In 1961, Chevrolet took on the popular VW microbus and created a utilitarian minibus vehicle of their very own. The result was a better VW van than Volkswagen ever thought about. GM called it the Corvair Greenbrier and it was the rear engine, rear wheel drive van that everyone had been dreaming of.

Advertised by GM as the most versatile van in the world, able to fill the role for family use, business or pleasure. The Corvair vans were in fact, designed to compete with the VW transporter and microbus vehicles. From GM research, consumers that bought VW products wanted the interior volume with a smaller outside area for economy and handling in traffic. VW owners complained about lack of power and no option for an automatic transmission. Add to that the small load rating and Chevrolet had a target to shoot for.

1964 Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier Sportswagon. Photos from wikipedia.org

Chevrolet responded with the Greenbrier van in either the 6-door or 8-door van body style in 1961. Going directly at the VW microbus, Chevrolet used the rear engine, rear wheel drive layout on the GM Y-body platform. Equipped with either the 2.4L Turbo-Air H6 or 2.7L Turbo-Air H6 engines this gave the vans 80-110 horsepower depending on the engine.

Transmission options included the 2-speed Corvair Powerglide automatic, a 3-speed manual or the 4-speed manual transmission. The Greenbrier Sportswagon was available with a limited range of the Corvair car colors for that year, all with a white accent stripe.

In 1965 Chevrolet abandoned the rear engine vans in favor of the front-wheel drive water cooled engines. The Greenbrier vans were considered a marginal success at the time but their design began an evolution of passenger vans that finally evolved into the 7-8 passenger vans that became so successful in the 1980s.