A conventional, and thus unconventional, Corvair

Grilles added to the face of this 1960 Corvair have a functional purpose.

   THE CORVAIR owner smiled as he saw me crossing the airport parking lot with camera in hand.

   "¿Petróleo o gasolina?" I asked, my usual opener, though fully expecting the answer to be gasoline. I don't know of any diesel powerplant that could be an easy substitute for the Corvair's rear-mounted, flat-six gas engine.

   But the owner replied, "Diésel, Toyota," his smile broadening as he watched my expressions of surprise and then, realization. I pointed to the front of the car and he nodded.

   Could I see? Obligingly, he lifted the hood to reveal the four-cylinder Toyota oil-burner nestled in the former luggage compartment as if Ed Cole and Eiji Toyoda had intended it to be there.

Inside the one-time luggage compartment, a diesel four-cylinder.

   Chevrolet built the Corvair from 1960 until 1969. This, almost certainly, is a 1960 model, one of the last American cars to reach Cuba before the supply was cut off (initially for reasons as much economic as political).
   It was a radical design, and not just for the aircooled rear engine that would have seemed more at home in a Volkswagen or Porsche than a Chevrolet. It had unibody construction and fully independent suspension – again, rarities for an American car – and its ungarnished, all-of-a-piece styling stood in elegant contrast to the fins and chrome of its domestic competitors.

Toyota donor car also provided dash, steering column and other parts.

    I didn't need to ask my new friend why he, or someone, had put so much effort into a project that would have required countless changes – the fabrication of a transmission tunnel just one of them – to accommodate the new drivetrain. With private ownership largely restricted to pre-Revolution vehicles until as recently as 2011, this was a way to keep an old car on the road with the benefits of more modern components and, especially, a cheaper-to-run diesel engine.
   But I wish we could have gone for a ride – a brisk one! – so I could gauge the effect of the changes on the Corvair's Nader-notorious handling (never so bad as the safety advocate claimed, but frisky all the same).
   He, unfortunately, had a passenger to collect, and I had a plane to catch. So I took a last look at this unconventionally conventional Corvair and we shook hands and parted, both of us smiling.

Vents once helped cool a horizontally opposed six-cylinder gas engine.

See also:

Contrary Compact: The Life and Death of the Chevrolet Corvair: Aaron Severson offers the definitive history of 'one of the most daring cars GM has ever built.'