Jim Turner’s life has taken him around the world, but these days he is happiest in his quiet corner of Hopkinton with his two Chevrolet Corvairs tucked safely away in his garage.
After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, Jim Turner was discharged from the Air Force in the early 1950s and returned to New Hampshire. Turner, who grew up in Manchester and graduated from Manchester West High School, bought a farm in East Concord to raise cattle and later began working at the Rumford Press, where he stayed for 27 years until its closing in 1983. Turner moved to Hopkinton and retired a few years after the press closed.
Turner, who will turn 100 years old on Oct. 6, found a new passion in retirement when a hot red Corvair caught his eye at an auto auction in Owl Head, Maine. He bought it for $2,500 and eventually added two more to his growing fleet, a red convertible with a white top and a jewel-blue Lakewood.
“Three’s my limit,” Turner said Thursday afternoon.
He sold his first Corvair but held on to the convertible – which he bought from a fellow New Hampshire Corvair Club member – and the Lakewood.
The Corvair – a portmanteau of Corvette and Bel-Air – is a rare find for car collectors because they were produced for only 10 years, with model years running from 1960 to 1969. Chevrolet built about 1.7 million Corvairs but handling issues damaged the car’s reputation for safety and eventually led to a cease in production.
The Lakewood owned by Turner – known to his friends in car collecting circles as “Gentleman Jim” – is one of about 32,000 that were made in the two years it was produced from 1961 to 1963. Turner’s Lakewood is a 1961 model that he bought from a man in Rochester in 2000.
The Lakewood tends to draw the most interest when Turner would bring it to events around the state and region.
“When I go to car shows a lot of people have never seen a Lakewood,” he said.
Turner has collected dozens of trophies from car shows over the years. The Lakewood won first prize at the 29th Annual New England Spring Dust-Off in Hopkinton in May. He took second place at events in Sunapee and Concord earlier this year as well.
The Lakewood is Turner’s favorite of the Corvairs he has owned because it is rare, but the sporty red convertible that sits next to it in his driveway has a different kind of appeal.
“That’s for the younger stock,” he chuckles.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3321 or at nstoico@cmonitor.com.)