Doug Arnold has two folders with photos of his unique 1969 Corvair convertible. Click HERE to scroll down to open Doug's photo folders

Why is Doug's Corvair so special?  Here's why....

Doug Arnold writes, "I bought this beauty in 2021 right here in West Michigan! It is one of four cars that were special painted at Willow Run in 1969. The color is Hugger Orange."

The following comments are from David Newell and Don Keefe:

While special paint cars are fairly rare, there have been several Corvairs built over the years with special paint.  Some factory showcars will be built in primer and painted after the fact or came through with a non-stock color.  Sometimes, like your original owner, just wanted a color not normally available.

The primary purpose for special order colors was to make them available to fleet customers and thus their use was far more common with Chevy and Corvair trucks. For retail car orders the practice wasn't encouraged. Some high volume Chevy dealers with a favorable Zone Office connection would occasionally order cars in special colors for retail sale. This gave them an unfair advantage over other dealers and was generally frowned upon. And of course the Zone Office was willing to handle special order colors for VIPs.

As Don astutely mentioned, the paint code area on the car's Fisher Body plate would sometimes be blank or stamped "SPEC", depending on the year, plant and who was in charge.

In 1969, a special order color could be had for $33.75 and would show on the window sticker as 1001HA Special Paint. The charge paid manly for cleaning out the paint system.

In the Spring of 1969, Chevy introduced three new colors for some SS models which could be easily ordered: Rallye Green was available only on Camaros; Daytona Yellow and Hugger Orange could be had on certain Camaro and Chevelle models and was available on any Corvette. Hugger Orange was by far the most popular, so some Corvair buyers naturally wanted it on their Corvair.

In our 1969 Corvair history and data book, "1969 Corvair Finger-Tip Facts", the late Mark Ellis and I included a separate roster book which listed all known '69 Vairs, including their VINs, colors, options, owners and locations. Although Chevrolet's paint color production figures show zero Corvairs painted in Hugger Orange or Daytona Yellow, we were able to document five cars that were ordered with special colors:

Serial #3323, a Monza Coupe painted an unspecified GM Brown color; #3625 a Monza Coupe painted in a Buick Gold; #3980 a Daytona Yellow Monza Coupe; #3988, a Hugger Orange Convertible; and #4729, another Hugger Orange Convert. Also, #5592 was a Hugger Orange Coupe but it was reported to Mark that it was a factory Olympic Gold Monza that had had been repainted Hugger Orange for the customer by the selling dealer.