For Chris Shade, the Chevy Corvair is more than just a car or his business. That’s his family. I mean literally. Without Corvair, Shade’s family and life – would be a lot different.
He was first introduced to General Motors’ ill-fated car in the back in 1972 when his father bought his first car. That car remains with his family to this day.
Shade immediately fell in love with the car.
“I wrote about them in high school,” says Shade. “My senior year, my article was on Corvair Yenko.”
Shade started out as a music and band teacher, but then fell in love with the job and found a way to move on to something new. He says he’s an “all or nothing” type of person, so he decided to go it all in one car – combining his two loves: cars and his family. .
That’s when the first iteration of Shade .’s Classic Car was born about 19 years ago in 2003. By 2010, the Corvair beetle had made a strong comeback.
It all started with a phone call from a friend saying that there was a warehouse full of seven cars, a large stock of parts and 22 engines not far from where he grew up in Nebraska.
Then he began to join conventions and exchange encounters.
“I joined the conventions. My family and I have been to Corvair conferences around the country. It gave us the opportunity to travel a lot, sell some parts. And I took the car here and there. And the next thing you know, I sold it quickly and made some money,” said Shade. “And, I was like, dang. So I started looking for more Corvairs.”
Buying and selling isn’t all that Chris does. He also has quite a few auto restoration jobs sent to him from all over the country. In fact, as Chris and I talked, he was on his way to pick up a Corvair in Iowa.
By 2015, Chris said, he was “rolling over”. A large part of that has to do with the personal car Chris owns – the Corvair Yenko Stinger that he picks up as a “bucket of bolts”. Over the years, his team and family have restored it to a 98 point car. That’s when people really started paying attention to what he and his store were doing.
“I had a guy I talked to for several years at a conference who could never remember my name. Well, ironically, they remembered my name after that,” said Shade. “If you will, it has created a halo effect for our business. Because it’s like, oh, you have a Stinger. “
That was around 2017, and when Chris said the business was finally “out of the water”.
Momentum has only taken them further and further since then. 2020, with the world closed, was Shade’s Class Cars’ best sales year. They average around 42 vehicles per year, plus some general Corvair restoration and repair. In 2020, however, they have sold 56 Corvairs – a huge jump for such a small operation.
While Chris’ primary focus is on Corvair, he’s more than just a watcher. Visit his website and you’ll see a few examples of another General Motors oddball – the Pontiac Fiero.
“I’ve loved Fieros since the early ’90s. I’ve always liked them because they didn’t fit GM. And of course, you know, they’re Corvair’s closest siblings,” he said.
He thinks of them as a backup he wants to grow if Corvair’s business starts to falter, but luckily for him, he doesn’t have the time to develop the Fiero side of everything. rank; His Corvairs are selling well. He himself owns three Fieros, including a 1987 Fiero that he ripped off. Iron duke four cylinders. In its place is GM’s inimitable 3800 turbocharged V6.
For a GM fanatic, you might be surprised to know what else Chris has in his personal collection. Keywords: Japan. Some of the highlights of his collection include a FC Mazda RX-7, a 1991 twin-turbo Nissan 300ZX, a 1987 Toyota Supra Turbo, a 1995 Honda NSX and a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 . Not too bad.
Luckily for Chris, his wife, Stephanie, is in the same Corvairs as he is. Her passion for Corvairs is probably second only to his.
“We had many dates in Corvair. I proposed to Corvair. We had six Corvairs at our wedding. “Shade said. “They drove away with our wedding party.”
According to his mother-in-law, if Corvair had never existed, chances are the two wouldn’t have married.
The family’s love of cars goes far beyond just him and his wife. The two of them have eight children – three biological and five adopted and disabled, according to Chris. Quite a few of them play a big part in the store and have their own passion for cars.
“My oldest son with autism loves Corvairs. And he comes to my store every day, as long as he can be there after school, Shade said. ”
His son even has a Corvair of his own – a Lakewood Wagon they restored.
His 13-year-old son, Micah, has also become quite sly. Although he is just a teenager, he already has 3 cars of his own.
His eldest daughter, Corinne, 15, followed in her father’s footsteps. She has her own Corvair Greenbrier that they have fixed together as well as a bright yellow Fiero.
“My son 13 year old is coming down this summer to work for us. He would take apart parts of the cars for us, and would basically settle the debt for all the other cars he had that he owed me,” Chris said with a laugh.
What exactly happens when restoring a car that is nearly 60 years old? It’s a lot. That said, Shade’s Classic Cars has always been about affordability. The store does what Chris calls a “budget recovery.”
“The price of the car and the restoration will run you anywhere from $25 to $30,000,” says Chris.
And, while that’s not exactly a no-brainer, it’s a lot cheaper than a bakery remodel like it does on his Yenko Stinger. Something like that would easily break into six figures. Shade says their goal is to create “nice drivers”.
“We’re not trying to make a car with people waiting, because most of our customers want decent drivers,” he said.
In addition to the bodywork, they also work on the engine and other mechanical parts of the car, making sure they’re ready to go to their new owners, too.
“Like I tell people, they’re not perfect, they’re not new, and you’ll never be finished,” Shade said. “So we get them at a good point where we expect them to be key and reliable. But, as you know, if you are in recovery, you will never finish.
According to Chris, such a restoration will take about a year and a half on average. But, of course, if customers want something a little more upscale, they’ll accommodate. All it takes is time and money.
The shop’s bread and butter is a Rampside pickup. People end up using these trucks not only for their personal use, but also for their business. Because they look so unique, Rampside ends up being a good mascot for local businesses, according to Shade.
Economy is a big reason Rampside is so popular. It’s hard to overlook the fact that a relatively rare Rampside will be better value than a relatively common standard four-door Corvair. That means more room to restore the Ramp.
Chris travels the country looking for good examples of these trucks, which can certainly be hard to find.
“Most of them are pretty rusty,” said Chris. “They’re a cheap General Motors product that nobody thought of until about 10 years ago.”
The company’s slogan is “Buy a car, make friends”. Buyers often come to each step in the recovery process. It’s a real collaborative effort.
Why Corvair? What made it so special that this man would make his whole life revolve around it? After all, the Corvair is, for the most part, a fairly loyal family car with a not-so-big claim to fame: Not safe at all speeds. However, Chris doesn’t put much stock in Ralph Nader’s infamous book
For Chris, what excites him most about the Corvair are the design innovations that set it apart from everything else in the early 1960s.
Turbochargers, unibody construction and independent suspension were all revolutionary when General Motors, at the height of their power, tried them out in the early 1960s, even if they seemed rather boring by standards. standard today. Corvairs’ historic impact goes far beyond what most people know about this car.
“History is important in every aspect of life,” says Shade. “And that includes automotive history.”
