Just a Car but Worth Saving.(NEWS)

Byline: Kevin A. Wilson

Any collector can tell you that the most treasured cars are valued because they're not ordinary. The focus is on Hemi "Cuda convertibles or Studebaker Avantis, not the standard go-to-market cars of their make or era.

And so it was that friends of the Automotive Heritage Museum in Ypsilanti, Mich., backers of the annual Orphan Car Show, grew perhaps outsized expectations when Zymol's affable Chuck Bennett offered to donate a 1961 Chevrolet Corvair to the cause. Because Corvairs were assembled nearby at Willow Run, the museum is home to the national Corsa Club collection. The idea was that what soon became known as the Zymol Corvair could be added to this collection oralways more likelysold to help support operations. Raffled, maybe.

It's not as if anyone expected a convertible with the turbo engine and all of the best toys, but a nice red Monza coupe came to mind. What came off the truck was something else. It was a sedan, a midrange 700 model (one below the Monza, one above the base 500) that was complete and solid but looked tired. An utterly ordinary car, it had oxidized red paint and just enough bruises to keep it off the show field. Its one distinguishing mechanical feature was the automatic transmission; a two-speed PowerGlide puts a crimp in the fun factor.

Ah, well, museums preserve history, and cars like that played a bigger role in daily life than all of the Fitch Sprints and Yenko Stingers combined.

After the museum's Corvair expert, Cecil Rollins, dressed it up a little, I took it for a drive and shot the accompanying photo. Doesn't look like something you'd ...