Ken was accompanied to the Holyfield mansion by his good pal, Chuck Armer, who is responsible for most of the great photographs in this feature. Chuck related how the photo shoot appeared to slightly annoy the mansion guard, who, I remarked, was probably wondering what was really going on. Maybe this "photo shoot" was just a diversion created to cover the guys going over the back fence to clean out the trophy room. Not!

Ken's Rampside was first shown in late February, 1999, at the West Florida Corvair Club's Corvair Lover's Holiday. It came away from the event with a trophy for Best Modified Corvair. In its national debut at the Daytona CORSA Convention in 2000, it earned a Gold award in Concours d'Elegance competition and was promoted to CORSA's elite Senior Division.

For the benefit of anyone who might be interested in emulating his work, Ken notes he had to make one further modification to the truck: installing an engine driven fan in lieu of the electric one to keep the engine temp in a safe zone. He found that at speeds under 55 mph, the cooling air flow was fine, but at Interstate cruising speeds, the air flow over the back of the cab would start pushing against the incoming airflow through the radiator, causing the temp to continue rising. He could turn on the electric fan to improve flow and the temp would drop about 5 degrees. Installing the engine driven viscous fan corrected all cooling problems.

I hope you've enjoyed having a look at what can be done with a weathered and well worn antique Corvair. Granted, it takes talent, time, effort and money to achieve results like this, but it's good to see yet another Corvair saved from the crusher and ready to wow 'em in the streets.

Congratulations, Ken. Great job!

Thanks to Chuck Armer for suggesting this feature and for sending me all photographs at his own expense. If you haven't yet seen it, check out the feature on his two late model Corvairs, Darth 'Vair and Madeira, in the X-tra! section.

Thanks as well to Ken Arnold for his assistance in preparing the text and for the "early" photos.