You’re right about the heater. I had to save 1/2 the money for the car and my dad agreed to put up the other half (graduation gift). It was a used 61 convertible - he said I wasn’t going to get a foreign car or a convertible - ha!
Thing ended up being a bit of a lemon at first and then was a great car. Heater worked in the summer when it was 90 degrees, but not in the winter and the convertible top didn’t fit right in the front, so the snow would come in through the space. All in all, it was a really fun car!
Had a friend that had an old Corvair. Wouldn’t mind having either of those cars right now - fun times!
There were optional gas-fired heaters for both that worked, too well. Fire hazard, didn’t last long. The lack of decent heat wasn’t as big of a problem as the associated lack of an effective defroster in very cold weather. You can dress for cold and wear gloves to drive, but constantly having to scrape your frozen breath off of the inside of the windshield while driving is just not very workable.
Great cars, the both of them, though. I’d dearly love to have a nice second generation Corvair, just about all the challenges of a rear mounted air cooled engine were solved by that car, truly a poor man’s Porsche and more advanced in some ways than the Porsche of the same era. Beautiful example of Bill Mitchell era GM styling, too. Very influential.
Had a baby blue convertible Karma Ghia VW as my first car
Ended up selling it for more money then it cost me new. Oh the memories.