<VV> Corvair Helicopter and Joe Burch

[Rick Norris]

The late great Joe Burch....
I have related my encounter with Joe before but here it is again.
I only met the man one time but it was memorable.

Back in the early seventies I was working in Charlotte, NC and got laid off 
due to the "Gas Shortage" of the time.
As luck would have it an old friend in the same business as I was working 
out in Dallas, TX and they were looking for
some more help. I ended up working in Richardson, TX and staying with my 
friend in Plano.
I knew Joe Burch was in the Dallas area so I looked him up in the phone 
directory, called and got directions to the
famous "One Corvair Place". You couldn't miss it as it was located in the 
middle of a clover leaf intersection of the interstate highway so it was 
readily visible from the elevated highway.
 I went out the next evening for a visit. As I remember he had a good sized 
shop beside his house with a Corvair "junk yard" out back. The rear shop 
door led out into the junk yard and probably the worlds largest pile of 
empty Pearl Beer cans I ever saw! He always had a good supply of beer on 
hand. That however was not the big attraction. While most people with a junk 
yard might have a "junk yard dog" Joe had junk yard HOGS! Yes, real live 
hogs and they loved beer so, when you went through that door you had better 
have some beer for them!
As I sat around talking and drinking beer with Joe and several of his 
friends another one of his friends drove up in a DeTomaso Pantera. I don't 
remember his name but Joe was building a Corvair for him. Anyway, Joe 
decided the adult beverages were running low and asked the guy to make a 
beer run. The guy asked if I'd like to ride along. Well, I was not going to 
pass up the chance to ride in a Pantera.
I only remember brief flashes from the ride, but that was the fastest car I 
ever rode in and he felt obligated to demonstrate it to me on public 
highways! I remember him ripping it through the gears to who knows what 
speed as we were rapidly closing on the unsuspecting traffic ahead. The car 
definitely had good brakes as was demonstrated on the return trip. We were 
flying down the two lane to Joes place and the 90 degree right hander onto 
gravel was coming up fast and he wasn't on the brakes yet. I just knew we 
were going to crash but, we made the corner using someone's front yard as an 
escape road. When we pulled up at Joes and I was getting out I guess the 
effects of the "Texas Beer Run" showed on my face. Joe and the others were 
laughing and he asked how I enjoyed the ride. They knew full well what the 
guy was going to do and later I found out he had been there just before I 
arrived and had a good head start on the beer drinking! By that time I was 
in need of a few more beers myself !!

That's most of the story as I remember it.
I don't remember going back to my friends house though...
Just a bit of Texas sized fun!

Rick Norris

> Joe had 3 Stingers, and was as crazy as the day is long.  Never stopped
> laughing when around him.  He had a Corvair rally car at the Denver
> convention in the early '80's.  The autocross was at the Castle Rock
> Speedway.  He told a bunch of us he was going to drive the car off course
> and down an embankment, then turn left at the bottom, and reenter the 
> course
> about a 100 yards down.  Bob Marlow was doing the announcing, and I think
> his voice went up at least two octaves as he was talking about Joe and the
> car as Joe did what he said he'd do.  We laughed so hard some of us all 
> but
> fell off the tower we were spectatoring from.  Seth probably remembers it.
> In retrospect, I think it was the funniest thing I've ever seen done at a
> convention.
>
> Historically Yours
> James