1966 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa convertible. Photos by Vern Sundbom, unless otherwise noted.
Editor’s note: This piece comes to us from Hemmings Daily regular, concours judge and former North Dakota State Senator Don Homuth.
In December of 1967 I was still in Viet Nam, but things had become fairly quiet in the previous months. I was due to go home in late January, but all that meant is that I would have to do 9 months or so of tedious stateside duty doing who knows what. The Army offered a pretty neat deal – extend one’s tour for six months, and one could go home at Army expense for thirty days of Special Leave, which would not be charged to regular leave. Something about being in a Combat Zone.
That sounded OK to me. Gen William Westmoreland, who certainly looked and sounded like a leader of men and a proper general officer, was telling anyone in the press that we had the war all but won. Generals aren’t notable for being wrong.
Sans top, rolled out for a photo shoot in early 2015.
So I extended my tour, and joined my family for Christmas. And it was good. Really good!
Meanwhile, Westmoreland had also come home for Christmas, and he was busily telling everyone that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were no longer capable of even mounting a major attack anywhere in South Viet Nam. Just couldn’t do it. So my extension was looking like a better and better choice all the time.
I had in mind that several weeks before my extended tour and enlistment would be up, at which point I would be out of Viet Nam and out of the Army on the very same day, I would sign up to re-enter North Dakota State University, and get what was called an Early Out for Education. Meaning that my tour and enlistment would both end 3-4 weeks earlier than they would have otherwise. Those were routinely granted, so it would be no big deal.
Such a deal! I complimented myself on my cleverness, and greatly enjoyed the company of family and friends for the last two weeks of December 1967 and the first two weeks of January 1968.
Came the night — the very night — before I was due to get on a plane at Hector at oh-dark-thirty the next morning, and Jon Houtkooper and I were riding around Fargo. I was taking one last look around the place before going back to the Land of Smoke. There was little to do anyway.
Cruising west on Main Avenue past the Muscatell Chevrolet used car lot, I spied a light blue Corvair Monza convertible. It looked nice, and having nothing else important to do, we drove into the lot. I asked the sales guy who came out of the shed about the Corvair convertible, and got an unexpected answer:
“Which one?”
“There are two?”
“Yes — we took another one in trade just this afternoon. It’s up in the shop — I don’t think it’s even been worked on. Would you like to see it?”
Well, of Course I would like to see it. The blue one was an automatic, and I didn’t want one of those. Just not quite manly enough. And it had a small two-carburetor motor besides. Not exactly something I was going to get all worked up about.
We went up the slanted drive into the shop bay, and walked across. The lights were already dimming, as the mechanics were finishing up and getting ready to go home. But there was enough light for me to see the other one.
It was a 1966 Corsa convertible, black with a black interior and a white top. It had four carburetors — I liked that. It was a manual transmission. Really liked that. It was in really nice condition — January is a month when you figure someone trading in a convertible is doing so under some duress.
I was in love! Really — to my eye it was a vision of automotive perfection.
A short aside here: I am more fond of cars with small motors than huge V-8s. I prefer smaller cars that could handle a curvy road over cars that could accelerate quickly on a straight smooth road or drag strip. Even in North Dakota, I prefer convertibles over hardtops or sedans. Just do. That’s my personal taste in cars, and I’ve pretty much followed it through my entire life.
In due course, the salesman and I discussed the price. It was just a tad too high for my taste, and I figured I could get a better deal, so he called the Sales Manager who then showed up to handle the negotiations himself. We had a nice talk, and I finally played my final trump card — I was going back to Viet Nam the very next morning, so if we couldn’t make a deal then no deal would be made.
Things got serious at that point. We finally agreed that I could have the car for $1,500 cash. I didn’t have that much ready cash on me, but a talk with my stepfather indicated that he would front the money and I could pay it back while in Viet Nam. That was no problem — I didn’t have anything much to spend it on anyway.
Left unsaid was the fact that I was buying this car, and I might never make it back at all. Nevertheless, I drove it off the lot, went around a couple of blocks and then parked it in my folks’ garage on 5th Avenue South. Closed the door, went in the house for a last evening with the family, and was on the plane the next morning.
But for the next 8+ months, thoughts of that little convertible were with me constantly. Wasn’t a day when I didn’t dream of putting the top down on a warm late summer day and driving out to Detroit Lakes and around the area.
The end of January and well into March of 1968 was a period of great unpleasantness that has become known as the Tet Offensive. It changed Everything — both there and in the United States. I got to see it up close and personal.
But in due time, it ended. The VC had been pretty much eliminated as a fighting force in the South — which is what I believe the North Vietnamese wanted all along — and eliminated as a future political rival for when the war was finally over.
So after March, the rest of my tour was mostly about just getting through it and going home. I missed my family, and I missed my friends and I really and truly wanted to drive my convertible.
On August 28, 1968 I came home and got out of the Army the same day. My family was at Hector to greet me as I got off the plane. My sister Lois even brought her pet rabbit.
But in the back of my head was that car. After talking with my family but somehow not really hearing what was being said, I told them I wanted to take my car for a drive.
They had rolled it out, changed the oil and had it serviced, and washed and waxed it prior to my coming home. When I rolled it out of the garage, it shone like a black sapphire. I fired it up and drove off. It was great! Top down, beautiful Fargo day, and just being there and in it somehow made a lot of tension dissipate for the next several hours.
It’s enough to say that was the car that took me back to college. I drove it for a year, and sold it to a really beautiful young woman, because my eye had been caught by a 1966 Corvette roadster and I drove that for another several years. In the fullness of time, I married the young woman, and the Corvair was once again back in the family. Corvettes, however, typically don’t survive first marriages and mine was no exception. So that got sold, because we needed a More Practical Car.
But the Corvair stayed.
I drove it for years. I drove it all over North Dakota and Minnesota, in flaming heat and blinding blizzards at -35F. One particular drive from Williston to Dickinson comes to mind in exactly those conditions, in the dark, with no one else on the road for miles. Had it broken down for any reason, I wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale.
At delivery to Don in August. Photo by Don Homuth.
Over time, I bought five other Corvairs — all very nice and all worth having. Including one of the rarest of all — a Yenko Corvair Stinger, #042 I bought from Forrest Davis right there in Fargo. But as the lead went out of gasoline, and storage costs rose, and the marriage started to go south, I finally sold all of them.
The black convertible went to a guy who lived on a farm South of Jamestown sometime in 1977 or 1978. I lost track of it then. Didn’t give it a whole lot more thought afterwards. Life was happening, and my divorce happened and I moved to Grand Rapids, MN.
That’s how things remained for over 35 years. Every now and again, I’d remember that car fondly. My photos of it disappeared in one of the moves, so even the visual record went away. But the memories never did.
In late 2014, I got to wondering what had happened to it. The miracle of the Internet and the World Wide Web had occurred meanwhile, and I started a search to see if it could be found. It would be nice to hear that someone had got it and fixed it up and it was still being driven. It would have been OK to hear that it had been junked and crushed. But at least I would then know that it was gone forever.
I put an ad on Craigslist — the one that serves the entire state of North Dakota rather than just any one city. I made the same observations — I just wanted to know if anyone remembered that car and what had become of it.
Three days later, I got an e-mail.
Don Homuth with the Corvair. Photo by Sharon Josephson.
Vern Sundbom, from Detroit Lakes, had purchased the car some 27 years ago from a guy south of Jamestown. It had bullet holes (Hey – it was in a field in North Dakota. Of Course it had bullet holes!!) The top and interior had rotted away over the years, the engine and transaxle were out. But it did have certain equipment that was identical to what I had. There was no doubt it was the exact same car.
When we spoke, Vern said he had dragged it home on a trailer to use for parts, but 6-7 years ago he decided it might be fun to build it and keep it for himself. I was fine with that — at least I would know that it was in good hands and in good shape once again. I wrote him my story as I remembered it, and in our next conversation he said that he liked my story and might be willing to sell it to me.
I told my wife (my second – and she is a most understanding person who puts up with my car guy stuff more than most wives might) that I was making no commitments, but that I was thinking about it.
She knew. No question she knew. I just had to have that car once again, and would be willing to do almost anything (within reason) to get it. She let me keep my little secret, but inside she figured it would happen.
Editor’s note: Don ends his story, which will appear as a chapter in an upcoming book, here. The next paragraph is my narration.
The 1991 Nissan 300ZX 2+2 sold to fund the Corvair purchase. Photo by Don Homuth.
In March of 2015, it began to appear as if Don and his car would be reunited, but one stumbling block remained: To fund the purchase, Don would have to sell a pristine 1991 Nissan 300ZX purchased for his wife (but rarely driven). She agreed to and even encouraged the plan, but finding the right buyer for a 2+2 Z32 300ZX with an automatic transmission takes time. In Don’s case, it took until July for a buyer in Connecticut to fly out to Oregon and take delivery of the car (which he immediately drove cross-country, averaging an impressive 30 MPG highway). Funds now in hand, Don set up a delivery timeline with Vern, and on August 5, he was reunited with the Corvair.
Editor’s note: At this point, I relinquish the narration to Don.
Got it today, August 5. I was anxious to see it and the unveiling was fairly dramatic. It wasn’t in pristine shape — the guy who had it left some handprints on the finish, and it was a little slow starting from sitting for so long. But no question — this was my old car. And now it’s mine again.
Were I to describe the emotions of it, it’s somewhat like a flashback, only good. I was 24 again, going for a ride in late August in a car I’d been waiting to drive for 9 months. It ran very well. Vern Sundbom said he had been working on it on and off for twenty years!
Photo by Don Homuth.
I’ll be happy to fill in the technical fine points later. Those are fun for car guys, but this time it’s all about emotions and memories and flashbacks and all that transpired over ten years of owning it.
I will pick it up from his shop Sunday – it’s supposed to rain for several days. I’ll drive it to a convertible top shop in Fargo and have two seals replaced. Then I’ll wait for the shippers. I trust sometime before the end of the month, I’ll have it home in Salem and be able to play with it on my own.
I can hardly wait.
The grin has left my face. The internal grin may never leave.
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