I understood the Yenko to be Corvair powered, so that was almost sad to see a front engine V8. The Lakewood was a total surprise, that had to have a custom frame to put a V8 in it, and I expected to see it in back...surprised to see it too was up front. Not my idea of a V8 swap, but to each their own. The Crown (and arguably Kelmark, but I find much less info on these) conversions were engineered to create a balanced, mid-engine layout comparable in many ways to the old Auto Union racers and developed over time by the likes of Lamborghini and Ferrari. There is a certain performance benefit to such a balanced layout. Anyone (with enough money) can cram a V8 into any car, but the engineering is lost by putting that much weight on the front of a car designed to have that weight in back.

I've seen 350 Chevys crammed into Porsche 914s, and again I can't help but think WHY? It's the same thing in reverse. Sure, you get the added horsepower, but you lose the engineered balance that makes them handle so well.

The Crown Corvair is a poor man's Ferrari, a home built road car. There is a certain finesse behind the reasoning.

i recall seeing a video that showed the Yanko that Jay Leno owns.

Thanks for posting this, Pegers. These are a couple of beautifully built, well-engineered hot rods. But I have trouble calling them Corvairs anymore. Chevrolet Division did in fact build their own front-engined, V-8 powered Corvair in-house starting in 1967... They called it the CAMARO! I agree with the comment above about the Crown and Kelmark mid-mounted V-8 conversions for the late-model Corvair. I've driven one and it was a blast! I never expected a home-built (OK, from a kit) car to be so well balanced. Some day, If I come across a decent donor car (rusty floors but an otherwise solid body), I'd love to build my own. Well... I'd have to come across the money to do it right and, of course, a place to build the darn thing, too! So, to my way of thinking, these two cars in the video are a couple of well engineered hot rods masquerading as Corvairs, wearing Corvair bodywork. They're just not Corvairs anymore.

YW,i am glad you enjoyed them