Herb Berkman's Yenko Stinger YS-317

Herb had the stock Corvair folding rear seat reupholstered to match the buckets, but chose not to install it. Instead, the rear seat area provides Yenko Street Stinger style storage of the spare tire. This arrangement eliminates the weight of the seat, and moves the weight of the spare forward from it's stock location in the engine compartment, contributing to a slightly more favorable front/rear weight ratio.

Note the T-handle used to control the deck lid's air doors.

Rear seat area, spare tire and control for air doors

We'll take a closer look at the control system for the air doors a little later in the feature.

At right, a seldom seen view of the inside of the Yenko sail panels, which are lined with black felt. Note the clips that mount the panels to the bodywork.

There's no doubt Herb thoroughly planned his interior and put many hours into building it with great care and outstanding attention-to-detail. His hard work resulted in a cockpit that provides all the functionality needed to compete in autocross, and well as the creature comforts necessary to make cross-country travel or a Saturday night cruise down the boulevard a sheer pleasure.

Yenko sail panels (interior view)

Preparing photographs for the Internet always involves a degree of compromise. Compression technology used when converting pictures to digital format generally degrades image quality. You can imagine that if the paint on Herb's Stinger looks this good in spite of some processing artifacts, it must be a mind-blower "in the flesh." While there are many subtle differences from the stock '65 Corsa configuration, Herb's done an excellent job of making everything work, with nothing detracting from the original design.

Yenko Stinger YS-317