1966 Chevrolet Corvair Yenko Stinger: Rare And Cool

 

Summary

Yenko’s road-racing experiment: Long before his famous Camaro, Nova, and Chevelle drag cars, Don Yenko was focused on road-course racing and looking for a lighter alternative to the increasingly heavy Corvette.

Enter the Corvair Corsa: Weighing roughly 500 pounds less than a Corvette, the rear-engine Corvair Corsa gave Yenko the lightweight platform he needed to build a serious competition car.

A major performance makeover: Yenko added forged pistons, ported heads, a high-performance distributor, lightweight flywheel, limited-slip differential, quicker steering, upgraded suspension and brakes, an oil cooler, and other racing hardware.

Built for the SCCA: To qualify for SCCA competition, Yenko needed to produce at least 100 road-legal Stingers and paint them in the required American racing colors of white and blue.

A race against the clock: With the 1966 racing season approaching and only about a month to meet the production requirement, Yenko and his crew worked seven days a week through December to finish the cars in time.

Four levels of power: Every Stinger used a 165-cubic-inch (2.7-liter) flat-six with four carburetors, but buyers could choose from approximately 160, 190, 220, or 240 horsepower, allowing the car to compete in different racing classes.

Serious chassis upgrades: The Stinger wasn’t just about horsepower. Yenko improved the brakes, suspension, steering, gearing, and weight distribution while removing the rear seats to help meet sports-car regulations and reduce weight.

A very different Yenko: Unlike the big-block muscle cars Yenko became famous for, the Stinger was a lightweight, rear-engine road racer designed to attack corners rather than simply dominate the drag strip.

The Corvair safety debate: The Stinger’s rear-engine layout even proved beneficial in one memorable crash involving Yenko’s daughter, who credited the car’s design with helping protect her during a collision.

Bottom line: The 1966 Yenko Stinger was Don Yenko’s early masterpiece—a lightweight, highly modified Corvair that transformed an unconventional compact into a legitimate SCCA road-racing weapon and helped establish Yenko’s reputation long before his legendary muscle cars.

Everyone should know about the iconic late-'60s and early-'70s Yenko drag cars that dominated the tracks—Camaro, Nova, and Chevelle. But would you be alarmed to know that Don Yenko was working his high-performance magic long before those muscle cars came along?

Don Yenko had his eyes on a different type of racing before he built his horsepower-heavy drag cars. From the late '50s to the mid-'60s, he was into road-course racing. He first raced Corvettes professionally, but he was getting beaten pretty consistently by the Shelbys. Don realized the reason was simple: the Corvettes had become just too heavy to compete.

Enter The Corvair Corsa

The Corvair Corsa weighed 500 pounds less than the Corvette, making it a very viable candidate for some of Yenko's genius power upgrades. So in true Don Yenko fashion, he went to the drawing board and came up with the blueprint needed to retrieve the success he was looking for. 

The Corvair Corsa weighed 500 pounds less than the Corvette, making it a very viable candidate for some of Yenko's genius power upgrades. So, in true Don Yenko fashion, he went to the drawing board and came up with the blueprint needed to get the success he was looking for.

Yenko Upgrades for the Corvair

• Forged Pistons
• Ported Cylinder Heads
• High-Performance Distributor
• Stiffer Suspension
• Cadillac Dual Master Cylinders for Brakes
• Lightweight Flywheel
• Four-Speed Manual
• Limited-Slip Differential (3.89 Rear Gears)
• Added Oil Cooler
• Quicker Steering Ratio
• Removed Rear Seats (making it eligible to be labeled a sports car and saving weight)
• Front Spoiler
• Rear Fiberglass Engine Cover w/Spoiler
• Aftermarket Steering Wheel

Time To Get In Sync With SCCA Regulations 

It turns out that the SCCA didn't have too much of a problem with the new Corvair race car entering competition. Instead of giving Don Yenko a hard time, the SCCA's two biggest requests for giving the car SCCA homologation (stamp of approval) were to have at least 100 road-capable Yenko Stingers produced and to have the car painted white and blue.

White and blue were the American colors used to identify American cars on the race course, as every country had its own color codes to follow.

Needing to have all 100 cars completed by January 1, 1966, to compete in the 1966 season—and already being in late November—gave Don just one month to complete the project. Don and his men worked long hours, seven days a week, all through December, with one exception: Christmas.

Despite the grips and grinds of the overworked workers, they proudly finished the quota in time.

Four Separate Power Levels

All Stingers came with a 165-cu.-in. (2.7-liter) flat-six engine setup with four carburetors that offered four different Yenko power options. The base Yenko option came with roughly 160 horsepower. From there, it went up a level to 190 horsepower, then leveled up to 220 horsepower, and, for the big dog of them all, you could get one with 240 horsepower.

The different options were mainly so the Yenko Stinger could qualify to race in all road-course classes.

Interesting Fact 

Yenko's daughter received a Stinger to drive when she first got her driver's license. Two weeks into driving, she had an unfortunate accident that sent her headfirst into a utility pole.

Because the engine was in the rear and the spare tire was in the front trunk, the Corvair basically bounced off the pole instead of crushing the front end and sending the engine into the front seat.

For a car that has been dubbed "unsafe at all speeds," Yenko's daughter calls it the car that is "safe at all speeds."