<VV> CORSA Membership

[Dave Keillor]

I believe the problem is rooted in the car and its ownership community.  The
car is very unique and the ownership community is quite insular and tends to
have a bunker mentality.  Corvair people have a tendency to stick together
in their own little community instead of being part of the larger car
community.  There also seems to be a kind of perverse pride in owning and
driving a car that other people think is dangerous, odd ball, etc.
 
For example, I used to take my '66 convert to a lot of "mixed" car shows.
Often I had the only Corvair and if there did happen to be another, it was
generally rather scruffy.  As a consequence of having a rather unique (and
nice) car, I won a lot of 1st place trophies.  Eventually, I ran out of
places to put the trophies and time to attend the shows, so I quit going.  I
know there are other very nice Corvairs in this part of the county
(Minnesota), so why don't they display their cars more?
 
By contrast, I also have a very nice '73 Nova Custom Coupe that I've also
taken to shows.  Although the Nova is almost as nice as the Corvair, it sort
of fades into the background next to all the other nice Novas.  As a result,
it will likely never win any kind of trophy because it's upstaged by all the
very nice SS Novas, Yenko Dueces, etc.
 
So, here are some of my ideas of ways to improve visibility of the Corvair:
1. Articles in the popular car press.  This will take some work, but there
may be some magazines looking for fresh material.
2. Encourage people to attend "mixed" car shows and provide them with an
information packet on both the Corvair and Corsa.  You have to get them
interested in the Corvair before they're interested in Corsa.  A stack of
"About the Corvair" handouts sitting next to a really nice Corvair would be
quite popular I'd wager.
3. Update the Corsa web presence (it's really dated).  Two suggestions here:
1) Put up a Corsa-sponsored forum.  stevesnovasite.com is an excellent
example.  The site was developed and maintained by Steve, but it's sponsored
by National Nostalgic Nova and also supported by donations.  2) Develop a
Corvair resource site.  Two examples here are novaresource.org and
miata.net.  With the latter, checkout the reviews section and the garage
section.
 
I also belong the National Nostalgic Novas and their monthly magazine is no
better than Corsa, so I don't think the magazine is nearly as important as
visibility through articles, car shows, and the web.  I think the latter is
really important if you want to attract younger people.  Btw, the folks on
Stevesnovasite.com range from old geezers like me (65) to kids just old
enough to have a driver's license.  And, contrary to popular opinion, not
all the Nova people are into high performance -- they just like old cars.
 
Look around at the marques that are successful and steal some of their
ideas.
 
Dave Keillor