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Why 1969 Corvairs? The
1969 Corvairs
were officially introduced on A
prudent manufacturer might have discontinued
the car after 1967, especially in light of
the upcoming new federal safety and emission
standards mandated for the 1968 models. The
Corvair had become GM’s orphan, its market
share taken away and handed over to other
Chevy products - Chevy II, Nova, Camaro,
In
January, 1967 the Chevrolet public relations
department had in fact privately prepared a
statement announcing the end of Corvair
production that Spring. It would have made
sense to drop the car, but GM management
decided to go ahead with the 1968 (
and 1969 ) Corvairs.
Considering the long lead-time necessary to
get new models ready, many of the parts were
surely already in the pipeline. GM of course
knew in advance how insignificant Corvair
sales were going to be as they set the
production limits. Those sales really didn’t
justify any production, but GM made the
conscious decision not to drop the car. Chevrolet
management was concerned with more positive
matters - soaring Impala sales, heavy demand
for the Nova models and the hot selling Camaro - and
apparently had little time for the orphan
Corvair. The General Manager at Chevrolet,
Pete Estes, was a hands-on engineer and he
really liked the Corvair, but his casual
management style allowed the car to linger
on longer than it really should have. A new
Chevy General Manager took over on The
6300 United States Chevrolet dealers
indicated their indifference to the Corvair
by doing what their customers told them.
Chevy shoppers weren’t asking for Corvairs
so dealers had no reason to order any for
their showrooms or sales lots. Not wanting
to pass up a buck, they would be happy to
special order one if a customer insisted or
couldn’t be steered toward another model. In
some parts of the country the traditional
Corvair values continued to sell the car. In
the cold, snow climates of the Northeast and
Some
dealers were simply afraid of the car and
its legal battles and felt it was negative
selling to try to defend it. It was soooo
much easier to sell Novas or Camaros.
The service department didn’t like to work
on them ( though
they always seemed to have a " Corvair man "
back there ! ) and
the Used Car Department sales guys hated
them on the lot. 1300
1969 Corvairs
were left unsold when the car was
discontinued in May, necessitating a $ 150
rebate program. Not quite one quarter of the
entire ’69 Corvair production run, it
indicated how tough those Corvair sales had
become. Chevy sold over two million ’69
models, but it had a difficult time clearing
out a measly 6000 Corvairs.
What’s Different About 1969’s?
Thirteen
new exterior colors were introduced for the
entire Chevrolet range, including the
Corvair. A total of fifteen were available.
Tuxedo Black and Butternut Yellow were
carried over unchanged. Ermine White, used
since 1960, became Dover White, a much
brighter shade. A
new feature introduced by General Motors for
its 1969 passenger cars did not appear on
the Corvair - the steering column mounted
ignition switch & lock. An anti-theft
measure required by federal law starting Basic
models - 500 Coupe, Monza
Coupe & Monza
Convertible continued with the same features
introduced in 1965. Engine &
transmission were also the same, with the
addition (introduced for the ’68 models
) of an air injection pump setup to
reduce engine exhaust emissions. Minor
revisions to carburetors & distributors
were also done for emission standards. On The Production Line The
vast majority of all 1960-1969 Corvairs
were built at the Chevrolet and Fisher Body
assembly facilities in Willow Run. In the
sixties, Corvairs
were also built in Exactly
6000 1969 Corvairs
were assembled - 2,762 500 coupes, 2,717 The
Willow Run plant began building the Chevy II
Nova for the 1962 model year running them on
the same production line as the Corvair. As
the Corvair’s
production volume dropped each year after
1965, it became harder and harder to build
it on the same line with Nova. By 1969, only
three Corvairs
per hour were coming down the line amid all
the Novas and it became a serious problem to
train new assembly workers on the Corvair
intricacies. Add to that the basic layout
differences of the two cars. The job that a
worker did at a given station on a Nova may
not have been the same job as needed on a
Corvair. The Corvair required more work than
the Nova before the powertrain
and suspension were married to the body, and
the Nova needed more work afterwards. This
meant the Corvair was getting a free ride
for a while on the line, a very inefficient
arrangement. Something
had to give and the most logical choice was
to get the Corvair off the main line. On There
were five assembly stations on the line.
Numbers one, three and five had hoists.
Station one lowered the carrier cradle,
picked up the body and returned the body
truck to Fisher. Then, with the body raised,
workers began installing gas & brake
lines, linkages, heater, and so forth. At
station two the carrier stayed in the air
and the body was prepared for marriage with
the front & rear suspensions and
engine-transaxle assembly. At station three,
the carrier was lowered by hoist and
electrical, wiring, steering column, dash
and interior parts were installed. At
station four, the carrier was raised up
again where the engine and chassis
components were brought from their own
miniature line and raised up into the car
from underneath. Gas tank, bumpers and tires
were installed here as well. At station
five, the car was lowered to the floor for
fluids, headlamps, aiming, bezels, wipers,
etc. Most
workers there felt they were privileged to
work in the area, feeling it was the best
place to work at Willow Run. And they all
liked the Corvair. The line ran smoothly.
Despite continual parts shortages, those who
were there feel the best built 1969 Corvairs
were those completed between November 15th
and April 21st when all hell broke loose.
Production during this period totaled about
2600 cars. The
original schedule for the Corvair room
assembly was to build out through July, but
orders for Novas had backed up and dealers
were screaming for more. This could only be
done if Corvair production was finished,
adding that manpower to the Nova line. On
April 21st, Corvair production was doubled
to 51 cars a day, making the last day of
production May 14th. The goals were met and
the weekly rates did indeed double to over
300 Corvairs
each week. In the first week of the new
program, 318 were built, up from 145 the
week before. It accelerated for two more
weeks, hitting 341 and then 364 cars. The
very last work week of Corvair production
was only two and one half days long, but
they still cranked out 141 Corvairs.
How did they do it? Three
ways. The first was to put the entire Willow
Run work force on a six day, overtime week,
as union rules prevented the Corvair workers
from being the only ones to get Saturday
overtime. Second, the number of workers
doubled. The third and most important change
that allowed the rapid build out of ’69 Corvairs was the
violation of GM’s steadfast rule against
stockpiling cars. A car was never built
unless there was a dealer order on hand, and
cars were never built ahead of orders. Leave
it to the Corvair to be the exception, and
all those unsold Corvairs
began to pile up outside the plant. They
just couldn’t be sold as fast as the speeded
up line was churning them out. The rush
complicated an already critical parts
shortage problem and many of these very last
Corvairs were
let go to dealers short of parts. After
the dust settled, 6000 Corvairs
had indeed been built by May 14th - 2194 on
the main line with the Novas and 3806 in the
Corvair room. Of those 3806, 1164 were built
during the last three and one half weeks.
Novas total 1969 model year production was a
whopping 283,000. In retrospect, it seems
incredible that so much effort went into
assembling such a small handful of Corvairs.
It once again proved that the Corvair was
always the exception rather than the norm. The
Last Day The
Associated Press, United Press
International, and local TV stations were
requesting to photograph the last Corvair as
it actually came off the assembly line that
Wednesday. No plans had been made to have
the press at Willow Run and even the
ever-present GM Photographic Department
wasn’t going to be there. All GM needed was
smug, gleeful reports in the media that the
Corvair was finally dead. With
all the requests to see the last Corvair
being built, GM relented. A small ceremony
would be allowed, which probably assured
better treatment by the press than if they’d
been shut out. The Corvair room was a high
security area at Willow Run and very few
outsiders had ever been in it. So it must
have seemed strange when newsmen began
arriving after lunch on Wednesday, May 14th.
The line had been running all morning so the
very last cars could be ready for them. The
tone of the day was very informal, with no
speeches or statements by anyone from GM. It
was a sad day for the assembly workers,
foremen and their supervisors who had grown
fond of the Corvair and their little team.
It surely was no day of celebration for
them. Instead, it was a funeral and they
were the pallbearers. The
last Corvair, an Olympic Gold Monza
Coupe (# 6000), was in its overhead carrier
and was pushed closer to the waiting newsmen
The car in front (# 5999) was lowered to the
floor, on its wheels for the first time.
After receiving its ration of gasoline, this
Lemans Blue Monza
coupe quickly became as famous as
# 6000 itself. 5999 wouldn’t start.
A loud backfire,
and then silence. Some sentimental workers
and reporters felt the Corvair was
stubbornly holding up the line, refusing to
die. All
the evidence points to a "service" or
replacement engine, one that would normally
be ordered for customers’ cars. Due to the
extreme shortage of parts at Willow Run for
the last Corvairs,
a service 140 was probably ordered. This was
then installed in # 5999 as its original
engine. Engines shipped directly to Willow
Run from the With
# 5999 now pushed out of the way, at The
above information is reprinted from 1969 Corvair Finger Tip Facts by Mark Ellis
and Dave Newell, available exclusively
from Clark’s
Corvair Parts, The 1969 Corvair Group The
1969 Corvair Registry CONTACTS The
1969 Corvair Group The
1969 Corvair Registry Secretary
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