Corvair Forum

The corvair Lakewood 1961
It is a long story because i've to put last 6 months in one time, so when thats done i've keep it up to date !

sorry for my poor englisch but i do my best

Lets start by the begin,

I found the car in the netherlands where it was standing for to years and nobady took care of it. There for the car was in England for a couple of years and drove there about 600 miles. Original the car come from california so it had a bit of a journey to come to my workshop.

We (we is all my all my friends who helped) found it covered with snow outside.
The engine doesn't run so we came back a couple of weeks later when the snow was gone to check out the car and take it for a test run. test run was great execpt the brakes (there were no brakes !! )
the entire car was covered in surface rust but looks oke most of the technical thinks work what we could see so i take the car. The car first needs to be legal to drive around in the netherlands so its need to go to different gouverments that the car isn't stolen - tax - pinkslips and the 2 year safety controle (they check everything and we fix the brakes before we go to the inspection)

After al "the trouble" with was going very well we picked up the car and drive it home. We had some problems on our way home, a loose dynamo and a broken fuel gaugle makes me run out of fuel en electrick, but after some repairs we drive safe home.
@ home i have to small workplaces / shops both seize are 5,5 meters by 2,5 meter (16.4 Feet by 6.56 Feet) one is for the car and the other is storage and my workshop.

I drove the car for the summer last year and had a lot of fun my friends all drive classic usa cars from a 56 bel air - 60 ford fairlane - 67 Rambler 550 - chevroelt malibu so we did several roadtrips in the Netherlands - Belgium and Deutschland.
When the season was over september 2010 i have to think what i'm gonna do with the corvair to get it good on the road and look nice. the suspension was worn out so thats need to be replaced. there started the complete restoration, because we removed one thing and came allong to some other problems and thinks that i want to do better.

so we starten at the end of december 2010 to strip the complete car. I can tell by every picture what i have done, but just look at the pictures and you understand.

thats my workshop


Need a new floor
when everything of the car was gone we check the body for more holes - dents - bondo - and other repair spots, so everything needs to be clear metal for the big parts
Front was very bad
thats not the way we repair cars in the netherlands , so the whole front will be done all out of metal

after the winter we are talking now April and the weather was great, so we roll the car outside:
The old Lakewood storage and the new fresh one (from pink carpet to red carpet )
So thats for now you're up to date on the project

when there are new developments on the projects i'll post it

Thanks greetings Ralf

THat's great! I don't feel so bad about my garage now, I can't believe you do all that work in such a small area. Congrats to you! Please keep us all updated as you go.

Very cool. I bet it gets a lot of looks and thumbs up!

Thanks for sharing, great stuff!

Thanks for the support everybody !!!!

I've just read a email that says that all my parts i collect in the usa are ready to ship to the netherlands, happy me

That's a great project. Looks like you are doing it right! Keep us posted.

little progres,

i had wheels with 5 holes and want to go to the original wheels witch are 4 holes, so i need to change the wheel studs,

so we did one to find out if it works well, we can finish the studs when the wheels arrived in holland.

I think it looks nice and strong,

Very cool man. You are really doing it up good and original!

I'm ready to pick up the parts at the harbour, 1,5 our drive to get there (and in 1,5 drive i drove half the country )

i'm exciting how the parts look like and if transport has gone well. in a couple of ours we now.

Today i'll pick up my parts that i collected in de usa and were shiped to the netherlands. the wheater was bad but it was like christmas with bad wheater. (a lot of presents 11 boxes feeling like a 10 year old kid again )

Fully loaded (almost hahaha)
mmmmh need more storage
hupcaps
wheels (thanks Rafee they look great)
New floorpanels & trunk

and NOS front (is better than the front on the lakewood, so i think i can fix it now)
So we are ready to go on with the project, but first i go on holiday ( goning to norway and sweden) to visisting Vasteras Big Meet one of europes biggest usa events


Thanks for watching !! See ya Ralf

How was your Holiday Ralf?

Oh my gosh, that's just amazing! I LOVE to see people jump with both feet. Bravo!!

Thanks everyone, soon more updates

@ Scott my holiday was great, i'll post a small story of the road trip (sorry i've seen 1 corvair, it is on a movie, sow i think i can take a picure of a screenshot of it)
we drove about 4400 kM (2500 Miles) from the netherlands to Germany all the way up to Denmark, we took the ferry to cross to Norway and drive te way up close to Trondheim. From there we went to Sweden to visiting the Big Meet and from Swede all the way home (again to denmark - germany netherlands) home.

So back on topic hahaha, back to the project not that mutch to say need to do some paperwork first for the ensurance before we can do metal working, so it will cost a couple of weeks more to get the car to the metal man.

So soon more pictures of that and other small progress

and enjoy Summer (3 day more to go before i'm back to work again)

Ralf

I like the "Corona"-pic.

If you ever want to try a "good" beer on your trip, visit me in Munich.

robertto wrote:I like the "Corona"-pic.

If you ever want to try a "good" beer on your trip, visit me in Munich.

Or visit me in north Yorkshire....Theakstons Old Peculiar is the mutts nuts
Great pictures by the way

I love your Lakewood Ralf, keep the resto pics coming.
I remember seeing your car at a show when it was in UK