenger door. Why GM “the style leader” couldn’t come up with a more aesthetically appealing shape is a good question. Since noticing it for the first time, I’m unable to unsee it.
Great post and photography, Jim! Any chance you played the lottery after spotting the three Corvair siblings in one place?
The 59 and 60 GM wagons had a curved door, but it is surprisingly NOT interchangeable with the sedans. I never understood that. Either curve the door to save money by using the sedan door, or square it off to make access easier, like the Lakewood. But the idea of not using the sedan door and then crating a door with compromised access just never made sense to me.
Should have bought a ticket at the first gas station I saw after leaving this scene!
As a kid I always thought that the vertical C pillar GM wagons (most of them in the 50’s-60’s) were a weird and awkward choice. And the rooflines/tailgates in earlier 50’s versions made them look like panel trucks. Ford and Chrysler examples always had canted C pillars and nicer roof designs.
Two of my favorite things here: old cars and historic courthouses. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by courthouse architecture, and always make the point of driving through county seats I’ve never been to before. Indiana has some great examples.
As the owner of an older house, I read the house parts of this article with gritted teeth… I agree the new owner’s work looks very good though.
I like Corvairs, but absolutely love the wagons, and this is one of the best I can image, with its two-tone paint. Great catch!
The Lakewood is fantastic ! .
I prefer the first generation Corvairs but I imagine they’d have sold a gazillion generation II Lakewoods had they tried ~ the ‘coke bottle’ look was a complete game changer at the time .
-Nate
My in-laws former house was built in 1938 without plumbing and electric. Both were added later. After FIL died, I got to make repairs on it. UGH. I share your feelings. Since he went to FL as a snowbird for 25 years, not much was done to the house. He even disconnected the heating system. They bought it for $13K in the late 50s, I sold it in 2015 for $224K on a land contract. The guy who bought it had to do structural repairs also, but he’s happy to be on the lake with his boats. Zillow today says its worth $375K. Being on the lake helps the value. Hopefully, I get paid off this year and will finally be done with it.
Love the Lakewood wagon.
Nice shots. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Lakewood, but I remember seeing the first generation Corvair coupes and wagons when I was a young boy in the ‘60’s. I liked the second generation models better, and I remember the old librarian at my public school had a light blue coupe. The second generation models are still a great looking car today, though I haven’t seen one in a long time. Sounds like you and your wife dodged a major bullet on that house.
“First generation Corvair coupes and wagons” – oops. I meant 4-door sedans.
Just watched Jay Leno’s Garage episode about his 1962? Rampside Corvair truck, so it must be Corvair week, LOL! I have a soft spot for the convertible (I drive a Miata, after all) and I’ve always liked the second generation Corvairs just a little bit better than the initial model run. The second generation cars are less boxy and slightly more aerodynamic, and the addition of fully independent rear suspension in place of the original swing axles can’t help but improve the handling. There is an aftermarket kit to eliminate the swing axle car’s tendency to swap ends, but the IRS setup in the second generation cars is the solution that should have been on the Corvair from the start.
Beautiful cars accentuated by great photography! The Lakewood wagon is especially striking in blue and white two-tone.
Small world — when my wife and I were first married, we lived in Boone County, IN. I remember we drove to Lebanon to secure our marriage license.
My wife and I got our marriage license at this courthouse too! Like stepping into 1938.
A nicely-told tale of really difficult times. And some lovely cars, of course!
I must ask, what’s a rolled beam?
The beam has rolled out of position, so it isn’t level and plumb in the structure, most likely due to the rotting of the wood that the beam is made from. This means that the structure that the beam is supposed to support will also shift out of position, causing leaning walls and sagging floors in the house. This also means that the beam has weakened, and the weight it can support has been reduced. If the damage isn’t repaired, the house will eventually collapse, as the weakened beam breaks. Before the beam finally breaks, the floor joists will pull away from the beam, and the walls will bend and buckle, due to the lack of support. To repair the problem, the house must be jacked up and the surrounding structure must be supported with temporary posts and beams, so the damaged beam can be removed and replaced.
How do I know this? Well, first I’m an Engineer and I took courses in Statics, Dynamics and Strengths of Materials, analyzing the forces in trusses and beams. Second, my parents owned a rental property where several beams had to be replaced or stiffened up by adding new lumber to the existing beam to repair similar issues. The house in question was a timber-frame house, a.k.a., “post-and-beam” structure, over two-hundred (200) years old, so wood rot wasn’t exactly a surprise.
This issue has been discussed in more detail by contractor Tom Silva, of PBS’ “This Old House” fame. With a little digging, I’m sure I could find several episodes of This Old House that shows the process to remove and replace damaged structural members in wood-framed houses, including the process of installing the temporary supports to keep the house from collapsing during the process of repairing and/or replacing the beam in question.
Thanks for all that.
My wife’s friend the structural engineer told us exactly how to do it. Holy frijoles, what an enormous job. Pass.
All good to know! The 1935 house in which I grew up in Pittsburgh had a steel I-beam as the house’s main structural support. It’s shown in this photo above the many hot water pipes that lead to radiators on the first and second floors.
That’s quite rare for a house built in 1935! you’re lucky that the builder of your house was such a forward-thinking individual. When my father built our new house in the early 1970’s, he specified two (2) steel beams in the basement ceiling to reduce the number of Lally columns needed to support the house in the basement. If my memory serves, the added cost of a steel beam over a wooden beam was less than $500 back then, peanuts when compared to the total cost of the house, especially when you amortize that cost over the life of a thirty (30) year mortgage.
My prev. house, a ranch built in 1969, had a steel I-beam under it too. It was a major selling point, as my previous house built 1958 had a wood beam that we discovered was rotting well after we bought the place. We had to have it replaced.
My first car was a Corvair Lakewood, some kind of ugly brown/bronze. I bought it from $125.00, it actually used more oil then gas
I enjoyed the writeup *and* each and every comment today. Lots to think about and learn from:
CORVAIR: This Ford guy has always been fascinated with these, but has still never even been a passenger in one. The wagon looks oh-so-practical, and I wonder how it’d serve in 2022? Second Generation Design = really peak-GM for me—–an incipient Camaro and more.
HOME REPAIR: Yikes! I’m happy to know the resolution worked out for the best, and it was nice of Jim Grey to offer up the Zillow listing.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: It’s interesting to compare the typical coastal-vs-flyover housing values of these Corvairs’ day with those of 2022; things have sure changed since my earliest home-buying days (and I can dream of property I *should* have bought 10-20-30 years ago). Ah, well!
Since there was no 4-door ’65 to be seen today, here’s one for fun:
I saw an article once that showed an artists rendering of what a second generation Corvair coupe would have looked like it it was a front engine car instead of a rear engine car. The front end was longer and the rear deck was shorter than the actual car. It put the car into the proportions that people are used to and it was a gorgeous vehicle. It showed what would have happened if the second generation Corvair had been transitioned to the more conventional BOP platform.