This page contains material from the February 2001 newsletter

MEETING TIME: First Wednesday of each month at 7:30 PM LOCATION: Galles Chevrolet, 1601 Lomas Boulevard NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110 PRESIDENT: Hurley Wilvert 281-1732 hurley.wilvert@fmglobal.com VICE-PRES: Robert Gold 268-6878 beisbol30@hotmail.com SECRETARY: Charles Vertrees 299-0744 vertrees@swcp.com TREASURER: Wendell Walker 892-8471 defarge505@aol.com MEMBERSHIP: Sylvan Zuercher 299-7577 zuerchero@hubwest.com NEWSLETTER: Jim Pittman 275-2195 casa unm edu DUES: CNM: 12 months $15.00 or 26 months $ 30.00 CORSA: 12 months $35.00 or 26 months $ 70.00 BOTH: 12 months $50.00 or 26 months $100.00 ===== JANUARY MEETING NOTES Chuck Vertrees The meeting was called to order on 1/3/01 at 19:30 at Galles Chevrolet. All officers were present. The minutes of the December meeting were approved as published in the newsletter. Sylvan Zuercher announced that there were no new members to introduce but that several may be coming in later. Sue Mann was introduced. She will give a presentation of route 66 history following the business meeting. Treasurer, Wendell Walker, reported that CNM has $404.57 in the checking account and $5.407.50 in the Money Market account for a net worth of $5,812.07. Ruth Boydston has the new CNM license plates for sale. They are $5.00 each. There was no Car Council report since they did not meet in December. (But, see below for January meeting notes.) Mark Domzalski reported that the International Convention has been approved for Flagstaff, Arizona in 2002. The Phoenix chapter will be the primary assistance; however, CNM will be on call to help when needed. There have been new Concours and model rule changes approved by the board. Mark will be in St Charles during late January, to help check on the preparation for the 2001 convention. Mark's term as CORSA President ends in July and as yet there are no prime suspects for the job. (Your Secretary's opinion is that he will be hard to replace.) Debbie Pleau has been appointed as the CORSA Merchandise Chairwoman. Her job is to help with new, nicer, and improved quality merchandise. If you have any suggestions as to what should be added or improved, please give them to Mark and he will forward them to Debbie. Speaking of merchandise, Ruth Boydston needs merchandise other that the plates. The board is working on this and is looking for suggestions on what should be available. The proposed schedule of events for 2001 was published in the last newsletter. CNM has been very lucky in having as many members volunteer to take on the events. The garage tour will be to the Reinhardt Tool and Toy Museum at 29 Claremont NE on February 10th. Some of us were there several years ago and it is very interesting. Further details will be elsewhere in the newsletter. March was planned as a progressive dinner, but Larry Blair is making available a personalized tour of the Big-I, so the progressive dinner is possibly being moved to April. Dinner volunteers are the Golds, the Gongoras, Ruth Boydston, the Goffes and the Wilverts. Del Patten has volunteered to do a Funkhana in April, but we will have to see about the progressive dinner. May has the Tri-State and the Museum show, and Mark Domzalski has volunteered to put on a Mystery Tour in June. July is full of things to do so CNM does not have anything special planned at this time. August is the campout at Ruth Boydston's place in the Pecos and the date set for that is the weekend of the 11th and 12th. We need a sponsor to help plan this. September is the State Fair car show by Robert Gold, and an October outing is being planned by Kay and Tarmo Sutt, possibly in conjunction with the Santa Fe Old Car Club. November has been suggested as possibly having a VLA Tour, a potluck/auction, or a car show at the Cottonwood Mall. December will be the Christmas dinner, again arranged by Rita Gongora. Thanks Rita! We could not put in dates for the Old Route 66 cleanup until Ollie is present. We have 21 copies of the "Care and Feeding" book. This should be updated before the next printing. Bill Reider will see that this is done. The next board meeting will discuss details. Larry Blair will discuss the Corvair gas heater after the next meeting. Jerry Goffe presented to Joe Trujillo a print of the CNM Corvairs spelling out "CORSA" in an aerial view of a parking lot. This was the same print that was on the cover of CORSA a few years ago. Steve Gongora will have a design for the CNM patch and name badge to present at the next board meeting and will get two estimates of cost. The meeting was adjourned at 22:15, followed by a presentation on the history of Old Route 66 by our guest. ===== CAR COUNCIL MEETING 24 Jan 2001 Mark Martinek 1. The council was called to order by President Ken Halvorsen at 7:30 PM. 2. Finance Report: Checking Account: $9138.81, CDs: $10,280.47. Interest received in CY 2000: $626.07. Profit on swap meet: $559.91. 3. Paul McLaughglin reported on last years swap meet. Poor attendance was laid to inclement weather and competing with two other large swap meets in Oklahoma and Texas. Several participants reported good sales. All in all it was considered successful. 4. The initial desire of the council was not to pay any money to clubs that volunteered assistance as the profit was so small. After some discussion it was decided to give $25.00 to each club that worked the swap meet. 5. The Hispanic Cultural Center was mentioned as a possible site for the year 2001 swap meet as the UNM area is being utilized more and more by various events . The 2001 meet will be programmed for earlier in the year as in the past. 6. A committee was set up to coordinate, plan, and conduct the Museum Car Show , 20 May 01. 7. There will be a St Patrick's Day parade on 17 Mar. The parade will start at the KAFB Truman Gate area and proceed to the Veteran's Memorial on Louisiana. A $20.00 donation will be accepted. 8. The Classic Chevy Club lost money on the Western National held in Albuquerque. They are planning various car events to make up the deficit and request other clubs participate in them. The Classic Chevy Club,nationwide ,is now open to all Chevy vehicles, 1947 thru 1972. This is being done to attract more and younger club members. 9. The Power Tour will again pass thru Albuquerque on 9 May. 10. The council was briefed on the 2001 Super Nationals to be held 2 - 4 Feb. A table will again be available for club use. 11. The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 PM. submitted by: Mark Martinek, CNM Representative ===== JANUARY BOARD MEETING NOTES Chuck Vertrees The January board meeting was called to order at House of Covers on 1/17/01 at 17:15. Present were, Sylvan Zuercher, Robert Gold, Hurley Wilvert, Bill Reider, Steve Gongora, Wendell Walker, Jim Pittman and Chuck Vertrees. Treasurer, Wendell Walker, reported that CNM had $312.03 in the checking account and $5,422.25 in the Money Market account for a total of $5,734.28. The first item of discussion was the Big-I Tour. Larry Blair said he could probably set it up in late February or early March. Saturday dates must be selected carefully so as not to conflict with the CNM Ladies' monthly meeting. It was finally decided to see if Larry could set it up for Saturday, March 17th. An afternoon would be preferred. The volunteers for the progressive dinner are the Golds, the Gongoras, Ruth Boydston, the Goffes and the Wilverts. Much discussion followed, trying to find a date that this could be done. It turns out that April is a very difficult month for the board members and possibly for the membership at large. In April at least one of each of the volunteer families will be unavailable. Finally it was decided that for the time being, the progressive dinner would be re-scheduled for November. Therefore, Del Paten needs to get ready for the Funkhana in April. The board discussed the reception we received that last time we went to J.B.'s after the meeting. The new manager was pretty nasty about us not spending enough money. Steve Gongora talked to the people at the 66 Diner and they were receptive to our coming after the meetings to their place. The only problem is that they close at 22:00 or 10:00 PM for some of us. It was decided that if we tighten the meetings up we could be out by 20:15. We will try it for a few months. The "Care and Feeding" book was the next item for discussion. Lon Wall and Clark's each got 100 the last time they ordered. Sylvan will contact them and see if they anticipate needing more in the immediate future. We discussed the idea that CNM should not actively attempt to sell the book except to the above vendors, and if we get an inquiry about the book, we should refer the person to Clark's or Wall. Bill will start working on the update and if necessary we could have a new supply ready in three to four months. (Recall that we give a copy of the book to each new member.) Steve had estimates for the badges and patches. The patches have a minimum order of 50 and there is an $80 set-up charge. It is only about $20.00 more to order 100 instead of 50. According to Sylvan the last batch of 100 lasted about 17 years. Silk screen should be much cheaper than embroidery, so Steve will check on that also. The badge design looks great to the board and with approval of the membership we will place an order with All Sports Trophies since they are the cheapest. We'll probably order about 25 at a time. A decision on the patches was tabled. Jim Pittman initiated a discussion about web pages. He said it is important to keep a page from becoming static or neglected, and it's better to have a simple page that loads quickly and has useful information rather than one that is complex and flashy. We presently have the CNM web page linked to Jim's web page which has a copy of the current newsletter and several months of recent newsletters. We also have links to CORSA's home page and other relevant pages. We discussed whether a CNM web page is truly worthwhile. A few people (so far, it has been mostly Dennis Pleau and Steve Gongora) have expended a lot of effort to put up the page and keep it current, but we have no idea whether anyone is actually using it. We decided to poll the membership at the next meeting to see how many members have online access, whether they check the web page and whether it's useful to them. The meeting was adjourned at 18:50. ===== CORVAIRS of NEW MEXICO COMING EVENTS ============================================================================ | F e b r u a r y | M a r c h | A p r i l | | | | | | : : : : 1 2 3 | : : : : 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | | 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 | | 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 | | 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 | 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 | 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 | | 25 26 27 28 : : : | 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 | 29 30 : : : : : | ============================================================================ Wed 7th Feb 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 10th Feb 10:00 AM CNM Ladies - Ruth Boydston's - 6829 Kelly NE Sat 10th Feb 1:00 PM Garage Tour: Triple R Tool & Toy Museum Wed 21st Feb 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 23rd Feb 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Wed 7th Mar 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 10th Mar ....... CNM Ladies - TBA Sat 17th Mar 1:00 PM Tour of the Big-I - Larry Blair Wed 21st Mar 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 23rd Mar 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Wed 4th Apr 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 14th Apr ....... CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 18th Apr 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 20th Apr 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman ============================================================================ NEW MEXICO COUNCIL OF CAR CLUBS CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS February 2 - 4 Super Nationals Annual Car Show at the State Fairgrounds! May 6 Route 66 Rodders Swap Meet May 9 - 10 Hot Rod Power Tour (5/3-12, Detroit to San Bernardino) in ABQ May 20 Museum Car Show (proposed). June 16 6th Annual Hub City Mopar Fest (Belen, NM) June 17 - 22 CHROME ON THE RANGE Chrome Glidden Tour (Chinle AZ) July 20 - 22 75th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Festival of Route 66 Albuquerque Convention & Visitor's Bureau (247-9101) July 28 VMCCA Jemez Falls (formerly Cochiti) Picnic ALBUQUERQUE CRUISE NIGHTS: Owl Cafe (Eubank & 140) - Pre-1960 Rides - first Tuesday of each month May thru October Owl Cafe (Eubank & 140) - Muscle Cars - third Thursday of each month May thru October Christian Rods & Customs and Route 66 Rodders (SONIC at Juan Tabo & Candelaria) - third Saturday of each month, April thru October ALBUQUERQUE RACING VENUES: Albuquerque National SpeedWay - (505) 873-2684 (Event Line 299-9478) Sandia MotorSports Park - (505) 352-8888 Reported by Mary Lou & Mark Martinek 505 275-3271 ===== FEBRUARY MEETING PRESENTATION Robert Gold CNM member Larry Blair will be giving a technical talk about the mysteries of gas heaters at our February 7 meeting. Larry has been an advocate of gas heater technology for many years and has two beautiful gas heater equipped convertibles to prove it! Please plan to attend this meeting and learn all about this "hot" topic. ===== CNM LADIES MEETING - Feb 10th Anne Mae Gold The CNM Ladies will have their next meeting on Saturday, February 10 at Ruth Boydston's house. Ruth's address is 6829 Kelly Ave NE. The meeting will run from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Those who attend will get a chance to see Ruth's wonderful quilts. This is also a chance for the Ladies to talk about all sort of things -- maybe even Corvairs! If you have any questions give Ruth a call 821-1506. See you there. ===== GARAGE TOUR - Feb 10th LeRoy Rogers This year's garage tour will be a return trip to the Triple-R Tool and Toy Museum. The original owner, Elmo Reinhart, has passed away and his son, Richard, has taken it over. It is still not open to the public. By special arrangement the Corvair Club will be able to tour the museum at 1:00 PM on Saturday the 10th of February. The museum is located at 29 Claremont Ave. NW. It is between Second Street and Broadway (SR 47 on the map) and is the third street south of Candelaria that goes east from Second Street. As we usually do, we'll meet for lunch before going to the museum. Those who want to join us for lunch, come to Milly's Sandwich Shop, 2100 Candelaria NE (it's EAST of the I-25 freeway near Princeton NE) at 12:00 noon. If you don't want lunch, go to the Triple-R Museum at 1:00 PM. There will be a one dollar per person charge to enter the museum. If you have any questions, call LeRoy at 294-0623. ===== WANTED OR FOR SALE FOR SALE: 1963 Monza Conv. $4500.00 Call Lee Olsen 316-525-6526 102-HP, Powerglide, new paint, motor runs great, no smoke. New brakes, new top, boot is white, red interior. 66,000 miles, a rust free Kansas car. You may have seen it at last summer's Tri-State in Albuquerque. $4500.00 Lee Olsen E-mail or call with questions: obros@ruraltel.net 316-525-6526 FOR SALE: 1965 Corsa Conv. $1500 Call Bill Reider 299-4597 Ground up restoration Have good 140 engine with new valve job. Rebuilt flywheel Extra front end, Org. needs rebuilding Extra top bows New top in box w/pads Inst. & Glove box panels powder coated Needs front seat FOR SALE: 1960 Monza coupe $800 Call Bill Reider 299-4597 Automatic, Radio, gas heater Ground up restoration Powder coated engine shrouding Full set of 60 Monza wheel covers Extra front & rear suspicion with less that 27000 miles Assembly & Shop Manuals for the 60 Corvair Extra gas heater parts FOR SALE: 1966-67 Corvair $1500 Call Bill Reider 299-4597 Automatic recently rebuilt. 110 engine with recent valve job. New black carpet needs to be installed. New black headliner needs to be installed. New black rear package area carpet needs to be installed New black dash pad White bucket seats in good shape, rear seats need recovering Dual master cylinder Needs battery Body straight ===== FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT Hurley Wilvert We have a really great event we are planning this year that is quite unusual. Thanks to Larry Blair we will be able to take a guided tour of the BIG I Project! It will include a walk through the insides of the overhead ramps you all have seen them erecting in recent months. It will be in March, but the details have not yet been confirmed. Keep your eyes on the web site for the particulars. They will be posted there as soon as Larry is able to confirm the date and time. I expect to know by the February meeting, so you could find out there. If you can't make the meeting and do not have access the web, give me a call. Events have been planned for the entire year. It looks like a good fun slate. They will be posted on the calendar there shortly. Last month's meeting was back at Galles Chevrolet in the newly remodeled meeting room. They did a really good job and the room is now much brighter. Thank you Joe, we know you had that done for us. This month, we will have Steve Gongora explain the workings of the web page. There are some features that I was not aware of that others of you may not be aware of either. He will explain all the features and field questions. We are also interested in how many of you have access to the web and how many use our site. Any comments would be appreciated. A decision has been made to change the location of our social hour after the meeting to the Route 66 Diner on Central Ave. It is just about 1 block east of Presbyterian Hospital on the north side of the street. They have terrific desserts there and they are large too. Last time we were there, Larry Blair could not finish the fruit cobbler that he ordered. Come on over after the meeting for some good camaraderie. We look forward to seeing you and my sweet tooth looks forward to the desserts. Progress on my 1968 Monza Coupe has been slow. Here in the East Mountains there has been lots of snow. That means that my kids have ski team practice every weekend at Sandia Peak. It's not hard for Brenda to get me to take them to practice and wait till it's over. Of course, I have to survey the runs to make sure they are safe for my kids. See you at the meeting. Hurley Wilvert - President ===== SEVEN YEARS AGO IN C.N.M. Jim Pittman February 1994 Volume 20 Number 2 The cover featured three 1965 Corsa convertibles. President Del presided. Treasurer Will reported that he had counted up $906.86 in the kitty. New member Steven Jay Pleau joined on 12/30/1992. Visitor Dan Motter showed us cast brass belt buckles he made; did we want to order Corvair buckles for the Tri-State? Several suggestions for our 1996 convention were brought up. Club merchandise included a second edition of Bill Reider's "Care and Feeding of Your Corvair" book. We planned to vote on whether the treasurer should be bonded. Plans for upcoming activities included a trip to Bosque del Apache, a garage tour, the Navy Band concert and a Twentieth Anniversary dinner; a list of other possible 1994 activities was included. Bill Reider reported on an article in the December 1993 OLD CARS which gave the Top Ten Reasons to own a Corvair! Plus the 11th reason: The Corvair is the only car ever certified "safe" by the U.S. government in tests conducted by the Department of Transportation. More technical articles included a discussion of CFC regulation (has to do with air conditioning and the phase-out of freon) and tips on removing a windshield without breaking it -- no easy task. FOURTEEN YEARS AGO The February 1987 cover congratulated Karen and Clayborne on the arrival of Allison on 01/26/1987. We had $866 to spend. We planned to visit Elmo Reinhardt's garage (is this the "Tool Museum" or some other place?) and hoped to visit Bobby Unser. Mark Morgan (a CNM founder, our first president and first newsletter editor) stopped by the meeting on his way through town. A story by Tom Martin described taking a brand-new 1961 Corvair on an antelope hunt; the car survived. Clayborne told us about installing a Chevy S-10 spoiler on his 1967 Monza sedan. It provided excellent stability in cross winds. TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO The February 1980 cover announced Ike Meissner's funeral. A moving tribute by Sylvan reminded us of Ike's character and achievements. As Ike said, "Blessed are those with the Corvair hobby for they shall be allowed to get dirty." Tech tips included: Joel said to use white vinegar to get vinyl cloudiness off the inside surfaces of glass; Francis told how to get the distributor rotor off without damaging the weight cover; Tom Silvan told about the danger of fire with too-liberal application of rustproofing or undercoating material too close to exhaust parts; Bob Welch said bad dash lights and instruments were often caused by a bad ground. ===== FALLEN FLAGS Mark Morgan For those of us who of us who have a deep and long-lasting interest and love for things automotive (okay, which one of you out there doesn't?) the news over the last year that the proud old Plymouth and Oldsmobile names were going by the boards had to rank as something of a shock. Yes, we're all primarily interested in Corvairs and both names were long synonymous with Detroit "business as usual," but I'd like to think we could take a couple of minutes to reflect on their passing. Oldsmobile was this country's oldest car manufacturer, dating to Ransom Eli Olds' formation of the Olds Motor Vehicle Company - Michigan's first - in Lansing on 21 August 1897. Olds actually started experimenting with self-propelled vehicles in 1886, developing steam and electrically-powered "cars" and his first gas-powered models featured a one-cylinder engine, two-speed transmission and a tiller for steering, but culminated in the 1901 production of the famous "Curved-Dash" Model R. Plymouth debuted in July 1928 as a four-cylinder lower-end model for the Chrysler Corporation; notably, that same month the company introduced the DeSoto and bought out the Dodge Brothers. By 1932, Plymouth was the third best-selling car in America. Over the years both companies made technological and performance advances while developing a strong following. In 1940 Olds introduced the Hydra-Matic, the first no kidding automatic transmission, followed by the release of the short-stroke overhead-valve "Rocket" V-8 in the late 1940s. Plymouth helped pioneer all-steel station wagons following World War II (alas, it meant the end of the Woody). Both were regular competitors in NASCAR - remember the "Superbird"? - and both happily participated in the muscle car era of the late '60s. In the end, however - and just as with our noble and well-loved Corvair - it came down to the bottom line. Both companies were losing money, market share and "brand identity" and both, perhaps, ended up with the image of "old peoples' car." While the Prowler undoubtedly brought more people into Chrysler-Plymouth showrooms, the rest of the lineup was unremarkable, consisting of badge-engineered sedans, compacts and mini-vans. The PT Cruiser was originally a Plymouth design but saw the light of day as a Chrysler; Chrysler will also continue to sell the Prowler, although what with the corporation's current financial distress and rumblings from Germany, it remains to be seen how long the little roadster will continue. As for Oldsmobile, I think they made great strides in the last few years, although the company took an inexplicable step back with the 2001 Aurora. Still, they lost their audience; at the time of GM's announcement Olds only sold about 300,000 cars per year and was at two percent market share. With profits rolling in to GM through Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, America's oldest car company was definitely expendable. Now, both companies join names such as Pope, Duryea, DeSoto, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard, and I think it's time to do some sort of commemoration of the four-wheel variety. You see, besides getting another Corvair and a British sports car (yes, Jim, I'll give you the chance to try to talk me out of that decision when the time comes), somewhere down the line I'd like to get an example of a 60's muscle car. Yup, you got it; how about a '68 Roadrunner or a '71 Olds 4-4-2? Actually, with the high cost of muscle cars these days, when the time comes I think I'll probably go with something a little sneakier. Say a '71 Plymouth Satellite wagon with a Road Runner hood, grill and 440, suspension upgrades, four-speed and buckets, or a '70 Olds Cutlass Vista-Cruiser wagon with a 4-4-2 hood, 455, four-speed, buckets and suspension upgrades. And an open line of credit with Conoco and Phillips 66, of course! Adios, Oldsmobile and Plymouth; it's been great knowing you. Mark Morgan -- Corvairs de Nuevo Mexico ==end==