When Rusty Rose decided to undertake his first total restoration of a Corvair, he thought he'd like to retain a basically stock appearance, but with some custom touches to equip the car for its intended uses; some cruising, the occasional car show and lots of autocross racing. The result was a Spyder with a twist.

The car was completely disassembled and blasted, new metal was welded in where it was needed and most of the body work was done before the car was turned over to custom hot rod builder, Ricky Roach of Mt. Pleasant, Texas, for new paint. Rusty selected a non-stock color, GM Medium Garnet Red, as seen in the picture at right, taken during time trials at Blackhawk Farms Raceway.

All mechanical subassemblies—the transaxle, suspension, and brake systems—were rebuilt and reinstalled.

The interior was gutted and redone. The faceplate over the Spyder gauges was polished and a late model sport steering was installed. Rusty also fitted a new dash pad, a quick shifter and a modern Polk Audio component stereo system with a 6-disc CD player, which he mounted under the driver's seat. A 4" speaker in the stock location in the dash is augmented by two very small tweeter elements mounted high on the 'A' pillars, near the sun visors. Concealed in the rear are a pair of 3-way 6 x 9" Pioneer speakers (visible only with the rear seat folded down) and a Bazooka tube style sub-woofer with built in 100 watt amplifier.

Rusty enlisted the help of fellow NTCA member, Mike Dobie, and well known Corvair cylinder head specialist, Louis Pinard of Bossier City, Louisiana, to help him build the tricked up late model 140 hp engine that now powers the once turbo-charged Spyder.

Below, the '64 sits on a set of restored 14 x 6" Fitch Sprint wheels and rides on Yokohama P205/60R14 tires. The combination has an overall diameter very close to stock.

The Spyder had a great day in Concours competition, scoring Gold and being elevated to CORSA Senior Division status after earning 94.37 points in the Modified, Early Closed class. Congratulations, Russ.