1962 Chevrolet Corvair 95 Rampside pickup

This truck, Lot 175, sold for $77,000, including buyer’s premium, at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale, AZ, auction on January 15, 2019.

The Chevrolet Corvair was introduced in October 1959 with a goal of taking on the Volkswagen Beetle. GM figured they could beat VW at their own game with one-upmanship. VW had a 4-cylinder air-cooled engine, so GM built a 6. VW had a small coupe, GM made a four-door sedan.

GM was also gunning for VW’s Type II truck as well. That little truck was considered so much of a threat that it eventually was the targeted vehicle of the 1964 “Chicken Tax,” which is still with us today: a 25% tariff on imported light-duty trucks. Yet before legislation, GM and Ford were the first to fire back with compact vans and pickups.

Both introduced for the 1961 model year, the Ford Econoline and the Chevrolet Corvair 95 (as in 95-inch wheelbase) showed the future of American light-duty vans. The Corvair had its air-cooled engine in the back — thanks to Ford’s familiar powertrain from the year-old Ford Falcon, and it became the sales winner overnight.

Each of those two manufacturers also offered a pickup truck variant. American tastes generally deemed the drop-side VW pickups as too rudimentary, so both domestic competitors offered styleside pickups — essentially vans with the roof cut off behind the driver.

Corvair had two versions: the Loadside and the Rampside. Both had a lower section than the Ford behind the cab and ahead of the rear wheelwells. The Rampside was unique, featuring a side-mounted tailgate that dropped to the ground, creating a ramp into the side of the truck bed.

A niche market

With the Rampside, GM had a truly unique truck. Appliance, music and hardware stores thought they were a godsend; Rampsides were just the thing to deal with heavy and awkward refrigerators, pianos and lawn mowers. Chevy even got sales from Ma Bell, as the Bell System authorized purchases of Rampsides for supervisors of cable construction crews (as a reel of cable could be easily rolled in and out of the back).

But despite the novelty of the Rampside, sales were never really there. After a mediocre first year of 10,787 sold, sales plummeted in subsequent years until it was discontinued after 851 were built in 1964.

The Loadside fared even worse. After a paltry 2,475 first-year sales, it never made it to 1963 after 369 measly sales in 1962 — it’s the rarest Corvair of all time.

Corvair cult

By and large, Corvair people are into both the cars and the trucks interchangeably. I’m ACC’s resident Corvair loony, and my first “collector car” was a $50 1961 Corvan 95 in 1983.

Early on, Rampsides were at the top of the Forward Control (FC) pecking order — back when $2,500 would buy the nicest one on the planet and I was getting paid $50 to take running vans. Today, you’ll likely have to pony up $2,500 to get the worst one in the junkyard.

In the past two decades, several factors have seen Rampside prices move smartly up. First, to a certain extent, GM has finally embraced the FC (even if they still have a cold shoulder for Corvair cars). Secondly, Corvairs of all stripes have finally moved out of the bargain basement of collector-car pricing. Finally, the vintage pickup and SUV craze of the past decade-plus has moved all pickups smartly up the valuation guides — especially those that are left of center.

A new reality for a Rampside?

Corvair forums lit up like Christmas trees almost as soon as this hammered sold, wondering if there was anything about it that made it special. The answer is a resounding no.

First off, it’s not exactly an authentic restoration. Originally, it was Crystal Turquoise Metallic rather than this color-change repaint and added belly stripe. That respray — with the cargo floor and ramp deck in an incorrect gray in lieu of body color — covers quite a few small dents and dings in the cargo box, so the new owner certainly didn’t get their money’s worth in body prep and paint.

The engine bay looks pretty in the catalog images, yet it has a correct-for-1964-only alternator rather than the stock generator. The interior was trimmed out quite well with good workmanship, with a lot of repro parts that have become available only in recent years.

While the reproduction seat features Deluxe Rampside vinyl, the painted steel doors (in lieu of the Deluxe trim, which has vinyl panels) confirm that this is a standard trim Rampy. 1961 was the final year that GM sourced wide whitewall tires that went all the way to the rims, so the correct optional whitewall was approximately an inch wide.

Call me picky, but a vehicle should set a new record price either because it’s concours lawn-quality accurate or the modifications in work and materials justify it. Neither was the case here.

Had this been a CORSA Concours Senior Award winner, done in the correct original colors to precisely match the way it rolled out of St. Louis Assembly Plant’s truck line, $77k still shouldn’t have been the number.

Trucks may be stars right now, but in the general market, Corvair-powered FCs still carry too much baggage for even today’s new breed of truck collector. That said, $50k would not have surprised me, meeting the above criteria with concours provenance to back it up.

Spend your money the way you want to, but don’t think that you’re necessarily leading the market when you do so. Chalk this one up as very well sold.

(Introductory description courtesy of Barrett-Jackson.)