61 Corvair "95" Rampside.

[Charon]

So. The Old truck fleet just is not complete without one of these. This 61 Rampside has the mighty 80 hp flat 6. Air cooled rear engine. side gate. Rear gate. 4 speed. This truck drives like a car! Its gone about 53,000 miles since new. This thing gets more looks than anything I have. Now my dear wife just looks at me and says. Well I can't say. This is a family friendly site. But trust me it's not good. So I hide it! She never goes to the rental houses. So they all have nice two car garages. And this sits next to the equally goofy Plymouth valiant.

[6066gmcguy]

Those are cool little pickups.

[bozzhogg]

So what year is the ply-Valiant and is it for sale$$$Ross. Hodges Durham, NC '66 GMC with '12 flat bed.

[FetchMeAPepsi]

This is one of my favorites. My father brought home one of these in toy form when I was about 5 and I rode that sucker down our front hill for years. Rode the wheels off of it. Part truck, part VW wagon looking thing. All different!



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[George Bongert]

I remember seeing these nifty little pickups in 1961 when I was just a lad of 11. Certainly much nicer looking than the Ford Econoline trucks of the same era. But then GM Trucks (both GMC and Chevy) were always much nicer looking than Ford trucks, and I have to say that that still holds true today. In my humble opinion, Ford trucks are just plain plug ugly. Unfortunately, nice as these little trucks were, they weren't of much use on the farm since they were limited as to what you could haul with them. They probably made a nice little city delivery truck though.

[David R Leifheit]

Originally Posted by George Bongert

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I remember seeing these nifty little pickups in 1961 when I was just a lad of 11. Certainly much nicer looking than the Ford Econoline trucks of the same era. But then GM Trucks (both GMC and Chevy) were always much nicer looking than Ford trucks, and I have to say that that still holds true today. In my humble opinion, Ford trucks are just plain plug ugly. Unfortunately, nice as these little trucks were, they weren't of much use on the farm since they were limited as to what you could haul with them. They probably made a nice little city delivery truck though.

Today you almost can't tell who made the vehicle until you look at the badges. Although even back then they were copying each other. As you point out Ford had a model made from their van, and so did Dodge. But that was the difference, Ford and Dodge made theirs from main line vans, while the Corvair line was separate from Chevrolet. I don't recall ever hearing of a Chevrolet version of these pickups.

Ford is a bit uglier, I think the Dodges weren't that bad though.

As for use on the farm... I don't know why not. The Corvairs would haul more load than a comparable sized "main line" vehicle. Used to have a customer who would come into the lumber yard I worked at with his Corvair van (8 door) and load it with bags of concrete. That van hauled more than most, and didn't show it.
These Corvair pickups were popular with the phone company as a spool of wire could be rolled up the ramp into the truck bed, the bed was lower than other pickups because of the rear engine design, no driveline. Just a raised area over the engine in the rear.

The two hardest to find Corvair pickup components are the camper that went in the bed (full size pickup camper, just had a door on the side to correspond with the ramp, and the floor had to match the rise in the pickup floor for the engine) and the talked about but never seen dual rampside.

I used to have a Corvair 8-door, sold it to someone who is restoring/rebuilding it.
Still have my Corvair Stationwagon. Needs a lot of help though. It is in worse shape than my GMCs... almost (they are deteriorating to match it).

[Charon]

The Corvair FC line are all badged Chevrolet. I have some old adds that show the whole Chevrolet line in 61.