1964 Ember Red Monza Coupe 40927W176657 Jim Brossard

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This following article, written by owner James Brossard, originally appeared in the Corsa Communique September 2014, and is reprinted here with his permission

An Almost Original Corvair

Mike McGowan, Executive Editor of this wonderful publication asked me to write a story about my 1964 Monza coupe. He saw that it had attracted the attention of the Stock Corvair Group during the Concours d’Elegance at the recent CORSA Convention in Tacoma. In fact, they asked me to take it to Kent Sullivan’s after the concours so they could examine it further. This I did.

I’m the second owner. I bought it from a Corvair family (they had a few Corvairs) on June 3rd, 1976. It had 16,001 miles on the odometer at that time. It now has 17,503 miles. The original owners had bought it as a college graduation gift for their daughter, but she didn’t like the 4-speed manual transmission; thus, it became the couple’s special car – going to church on Sunday, etc. I believed it was sold because he was of ill health and the push rod tubes were leaking oil badly.

The first thing I did, after acquiring it, was to replace the push rod tube o-rings with Viton o-rings. I also discovered that the shock absorbers had been changed so they were replaced by NOS (new old stock) shocks. Everything else was basically maintenance – an NOS battery from Kent Sullivan; an NOS brake master cylinder, an NOS battery hold down and an NOS coil wire from Duane Wentlandt; and an oil and filter change plus a lube job. Except for the o-rings and the tires (185/70 13 radials), I thought everything was original or NOS; however, the Stock Corvair Group pointed out to me that the spark plug wires weren’t. These must have been changed by the original owner.

As you can see by the few miles I’ve put on the car, it’s a “garage queen.” I intended it to be one from the day I bought it. I already had a ’61 Monza coupe that was my daily driver. I bought it new and had installed a modified late turbo engine in it around 200,000 miles. It now has over 300,000. I also, had a nice ’68 140 Monza coupe which I drive (never trailer) occasionally to various cub events on the West Coast. It got a 2nd place concours trophy at the 1975 Seattle CORSA Convention.

The last time the ‘64 was out of my garage before getting ready for the Tacoma convention was in 1996. I don’t recall why I took it out. I had it at the ’93 San Jose CORSA Convention and the “95 Portland CORSA Western Regional Convention as well. My concours score for this convention was 90.10%. My lowest score was 80.88 % for the undercarriage unit that has more possible points than any other category. I don’t know why! I spent several hours and a few dollars at Park Place, Ltd, our local exotic car dealer. There it was put on a hoist and their young man washed it with a low-pressure washer. Next, I would go over it with a light and look for dirt. If I found dirt, he would wash that area. This cycle was repeated until I determined it was clean, clean, clean. I’m convinced that the team judging the undercarriage mistook the undercoating for dirt. Oh well! It is now back in the garage under its car cover and multiple layers of carpeting taking a nap. For how long, only time will tell.