1962 Chevy Corvair Wagon

1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Wagon 4-Speed for sale on BaT Auctions - ending June 18 (Lot #76,466) | Bring a Trailer

 

Just about perfect....... unless you want to install the larger 164 cubic-inch Corvair engine from the later models.....

Currently bid at $10,000.

 

I like these little 'vair wagons. Seen a few of them left over the years down here. They look proportioned well. This is a nice example.

 

Betcha Ernie Kovacs Wish he’d had taken the Rolls that fateful night. Sorry bad humor. I think it was a ‘62 wagon just like this one.

 

I remember the same and at the time wondered why a famous entertainer was driving an inexpensive Chevy. Story I recall was that Kovacs liked to spend money and was perpetually in debt. Took years for his widow, the classy Edie Adams, to pay off his debts with the help of White Owl Cigars, the Company that had sponsored Kovacs TV shows. Adam's was not legally responsible for much of the debt but thought paying was the right thing to do. Different times.

 

The way I understood it at the time, was that the Corvair was the vehicle used by the 'help', to go to the store, get supplies for the household,etc. Ernie just took it that night to the party, for some reason.

Also appears that the Kovacs' wagon was a 1961........

 

Yeah I think he had a Rolls as well. Seems to me I had read where there was a physical turn table to move the cars to point out after you pulled in. He was a very bazaar man. He played an eccentric actor in the movie “Strangers when we meet” with Kirk Douglas as an architect who designed his house. Great car movie as well (1960). I imagined Kovacs would be like that in real life.

 

It was interesting the police found an unlit
Cigar on the floor. They felt that in trying to retrieve it he lost control of the car on a rain slick road and hit a phone pole. It was also interesting that his daughter Mia Susan Kovacs died in 1982, some 20 years later in a car crash when her car went off the road.

 

"Trying to retrieve unlit cigar"? How about trying to light the cigar. My father always lit his Chesterfields with a match even when going the gears on his 52 Chevy. Never saw him use the car lighter. Remember this because My Mom was always on him to watch what he was doing.

 

Accident was near the corner of Santa Monica and Beverly Glen Boulevards....

 

Sold for $17,100 on 6/18/22