[SCG] [Corsabod] inspection marks and other things

Wed Jun 8 18:30:23 EDT 2011

All, I for one appreciate bone stock classic cars, but here is what I question. At this late date, 41 years after the last corvair was produced, will starting this difficult process of detailed inspection and documentation have the same effects on the values or notoriety of corvairs as say a Z-16 Chevelle, or a ZL-1 Camaro, or a X-11 427 Impala, or a Black Widow 57 and so on? I just don’t see it. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be interesting to research, just wondering if the outcome is worth the effort. 

Jamie Reinhart
CORSA President

From: Dave Newell 
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 4:51 PM
To: modquad at juno.com 
Cc: airvair at earthlink.net ; corsabod at corvair.org ; scg-list at tiger.skiblack.com 
Subject: Re: [Corsabod] [SCG] inspection marks and other things

Hi,
I think you guys aren't giving the Corvair hobby enough credit in the stock department. Larry Claypool, you (Mark Corbin), myself and others were stock-conscious even in the 1970s and I think CORSA certainly pioneered stock judging classes among all of the Chevy car line clubs with the exception of Corvette. Vette stock interest pretty much paralleled our own, and Corvette folks were lucky to have the similarly stock-brained, Claypool-class expert Noland Adams and his books to begin their process of focusing on originality details. 

The dubious Corvette "Bloomington Gold" concours status that developed in the '80s was a mixed bag though. Cars that achieve the Bloomington Gold status are anally adherent to what they define as "stock"
and cars that make the grade increase substantially in value. True, more "stock" Corvettes result from the process but it's largely a money thing. For example, if a Vette owner has the correct edition warranty booklet in the glovebox, properly filled out for his car (which usually requires owners to search out NOS booklets for up to $1K apiece), they get more points and thus their car increases in value, justifying the investment. I know, because in my business I sell to this market. Do we really want to get that uptight?

I deal with owners of other Chevy car lines and sell them original literature, documents and memorabilia. The Nova folks in general are in the stone age and don't think much about stock at all. The Chevelle folks are better, especially concerning Z-16s, but have no organized effort or pool of knowledge. I know a few Impala guys that are just as intense about numbers VINS, assembly plant details, invoices etc. as I am but again have no "Stock" group or any history of cooperative research. The "stock" knowledge among those owners mainly rests among a few individual experts.

The Camaro Research Group stands alone as a group effort and I highly recommend their website. Kent Sullivan and I have shared body tag options codes with them and they are as serious as we are.

As to the BoD and concours, exactly the same scenario has existed with the CPF from the beginning.

Thanks for getting the discussion started....

Dave Newell
---------- Original Message ----------
From: "Mike" <modquad at juno.com>
To: airvair at earthlink.net
Cc: corsabod at corvair.org, scg-list at tiger.skiblack.com
Subject: Re: [SCG] inspection marks and other things
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 20:15:35 GMT

Seems like cars that were built in the same year on the same assembly lines might have a lot of common build processes - at least in the Fisher body area.  Perhaps one could start building a database for Corvairs based on information already in existance around Novas for example that came down the Willow Run line.  Of course we would want to verify somehow that the Corvair operation was done the same way. Undercoating, overspray, inspection marks, fastener types, suspension finishes, etc might be partially documented this way. Mike

---------- Original Message ----------
From: "Mark Corbin" <airvair at earthlink.net>
To: "Stock Corvair Group" <scg-list at tiger.skiblack.com>
Cc: CORSA BoD <corsabod at corvair.org>
Subject: [SCG] inspection marks and other things
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 16:04:53 -0400

All,

I got into a discussion today with a friend who's quite the history buff. He asked about such things as inspection marks, paint overspray, and so forth, things that are well documented in other clubs from the Corvette club to a lot of the muscle and pony car clubs.  My response was that those folks are high rollers, and got into that degree of documentation early on. We are just now getting into just the documentation of what exactly constitutes stock, and any variations that may have occurred during the model years.

With the coming convention and our annual Stock Corvair Event coming up in mind, maybe we should add such items to our list of things to look for. Of course, I'd expect that it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to reach the degree of documentation that certain other clubs have achieved. We are 40 years late to the game.

But as I told my friend, one of the reasons their cars have appreciated to the degree that is well beyond what their contemporary, the Corvair, has is because of such documentation efforts. High rollers LIVE for such things, and one of the reasons they will and probably do shun the Corvair is just for that reason.

I always knew that concours was the first, biggest step in promoting the preservation of a marque. It's why, early on, I plunged into the job of writing CORSA's first set of concours rules (which are in modified form, still being used today). BUT I also had to fight off a large and vocal contingent of the board that desperately wanted a watered-down definition of "stock". They wanted to call "stock" is what we today call "Street Stock", with such things as mud flaps and aftermarket radios allowed in the class. It was a battle royal, but I succeeded in preserving the sanctity of stock.

A side note here. One of the CORSA board's historic failures has been the insistence for micromanaging everything. In this case, they have always insisted on having the final say on, first, what form the Concours rules took, and then insisting on having the final say on any modifications to those rules. And since few qualified concours people are ever elected onto the board, I feel that it's like having blind men pilot the ship. Concours is SERIOUS business, and only the truly qualified should EVER be allowed to hold sway on any judgements pertaining to it. No disrespect meant, but most board members historically simply are not so qualified, and should remove themselves from making such decisions.

I just wish that we as a club had been smart enough to take historical documentation, early on, to the level that other clubs have. What we are just now finding out is that the value of our cars is tied directly in such efforts, and that we as a club have shot ourselves in the foot for being so negligent of our history for so long.

-Mark Corbin
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