Corvair Style

by Richard Lentinello

“The Corvair is such a unique and superb example of American ingenuity that I hold it in the same regard as the mighty Duesenberg, Cord 810, Franklin, Pierce-Arrow, and the Tucker. Each of these automobiles pushed the envelope of engineering, construction, design and style and did so by leading not following. Every one of these outstanding automobiles broke new ground and blazed a trail that had never before been traveled upon. They are icons.

Of all the automobiles designed and built during the postwar era, Chevrolet’s Corvair was the most advanced of them all.”

Tell that to Ralph Nader, whydontcha? This American lawyer and political activist launched a hard-hitting crusade against the Corvair soon after its launch and his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile would become a national bestseller. Never mind that the very agency that was created because of the book would dispute his allegations about abnormal handling in sharp turns and suggested that the Corvair’s rollover risk was comparable to similar cars. You’ll not find any of this in this book (although eagle-eyed readers may espy one photo of a vanity plate that reads UNSAFE). Rather, this is a wholly pro-Corvair book because it consists of owners talking about their cherished cars. 

One fella owning four Corvairs is impressive enough but he also has thousands of parts squirreled away.

You’ll have to take the author’s word for the above appraisal because whatever corroboration he offers is sprinkled throughout the presentations of the various cars; there is no convenient one-stop précis or a spec sheet or data tables. It’s all there (probably) but scattered about and it will take the newbie or prospective car buyer multiple passes and note-taking to glean everything they’d need/want to know. For lack of a better way of saying it, the book is a sort of testimonial rather than a conventional model history monograph.

At this point in the review it is crucial to establish that Lentinello is doing this by choice, not because he doesn’t know better. He was, after all, in charge of several serious Hemmings magazines (cf. Classic Car, Muscle Car, Sports & Exotic Cars), produces his own magazine these days (Crankshaft) and runs a car-focused blog. He does own a Corvair, enthusiastically, having waited half a century to fulfill a childhood wish.

If you can’t spot three unusual things about Bill Mitchell’s one-off you need this book. Or visit the Corvair Museum in Glenarm, Illinois.

Examples from all production years and all variants are discussed. It is not taking away anything from the book to say it has the flavor of a marque club publication, with that tone of familiarity in regards to owners’ names and events/locations that would matter or be know only to them. Also, and in some ways this is an objective demerit, it presumes the reader to already be basically up to speed with models, variants, and how they fit into the overall automotive landscape. 

Yenko Stingers.

This is Lentinello’s second book of this type (the first one was Cadillac Style). Both are numbered and signed limited editions. This one is 2500 copies (4500 for the other one). It features 50 cars, in model year order, with several examples per year and Monzas dominating. He includes utility types such as station wagons, the Rampside pick-up and the Greenbrier van, as well as rarities such as Yenko (several Stingers) and John Fitch (Sprint, Spyder, Phoenix), and even the famous one-off Super Monza that GM Head of Design Bill Mitchell created for his daughter’s 16th birthday.

We include this spread not for the car but for the typesetting. Cast your eye on the page number on the right page. Lentinello made it white so as to be visible against the photo it overlays, except in this case that wouldn’t have worked so he reversed it out of a grey box. Simple enough—if you know what you’re doing.

All the photos have been taken specifically for this book which means Lentinello saw all the cars in person, and their owners—but this also makes it self-limiting because there are other notable cars that he simply didn’t go to see. His photos are well staged and shot, nothing is cut off, fuzzy, poorly lit. Attention to detail is evident (well, there are a few typos but with a self-published book it’s too easy to become blind to glitches after endless rounds of editing and layout). The book is only $35 so there’s really no reason to expect regrets.

Copyright 2025, Sabu Advani (Speedreaders.info

Corvair Style

by Richard Lentinello

Lentinello Publishing, 2020 

196 pages, 215 color photos, softcover

List Price: $35+ $3 shipping
ISBN 13: 978-0-578-61910-1