In the letter to the San Francisco Examiner of August 4th 1969 the Zodiac Killer introduces himself.
In a sickening description of his murders, he, on the second page, begins to reference his car.
The Zodiac Killer says, "I drove away quite slowly so as not to draw attention to my car."
Also, "The man who told police that my car was brown, was a negro" Actually it was Mike Mageau.
"The damn phone began to ring, and that drew attention to me and my car."
Those are lot of possessive descriptions of him and his car, which by the way Zodiac says was brown.
Now did the police check and see through the DMV, who owned Corvairs in California in 1969?
Mike Mageau says the car was like the one Dee owned, a 1963 Corvair, except a lighter color brown, he noticed the rear end,
as he lay on the ground shot that night, watching the Zodiac Killer drive away.

Michael Mageau said it was "similar to or the same type".

Could be a Corvair, or a similar car. To say it WAS a Corvair could simply be wrong.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR9.html

I was thinking that folks might post a vehicle similar to a Corvair since last weekend when I posted above.
The thing about the Corvairs that I remember is that they have air vents in the back of them, unlike any other car I can recall.
And did law enforcement bother to check DMV for Corvair owners?
Mike Mageau says twice in the police reports, the killer’s car was similar to "the shape of the car Dee drove"
and "this rear part appearing similar to Dee’s car." A 1963 Corvair. Pretty distinctive.

I imagine that Michael was referring to the shape of the rear of the vehicle and not the vents in particular. You are right there were not many cars that had the vents in the rear like that because the Corvair is a rear engine vehicle and there were very few American made rear engine vehicles. The Tucker48 was an American made rear engine vehicle but since there were only 51 made, it’s doubtful it was one of those.

I think that the early ’60’s Ford Falcons were similar in size and shape to the Corvairs and they were big sellers, plenty of them on the road.

What does the rear view look like on the Ford Falcon? My girlfriend’s mother had a red one, she would drive us around in it, in the Sacramento heat.
I remember the two large round tail lights.

Here’s pix of both. Not sure if all four of the round things are lights on the Corvair. It almost looks like the two inner ones are chrome.

This is where we miss BENTLEY, our car expert. I think it was also described as a mustang possibly, or a cross between mustand and corvair,I think both back then were similar

This is where we miss BENTLEY, our car expert. I think it was also described as a mustang possibly, or a cross between mustand and corvair,I think both back then were similar

Totally miss Bentley’s help & energy!!!

the corvair was unique enuff back then that it would be easily identified buy any car nut male kid or any male with even a veiled interest in autos (ok include some ladies as well)..I had a 70 Boss Mustang as a kid and corvairs were still running around in the late 70’s (classmate drove 1 to school everyday)..what we must consider ( well at least I do) is the physical state of MM at the time of suffering severe body trauma and that can raise doubt in my mind as to what car Z used..also i do believe MM and DF smoked pot that night and that in my mind really must be considered in any testimony of MM concerning what happened and what he saw just prior and after..tuff call as far as how much can be trusted from MM..in the end MM was there and I (or we) was/were not so we must consider what he says until it is disproven ..MM even picked out ALA years later in a photo lineup and that has confounded me for years why the police did not show MM a photo lineup soon after he was in sound mind…
Consider its dark, MM/DF may have consumed alcohol and had a bong or 2 and your shot..yea MM could have seen a ford falcon, plymouth valient or even the small studabaker/rambler and may be even a small euro import and not a corvair, these in my mind are fairly close considering the time and other factors and MM could be wrong (truth is reading his statements i feel he does not really know)…
.
my best guess out of any corvair would be the 2 door (popular and being california may be a convertible) and probably a 65 model if you think Z was unemployed and younger (may be a college student)..reason is back then at 60K miles cars were traded off and gone..dad never kept a car back then with over 60K due to problems with repair and cost associated with repair..at 60K miles the typical car back then was a complete rust bucket as well..i dont know but i am of the belief what car Z used might as well be filed in the nice to know but will never be known

ps: if Z was female hands down the beetle..the women in my area back in the day loved them..lots of bugs on my street back in 71 (and i was concerned with tonka toys then but my close buds had a mom who drove a beetle-i remember a lot of yellow ones)

the corvair was unique enuff back then that it would be easily identified buy any car nut male kid or any male with even a veiled interest in autos (ok include some ladies as well)..I had a 70 Boss Mustang as a kid and corvairs were still running around in the late 70’s (classmate drove 1 to school everyday)..what we must consider ( well at least I do) is the physical state of MM at the time of suffering severe body trauma and that can raise doubt in my mind as to what car Z used..also i do believe MM and DF smoked pot that night and that in my mind really must be considered in any testimony of MM concerning what happened and what he saw just prior and after..tuff call as far as how much can be trusted from MM..in the end MM was there and I (or we) was/were not so we must consider what he says until it is disproven ..MM even picked out ALA years later in a photo lineup and that has confounded me for years why the police did not show MM a photo lineup soon after he was in sound mind…
Consider its dark, MM/DF may have consumed alcohol and had a bong or 2 and your shot..yea MM could have seen a ford falcon, plymouth valient or even the small studabaker/rambler and may be even a small euro import and not a corvair, these in my mind are fairly close considering the time and other factors and MM could be wrong (truth is reading his statements i feel he does not really know)…
.
my best guess out of any corvair would be the 2 door (popular and being california may be a convertible) and probably a 65 model if you think Z was unemployed and younger (may be a college student)..reason is back then at 60K miles cars were traded off and gone..dad never kept a car back then with over 60K due to problems with repair and cost associated with repair..at 60K miles the typical car back then was a complete rust bucket as well..i dont know but i am of the belief what car Z used might as well be filed in the nice to know but will never be known

ps: if Z was female hands down the beetle..the women in my area back in the day loved them..lots of bugs on my street back in 71 (and i was concerned with tonka toys then but my close buds had a mom who drove a beetle-i remember a lot of yellow ones)

It would be amazing if MM, after being shot multiple times, would have enough wits about him to truly compare the "unique" features of a car speeding away in the middle of the night. I agree, I just don’t see how anyone can come to any conclusions about what car Z drove that night…certainly not enough to include/exclude suspects.

And so then what is James Owens’ excuse for not being able to tell us anything at all about the car he saw that night.
I wonder if the police asked him if the car he saw might look like a Corvair. I wonder why they didn’t hypnotize Mike
for the CA license plate numbers. It is four little tail lights on the back of the Corvair. Mike said the killer’s car looked
like the car Dee was driving. Perhaps a 19 year old kid from Vallejo Ca was ignorant of cars, but I highly doubt it.
And then we get a letter from the killer talking about my car, my brown car, me and my car. It seems like it would
have been an obvious lead to follow. How many white males in California owned brown Corvairs in 1969? Is there any
way on earth to get those old records? Does anyone have a picture of their suspect standing next to his car, which is
brownish and looks like Corvair?

Zodiac confirming his car was brown makes me think it wasn’t. Why mention it at all? "yah, yah…my car was brown".

The flashlight wasn’t always in Mike’s eyes. He did get a look. What he wasn’t sure about, he said so.

So many cars looked similar back then. If Mike KNEW it was a Corvair, he would have said so. He simply wasn’t sure.

I suggest you all go back and carefully read the police reports from Blue Rock Springs.
You need to reference when Mike was interviewed and what exactly he did say, during more than one questioning, soon after the attack.

I suggest you all go back and carefully read the police reports from Blue Rock Springs.
You need to reference when Mike was interviewed and what exactly he did say, during more than one questioning, soon after the attack.

I have read those reports more times than I care to count. I put a link to the report which shows exactly what Michael stated in one of my previous posts, but will provide it again.

Color: "Very similar color, possibly a little bit lighter brown".
http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR9.html

"Similar"…."Possibly"…

Some things Mike knew spot on. Some things he wasn’t 100%, hence those choice of words.

And on the page before the link above, he flat out says he could not tell what the color was:

"…as best as he can recall, he could not see the car too clearly, however the shape of the car looked similar to the car Dea owns, a Corvair. He could not see the color or anything as it was very dark out there".
http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR8.html

Back to my point. We cannot say with certainty the make of the car Zodiac drove.