This is why there’s a Chevy Corvair lying in the middle of the jungle

A rusting and rotting Chevrolet Corvair lies abandoned in the middle of a jungle in Panama, with no roads anywhere in sight. 

The Darién Gap is a stretch of land that connects South America to North America – covering around 10,000 square miles between Panama and Colombia. 

It is also the final resting place of a 1961 Chevy Corvair.

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The Chevrolet Corvair was once a popular car

Released in 1960, the Corvair was a compact car with an interesting difference – rather than having its engine up front, like its contemporaries, its Chevrolet Turbo-Air 6 engine was mounted at the back. 

The car was produced between 1960 and 1969, with around 1.8 million units created during that time. 

One such vehicle found itself in the Darién Gap where it remains to this day – but with no roads around how on Earth did it get there?

Well, it all started as a bit of a publicity stunt to show off the cars, with the hopes of creating a couple of promotional videos.

A bold expedition that didn’t end well for the cars involved

In 1961, a team of three ‘61 Corvairs and several support vehicles set off from Panama attempting to reach the Colombian border. 

However, one look at Corvair could probably tell you that the whole thing wasn’t going to be easy. 

While pretty robust vehicles, the Corvairs aren’t really a match for the rough and inhospitable terrain you’d find in a jungle. 

Making the feat all the more difficult, is the fact that the cars were mostly unchanged before being sent off to Panama. 

The three Corvairs were given tow hooks, for recoveries, and skid plates but were otherwise exactly as they came off the production line – they even appeared to have the original street tires. 

Sponsored by Chicago Chevrolet dealer Dick Doane Chevrolet and the Chevrolet division of General Motors, the expedition saw the trio of Covairs traveling through 70 miles of mud and dense foliage, without a single road or bridge in sight. 

The whole thing was recorded by filmmakers as well as documented in a couple of articles in Automobile Quarterly, and Road & Track.

The team was forced to cut through vegetation and at one point even had to make rafts to float the cars across the rivers they encountered. 

During the journey they lost two of their support vehicles and by the time they arrived at the border four months later, only two of the Chevys made it. 

According to reports, the team had ‘miscalculated’ the amount of gas the vehicles would need, meaning they had to leave one of the Covairs behind – where it still remains today.

Probably best to leave the off-roading to off-roaders, isn’t it?

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