Today’s car is a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa Crown V8 and it is owned by Cary Eisenlohr. I saw this car at the Zimmerman Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo, CA. This Corvair Cruise-In is applied named Ageless to Anarchy! You are going to be looking at a little more towards the Anarchy side today. You might be thinking what is a Crown V8? The Crown V8 was the brain child of Ted Trevor. Trevor developed the kit and instructions to create the Crown V8. It is a mid-engine configured Corvair powered by a Chevrolet V8. They were known to be well sorted out kits and cars when completed. I could go on and on with more of the history of Ted Trevor and Crown Manufacturing, but this article is about Cary’s 1965 Corvair.
This car has many of Cary’s personal touches that make this Crown V8 very unique. It is finished in Silver with Black trim and a Black interior. It is powered by a Chevrolet 350 cu in, V8 with aluminum heads, a very lumpy sounding cam, Crown headers and 4-2bbl Weber carburetors. It is mated to 4-speed manual transmission and transferring that power to the Corvair transaxle that has been modified with a few Crown parts along with some custom mounting brackets. It is most likely running 3.56:1 or 3.89:1 rear end gear ratio. Slowing this baby down are disc brakes in the front and drums in the rear. The Crown Handling Package adds to the existing full front and rear independent suspension. The Crown Handling Package consisted of quick steering, heavy duty springs, anti sway bars and some additional parts to change the rear geometry for the new mid-engine configuration.
The MSRP for a stock 1965 Corvair 2 door hardtop was $2465.00. The total production of Corvairs for 1965 was 237,056 with 28,644 of them being Corsa’s of which 20,291 were 2 door hardtops. The original cost for the Crown V8 kit was around $600.00 which did not include the engine and a few other GM parts that needed to be purchased. I like the Crown V8 and think they are very desirable cars. This is a very clean and a great example of what a Crown V8 could look like. It will do well where ever Cary shows it. Thank you for riding along. Frank
