Since Paul stirred the paint pot the other day with a delicious Light Lime colored Nova, I thought I’d also toss my entry into The Colorful World of Novas series. That’s my youngest brother driving our subject car – the nose-high rake of the suspension is not because he was accelerating hard; the car always rode that way. That’s also not the original paint on the car – it’s a bit more intense than the original Dark Blue / White it originally wore.
Purchased new by my paternal grandmother who lived in Hollywood (no, not that one, the one in Florida), it passed into my dad’s ownership after she died of cancer in the mid-1980s. It had very few miles on it when he got it, and the car became his daily driver in Texas for a number of years. It was spec’d out very plainly, with the base 250 six, an automatic and maybe air conditioning (Grandma Stembridge was always very frugal, and I could see her ordering a Florida car without a/c).
After Dad moved back to Georgia, the car was passed around the family a bit, being used as a pinch-hitter by two of my brothers (one of whom named the car) before it came into my possession. I drove it for a couple months while rebuilding the engine in my ’64 Beetle, and once I had that running, it was time to part with the Nova, which was pretty used up by that point. Despite the much-needed respray Dad had done (that’s the original color in the photo above, which I always thought looked right smart), the Florida and Texas sun had not been kind to the interior – the plastics were literally disintegrating like they did in the movie Andromeda Strain.
That’s the actual ad I stuck in the window when I parked it alongside our road, and it sold within two weeks to a high-school student, whom I later heard ran it out of oil (it leaked pretty badly) and ruined the engine.
Our family Nova followed the same well-trod path so many other cars from the ’60s and ’70s did, and served us in an reasonably faithful manner. What more could you ask?
Love the ad. Nothing like hitting the potential purchaser’s sense of humor.
Novas are a car I don’t see a lot of at UK American car shows.They’re much more scarce than Falcons,Darts and Valiants in the UK.How did they compare sales wise to the compact Fords and Mopars?
None here either GMH banned any in house competition to their Holden especially from Chev or Vauxhall.
Is she crabbing in that last shot?
What X Body DOESN’T crab 😀
Yes it IS, Carmine!
Most all of them dogwalked at one point or another. My wife had a ’74 Spirit of America Nova back when we were dating in 1982 and that’s why we got rid of it…dumb of us but at the time if was either that or my ’57 Chevy.
They all crabbed, every one of them. Our shop tried all kinds of things to keep it from happening, such as playing with toe, camber and even shimming the leafs in the rear, but to no avail, the Nova always “ran like a dog” as my dear old dad said.
Problems can occur on either end. On the back, rust can kill the already weak springs and distort them out of shape.In extreme cases, the locating pins can shear.
On the front, there are only 4 bolts holding the “wheelbarrow handles” of the subframe to the forward underside of the body.
Rust can thin out the mounting holes to the point where the subframe may shift. I only shudder to think what could happen in extreme cases.
And my NJ grandmother had the EXACT same spec and color car except it was a ’78. This was the year she sold her massive big 3 1/2 story (1/2 buried basement) 7 bedroom house to downsize to a one level 3 bedroom house with three steps up from the driveway. She purchased the ’78 with excess house sale money. She drove the car into the mid 1980s when her facilities began giving out and the car became wanted for several minor parking lot back up accidents.
When I was 17 in 1986 I got to drive it around and found that the transmission actually did, in fact, have a fierce kick down when the accelerator was applied forcefully. Grandmother had never, ever used that transmission feature and us grand children were used to the sound of low speed transmission/ rear end whine while seated in the back seat.
I still drove her around in the Nova until her passing in 1989 when the car went to my uncle and then to my cousin to be driven up and down the east coast in the early 1990s.By that time, the always rotten front subframe mount (under the battery tray) had been fixed with some scrap metal and the light touch of a stick arc welder. The cousin sold it from the side of the road for $500.
Ed, I am disappointed in your ad. Any mention of hooning in a car like that should make some reference to Nova-caning.
I have mixed feelings on these Novas. I always thought that their only market was GM loyalists who wanted a compact, at least up through 1976. The Mopar A body was far superior as a car, and by 1975, the Granada was more appealing (although time would remove much of its luster.) However, GM loyalists made up a substantial share of the market then.
The Nova was also the last of the cars with that good old 1960s Body by Fisher feel that had been the mark of GM cars since forever. And by 1977, when its competition was the Volare, Granada and Maverick, it had lived long enough to be a pretty appealing car.
I never had a Nova of this vintage but I did have a ’73 when I was in the Air Force. It was only a few years old (this was ca. 1977) but it had led a hard life; I bought it from a fellow airman who parked it on the mean streets of Oakland when he went home. It had several gouges in the paint and the driver’s door had a noticeable dent. None of this bothered me as the Nova, somehow, came with a factory 350 4-bbl with a four speed transmission. That, coupled with the 3.73 Posi final drive screamed hot rod to someone on a tight budget, me. Of course it only got about 11 MPG in town and 15/16 on the highway but it was very entertaining to drive. Once it started to need expensive repairs I traded it in on a new VW Rabbit.
I have driven the exact same car. In fact, Car and Driver raved about them at the time. The were real rockets for their day and the suspension and brakes could handle the power. Really nice cars, perfect Q-Ships.
My family (stupidly) bought into a taxi company circa 1979 or so and when we got there, every cab except on Volare and one Granada was a Stovebolt Nova. These had to be the last of the real GM tough cars. All the X bodies were tough as nails, but one has to realise that as the ad said, the power of a four and the gas of an eight. That said, in the late 1970’s gas was still cheap enough to make them good cabs. It was amazing the abuse those things took. They all had crapola gaskets and leaked like sieves, and most of the guys would have a two gallon can of oil in the trunk. Several would get used oil from service stations and pour it in twice a shift. What was amazing is that all actually started and ran most of the time!
Ahhh… Our wedding limousine!
No kidding. My best man used his mom’s Nova sedan to take us to the reception! This was before the age of faux-high-class, where everyone seemingly needed to “arrive” in a big, black or white limo, though there are some practical reasons. The wedding party took their own cars.
Why did my best man use his mom’s car? Well, his car was a windowless 1975 Chevy LWB van with no seats save the front two, with paneled interior walls and shag carpeting. It was a well-done mod, used for traveling, not “pimpy”.
In any event, we rode in a Nova. Nobody cared, especially us.
Yep, spec’d like that those Nova’s were the classic grandma car (my gran had one of the previous generation). They’ve since transferred their allegiance to Sentras and Corollas, at least around here.
Love the look your brother’s giving you in that first shot! Looks like he’s not sure if your a stalker, or a cop, or who knows what!