Turbo Odyssey Part 29 -- Roots
February 21, 2006
Well, last October I wrote what I thought was a fond farewell to the Turbo Odyssey, but I've decided to spoil the ending with some postscripts. Not much has been going on with the car over the winter, but I have plans to get a handful of projects covered in the spring and I think I will append them to this thread.
After I finished working on the car for the fall, I sent a letter and some prints of pictures of the convertible to Fred Erickson, the second owner of the car. Fred bought the car on May 11, 1966 and sold it to Steve Durkin in 2004, who in turn sold it to me on eBay a short time later.
I recently received a letter from Fred, as well as some pictures. He wrote as follows:
"Thank you for the pictures of your impressive restoration of the Corvair. Since the restoration seems so complete, I thought that perhaps you would be interested in the car's history. I have enclosed the retail installment contract from when I purchased the car, as second owner, from Sacramento Motor Company, New Mexico in 1966.
"Also enclosed is the last registration slip from the state of Montana, photographs of the car in the driveway of our quarters at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico in 1966, and pictures of the car being loaded onto the transport by Steve Durkin when he purchased the Corvair in June 2004.
"When we talked previously, you asked if any other improvements were added. As you probably found out, it had full metallic brake linings all around, and a steering damper (horizontal shock absorber) was added to the steering mechanism."
These are the pictures Fred sent me:
I think the car still has the original springs, but comparing the picture above with this one, it doesn't look like the ride height has changed much if at all.
The whitewall width was interesting to me. Assuming the car was a year and a half old, I don't know if it's reasonable to assume these are the original tires, but I would think that that was the case. I thought the whitewall was narrower from the factory, but the picture tells the tale. Note the '62 Chevy wagon in the background of the next shot:
It was quite a treat to receive the documentation and photos from Fred. I e-mailed him requesting JPGs of the pictures for this web page and his daughter Paula e-mailed the files along with a note that she learned to drive in the car.
That's it for now. I'll probably post again on this thread in another month when it gets warm enough to install the parts I've been collecting over the winter.
