The lost Corvair of the Darien

[69LM1]

While reading up on the Pan American Highway (a highway that supposedly runs from Alaska, thru Canada all the way down to the tip of South America), I saw that there is a approximately 60 mile stretch that was never completed and known as the "Darien Gap". The darien gap is 60 miles of swampy forest separating Panama and Columbia. So of course, I had to look that up and came across this obscure article about a team of 3 red corvairs Sponsored by Dick Doane Chevrolet in Chicago who attempted to cross the darien gap.

One didn't make it, and amazingly enough, the other two did.



The one that didn't make it and was abandoned in the Darien Gap, between Panama and Columbia is still there in the Jungle.

Barn Find?

While many governments have debated uniting the 48,000-kilometer long Pan-American Highway and which evaporates in the Darien “Gap” between Yaviza (Panama) and Apartadó (Colombia), in 1961 a team of three red corvairs left Chicago to drive to the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Sponsored by Dick Doane Chevrolet (a Chicago Chevrolet dealer) these hardly-jungle tested cars attempted to cross the impassable. From the Panamanian capital they headed several hours south until the pebble road ended abruptly at the muddy riverbanks of the Yaviza. The drivers – once their cars were placed on wooden riverboats, began the tedious task of clearing thick rainforest, meter upon meter, slashing away with machetes at the Darién’s thick vegetation to create tracks and traction in the jungle.

http://thecitypaperbogota.com/travel...t-corvair/1429

Just a cool story of when men had the grit to try anything.






Another article here:

https://bestride.com/news/the-wages-...the-darien-gap

(however this is a GM promo and does not mention the corvair "lost" to the Jungle)

Crossing the Darien in a modern Land Rover is an achievement. Crossing it in 1961 in an air-cooled sedan on 14-inch bias ply whitewalls is something that you only do on a bet accepted at a particularly seedy bar. “The steeper the grade, the greater the payoff,” the narrator intones, as the Corvair sedan hits approach angles that would have a Wrangler driver nervous.

3rd article here:

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...wo-cars-leave/

It took months, but eventually the men and two of the Corvairs emerged from the southern edge of the gap. With the worst firmly behind them, the remaining cars began the long run to Argentina where they were eventually filmed zooming triumphantly about Buenos Aires. The trip completed, the men packed up their cameras and film and left the cars there. What became of them, no one knows.

While the two cars that finished the trip have vanished into history, the other Corvair remains to this day in the jungle of the Darien Gap. It is, they say, near a place called the Palo de Letras, the “tree of letters,” an immense, ancient mahogany upon which the few travelers who have managed to reach it have, over the years, carved their initials to memorialize their passage.

/R

[YenkoYS-199Stinger]

There was a film crew that documented it all. The Houston club had the GM film on it years ago. If I remember correctly it was about 45 minutes. It is really an interesting film to watch if you can find it

[Kurt S]

Um, just click on the youtube links and watch it.

Interesting. One of the few cars you could do that with back then. Wonder how much the trucks broke trail.
And wonder what happened that made them leave the third car.

[L72copocamaro]

"which the few travelers who have managed to reach it have, over the years, carved their initials to memorialize their passage".

Looks like they also took some souvenir parts back with them too.