I spotted this concept vehicle document on eBay. It was so unusual, I thought I’d snag it. Each of the pages is within plastic, which seemed strange, too (see first pic). Anyone have more information on this? Note the use of the Corvair engine and other parts.
The shape of the car seems similar to that of a Studebaker Avanti (sold a few years earlier) or the later American Motors Corp’s concept AMX-GT, built prior to the merger between AMC and Kaiser-Jeep.
Each page of document is bound within plastic, making it much thicker than it needs to be.
Almost entire use of Corvair components is very unusual by a competitor, but seems to be well thought out in April 1966. By then the Corvair comppnents had been tested for durability and reliability so inherent problems would have been solved. By then, someone at Kaiser must have gotten wind that the Corvair wasn’t going to be in production much longer (last year for Corvair was 1969), giving Jeep the ability to purchase the products from GM, just as they did earlier in 66 with the Oddfire V6 for the CJ5/CJ6, the C101 Jeepster and the larger Buick 350 V8 for the full size Jeep/truck line.
Wonder if the engineer on this project went to work at GM or came to work at Jeep from GM. Interesting concept, but about 50 years ahead of its time!
Colin,
Good points. I didn’t think about researching when the Corvair ended production.
– Dave
Colin,
An update to this story:
“My father was Ken Jordan……..he started at Jeep in about 1957 and went on to run engineering at AM General until he retired in 1995. After AM General split from AMC they revived this concept and used the corvair based chassis to build and sell military “shoot and scoot” vehicles to other contries. I remember my father had about ten people calling junk yards everywhere trying to buy corvair parts to supply production … [this book is] probably one of a kind.”