Some time ago, Paul posted an article about the Chevrolet Nova and the Ford Granada. The article focused on how the hot selling Granada handily beat the Nova in the luxury compact market. Clearly, the American public at that time had more interest in the sizzle of the Ford Granada despite its lack of engineering prowess compared to the Nova. The Granada was just fancy new clothes over the ancient Falcon chassis, while the Nova was the opposite. The outside may have been a plain Chevrolet Nova wrapper, but it was built over top of one of North America’s best handling chassis of the time. When it came to handling performance, the Granada wasn’t even in the same league.
For the mid and late 1970s the Nova was undoubtedly the best in class handler, but it didn’t start that way. So, let’s do a bit of history refresher. The Nova was fully redesigned in 1968 and it shared much in common with the 1967 Camaro/Firebird (F-bodies). This included using a unitized body structure with a bolt on front subframe. This subframe used a short-long control arm suspension with the coil spring mounted on the lower arm, similar in design to GM’s body–on-frame cars.
For 1970, the GM F-bodies were full redesigned. They still used a unitized body with a bolt on subframe, but the 1970 subframe and suspension was fully redesigned. The steering box and linkage were relocated to be ahead of the front axle, and the control arm geometry was heavily revised and improved. The result was the F-bodies were among the best handling cars of their time, arguable the best of the North American cars in the 1970s. The Nova, however, continued on unchanged until 1974, still using the older subframe and suspension with its antiquated geometry.
For the 1975 model year the Nova was heavily revamped, and was updated to use the new subframe that Camaro had been using since 1970. The 1975 model year may have been one of the worst years ever for horsepower per cubic inch at Chevrolet, but at least the new Nova handled well to compensate for its lack of power. Along with the F-bodies and X-bodies, this same basic suspension geometry and control arm design was also used in GM Colonnade intermediates. This is why these A-bodies handled so much better than there much loved predecessors despite their extra weight and girth. This same front suspension was likewise the basis of the much lauded downsized B-body cars introduced in 1977.
The 1973 OPEC oil embargo had a big short-term impact on auto sales, but it also had some fleet managers starting to think about more fuel efficient options. The Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department (LASD) with its massive fleet of gas guzzling police cars was one organization that started to look at more fuel efficient options. John Christy, Executive Editor of Motor Trend Magazine was a Specialist Reserve Deputy with the LASD. He was also a big proponent of finding more fuel efficient and cost effective police cars, which he argued would save the taxpayers millions of dollars. He believed that a smaller more fuel efficient police car was a much better choice for police work. Consequentially, Christy acted as a consultant with the LASD to help design a vehicle test procedure that would identify the best police car to meet needs of LASD.
John Christy, LASD Lieutenant Bill Kirley and some GM engineers met and discussed the future of police cars. They agreed that it was time to move to smaller patrol cars. Christy ended up drafting a letter to Jim Williams of Chevrolet Motor Divisions Public Relations Department in January of 1974. He told Williams that Motor Trend was working in conjunction with the LASD to test the feasibility of using compact cars for law enforcement functions. His guidelines were that the car must be a 4-door sedan with a wheelbase of 96 – 112”, have a six cylinder or V8 engine with a maximum displacement of 350 cubic inches, an automatic transmission, front disc brakes and air conditioning. Any carburetion could be used but there needed to be a balance of economy and performance. Christy ended the letter by saying, “Due to the current energy crisis and the wide interest of government agencies and the public at large in energy saving alternatives, we feel that this program will have wide-spread impact and value for all concerned. May we count on your assistance?”
Chevrolet for years had offered police packages for their cars, but Chevrolet’s police packages were never as comprehensive as Ford and Chrysler’s. That fact was that Chevrolet really didn’t need those police car sales and only put in a half-hearted effort compared to the competition. Chevrolet police car sales reflected this, being dominated by Ford and then Chrysler. Nevertheless, after receiving this letter from Christy, Chevrolet decided to take up this challenge and put forth a real effort to make a good police car.
Chevrolet assigned two experienced engineers to lead the project. They were Jim Ingle, a suspension specialist engineer from the F-body program and Harry Hammond of Special Projects, who formerly worked on Chevrolet Taxi projects. The two engineers started out with a plain white 1973 Nova taxi cab. The 6-cylinder drivetrain was yanked and replaced with an L48 350-4bbl with dual exhaust rated at 185 hp (SAE net) and a specially tuned TH350 transmission. The taxi interior remained but they added a heavy-duty radiator and alternator, front disc brakes, larger drum rear brakes and a 3.08:1 limited slip differential. The Nova got some parts from the Z/28 parts bin including the dual snorkel air cleaner, the 4-spoke steering wheel, and the quick ratio steering box. The engineers tested several suspension combinations to find the best springs, shocks, bushings, anti-roll bars and eventually found a combination that made Nova handle well.
Once the car was complete, Ingle and Hammond drove the Nova prototype hard and fast from Detroit to California to put it through its paces. It performed admirably. The Nova prototype was tested in LASD’s tests with MT and it did exceedingly well. The LASD vehicle test used traditional police cars as the baseline. These cars were a Plymouth Satellite, Dodge Coronet and AMC Matador. However, the Nova wasn’t the only compact in the competition. Other compacts included a 350 powered Pontiac Ventura, AMC Hornet with a 232 six, a Dodge Dart with a 360, and a slant-six Plymouth Valiant. In addition, there was a specially prepared Volvo 164E that participated, a car that had an excellent track record as a police vehicle in a Europe.
The much more powerful Dart easily outran all the other cars, but wasn’t the winner as this test was about overall performance and functionality as a police car. Beside straight line performance the cars were scored on handling, braking, fuel economy, ergonomics, mechanical repair, major component heat test, and communications evaluation. When the overall test results were calculated the Nova came out as the best American car. The Nova virtually tied the Volvo, with the Volvo scoring slightly higher at 78.17 versus 78.14 points overall. MT said the Nova “does everything the Volvo does, though where the Volvo is mannerly, the Nova is Muscular.” In comparison, the traditional Plymouth Satellite, Dodge Coronet and AMC Matador scored 69.831, 68.503 and 67.672 points respectively, scoring significantly lower than the Volvo, Nova and Dart.
The LASD was highly impressed by the Nova, and immediately placed an order for 11 1974 Nova police cars for further evaluation. The City of Fountain Valley Police also ordered 4 Novas. In addition to these 15 cars, there was one more Nova built for the Fleet Sales Manager at Chevrolet’s Los Angeles Zone Office to be used as a demonstrator. That car was later sold to LASD and put into police service. That demonstrator Nova till exists today, probably the only original 1974 Nova Police car to survive.
These 1974 Nova police cars were essentially prototypes and they were a little on the crude side. Regardless, they were highly successful in field use and it resulted in Chevrolet making the Nova 9C1 a regular production vehicle available as a COPO vehicle for 1975. Unlike the full-size and intermediate size Chevrolet police cars, which could be ordered a la carte, the Nova 9C1 only came in one format: 4-door sedan, 350 LM1 engine, TH350 transmission, and 3.08:1 rear axle ratio. There were no wimpy six-cylinders or half-assed versions. Chevrolet specifically designed the Nova 9C1 as a complete package.
There were some changes for 1975 production from the 1974 prototypes. The 350-4bbl LM1 350 replaced the L48 used in the 1974 cars. The Nova 9C1 LM1 engine didn’t see any performance upgrades over the civilian version; however, it did have more heavy duty valve train components to cope with police service. The 1975 model year marked the first year that GM used the catalytic converter, so the true dual exhaust was no longer used. The Nova had “dual outlet” exhaust where a single exhaust pipe entered a transversely mounted muffler which had dual outlets. Like civilian models, the Nova 9C1 used GM’s new HEI ignition and the dual snorkel air cleaner was replaced with a new cold air intake setup.
Since California was a big market for these police Novas, the engine was designed to use the California emission package in all versions. Doing so allowed Chevrolet to better engineer the carb jetting, ignition timing, and camshaft profile to work well with the emissions package. This resulted in a much better overall engine, especially compared to so many engines where the California emissions package was just added on after the fact. The 1975 LM1 was rated at 155 hp (SAE net), which was a 30 hp drop from the 1974 L48 engine. Despite this big loss in power on paper the 1975 Nova 9C1 performed better overall than the 1974 car in the LASD police tests.
In addition to the mechanical changes, the redesigned body resulted in significantly improved visibility, a great asset for a police car. The total glass area increased, in particular the rear door window was larger and the windshield saw a 15% increase in size.
While the 1974 Nova police car prototype had good handling, it came at the compromise of a harsh ride. The 1975 Nova was redesigned using the formerly mentioned improved front suspension geometry. This improved suspension design allowed engineers to not only improved handling, but improve the ride comfort. Motor Trend even went as far to call the ’75 Nova 9C1 the first American car to have “European ride.” While, the handling was good, it was not quite in the same league as a Mercedes, in particular on rough roads where its leaf spring axle will hop about. Nonetheless, the point is, this suspension setup was a massive improvement over anything previously offered by the Big Three.
The Nova competed in the 1975 LASD test against the 401 powered AMC Matador and the 360 Powered Plymouth Fury. While acceleration wasn’t the quickest, it handily out braked and out handled the larger police cars. The Nova was also the most fuel efficient. The Nova was declared the overall winner and the LASD recommended that one-third of its 1975 fleet become Nova 9C1s. This was the beginning of the Nova becoming one of the most popular police cars for urban police departments.
That brings us to this MT article on the “Super Nova.” The Nova 9C1 was a hidden gem during the dark ages of the mid-1970s and MT knew it. Those looking for a true driver’s car in the 1970s from the Big Three were pretty limited. Those in the know could spec out an American BMW for a fraction of the price of the real thing. Of course, the Nova didn’t have the European cachet. And let’s also hope the buyer had no aspirations for a nice high quality interior, because the Nova couldn’t even compete with the Ford, let alone the Germans. Nonetheless, a true driving enthusiast could easily be satisfied with this little Nova despite its other shortcomings, if one followed the option check boxes that MT set out.
The Nova 9C1 continued in production until 1978, with a few changes occurring along the way. In 1976, the 9C1 package was also available on the 2-door Nova, and a new special police rear seat option for the 4-doors gave improved knee room and easier entry and exit. It continued to be the top performer on the LASD police tests, and in fact became the exclusive police car for LASD for 1976, 1977 and 1978. By 1978 though, other cars were catching up to the Nova. Chevrolet had its new downsized Impala, which was closing the gap between the former leviathan police cars and the compact Nova. While the 1977 Impala 9C1 wasn’t a game changer out of the gate, its performance was fairly close to the Nova. It also had fuel economy that was drastically improved over previous large police cars. Chrysler was also making a more competitive compact police car with the 360 powered Volare and Aspen. These Mopars performed and scored close to the Nova. Like Chevrolet’s B-body, these Mopars wouldn’t come into their own until the 1980s when they evolved into the M-body Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Fury.
By 1979, the Nova 9C1 was gone, replaced by the new downsized A-body Malibu. While also a successful police car that became the LASDs next police car of choice, it certainly wasn’t the game changer the Nova 9C1 had been. Before the Nova, the vast majority of police cars were large cars that guzzled gas, and often didn’t have the brakes or handling to match their powerful engines. The Nova was arguably the best police package of the 1970s and it resulted in the LASD and many other police departments moving to smaller, more fuel efficient police cars.
And so, while Chevrolet was revolutionizing the police car market, where was Ford? They were pumping out as many Falcon Broughams Granadas they could make, and handily beating the Nova in that sales race. However, a bunch of sizzle on an antiquated chassis does not make a good police car. Ford never offered any police package on the Granada, nevertheless, it didn’t seem like Ford had intention to take the compact police car market seriously. In fact, Ford didn’t offer any sort of compact police car until 1977 when it introduced a police package on the Maverick.
The police Maverick, which shared its same basic chassis design with the Granada, was far from a successful. Unlike Chevrolet who took the time to engineer a complete package for police duty, the Maverick was basically beefed up with the most heavy-duty items for the parts bin. It included heavy duty cooling, suspension, alternator, battery, and seat fabric. Ford reinforced the ancient Falcon chassis to withstand the police duty, knowing it wasn’t up to the task. Yet even with all of this, Ford still warned that the Maverick wasn’t suited for pursuit work, and was only intended for suburban assignments. The NYPD bought numerous Mavericks as detective units, and the Maverick couldn’t even handle that duty. They were nose heavy with a light rear end and had no limited slip option. This made it a car that suffered from poor traction and terrible handling. The cars were so bad, that the NYPD actually returned the cars to the dealership and demanded their money back. Ford cancelled the police Maverick before the end of 1977 model year.
Clearly, the old Falcon chassis was not up to police duty so Ford quickly replaced it with the much more competent Fox-body Fairmont. Despite this new modern chassis design and Fords extensive experience in the police market, the Fairmont police car was a half-baked effort that was a bust, unable to compete with Chevrolet’s offerings. The Fox body would eventually see success as a police car, most notably as the Mustang pursuit cars, but also later as the LTD in the mid-1980s. Even then though, the LTD wasn’t a well-balanced package, having woefully in adequate brakes.
So while Ford may have been cleaning up selling the sizzle of the Granada, Chevrolet was revolutionizing the police car market. The Nova 9C1 first of Chevrolet’s specialized police cars and unlike past Chevrolet police cars, it was a highly tuned package specially engineered for police duty. It was the beginning of Chevrolet’s future success with police vehicles that eventually allowed Chevrolet to become the leader in police vehicles during the 1980s, overtaking Chrysler products from their long reign at the top. Chevrolet would remain at the top until 1996, when the last Caprice 9C1 rolled off the line.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
I remember this test from back in the day, as i used to get MT every month. I hadn’t even quite reached driving age yet, but I remember being quite surprised at how fast the Volvo was.
Don’t forget the cockeyed way Novas went down the street, rear suspension was improperly put together. The axle was improperly attached to the vehicle. The steering was wheel was always slightly off center to compensate for that fact. I did see Ford Mavericks used as police vehicles when I was in basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO in July of 1976. Used by the base MP’s. Don’t think they were “police” package though.
https://share.google/aimode/pO8m4OBaEgfOzqjAz Having drove many of these Nova’s, never found this to be true, never seen the steering wheel off center. I agree with this article, the GM products were much better than the Fords.
The Nova was given an advantage over the Chrysler compacts by LASD when the agency declared their transverse torsion bar design as unacceptable in bid specs. That ban was eventually lifted and in 1982, the LASD selected the M-body Plymouth Gran Fury.
The chassis design of these were so good that Cadillac could produce it’s Seville based on the platform, with a little tweaking, came up with good handling and Cadillac ride as well. All the GM intermediates used the same front suspension and steering. The down sized B bodies of 1977 used similar front suspension and steering as well, that platform went clear past the mid 90’s.
In retrospect, GM should’ve leveraged this by sending pilot-production Citations to LASD for free to wring the bugs out of them before the public ended up doing so.
But, but… that would have been logical and shown foresight.
One ugly car. The steering column going into the instrument panel at an angle always astonished me, like the one on my 71 SS Chevelle. Felt like a lack of coordination on the engineering.
My neighbor, Mr. Genisavich, bought a new 1974 Nova 4 door 350 in 1975 as a left over to replace a mid 60’s Falcon. Complete piece of junk that never seem to run well. Chevy dealer tried their best but ended up chasing their tail as something else would fail. Traded it for new copper colored Dodge Aspen. He loved it – must have gotten a good one. Kept it before buying his last car, a new 1991 Corolla.
That one demonstrator Nova still existing makes me strangely happy.
I used to drive a ’76 Nova company car. It was a six-cylinder with F41 suspension. The handling was phenomenal, with the light-weight engine and upgraded suspension.
Same here; it was the shuttle car at the Iowa City Transit service, and the couple of times I drove it I was very impressed. Much better handling than any American car I had driven up to that point.
What changes had to be made to push the rear seat that far back? Was the trunk noticeably smaller? And most of all, given the Nova’s notoriously poor rear-seat legroom, why weren’t all Novas (and its relatives) built this way?
You can see from the photo in the article, they simply moved the seat back. I can’t say with absolute certainty, but I would speculate the this was mostly accomplished with a much thinner seat cushion design, that likely also compromised comfort – something no one cares about in a police car.
I remember that the San Diego Police Department went for the 9C1 Nova in a big way in 1976. I remember seeing a SDPD Nova pulled over on I 5 near the Coronado bridge. A SDPD officer I knew loved them. At the time he said the were the best handling partrol cars he’d driven & in the early smog control time they were pretty quick. I was able to convince my father in law (at the time) to get a new 1976 Nova but couldn’t get him to spring for one with the 9C1 package or the F41 but even his almost basic 6 banger (it had a/c, ps & power brakes) handled decently if if acceleration was leisurely.
Ii used to own a 1975 Chevy Nova 2 door coupe Hatchback with a 350 ci V8.
I am not sure if it had the L48 or the L82 as I purchased used in 1979. It did have a TH350 transmission. The car handled we’ll and was economical. But the AC sucked and the rear hatch rusted by the roof line in no time.. One peculiar thing however, it did not have HEI, but it did have a catalytic converter with dual exhaust pipes. It was a low trim and it had dog dish hubcaps. I wished I would have kept it.
I have never driven a Nova 9C1 of the era but we did have a regular 1977 Nova with the 350 and F-41 suspension. For the era, these were pretty fast cars. They had plenty of V-8 torque, making them feel light footed in town. The one I drove was destined to be a cab, but I drove it around for a while first. Like the other posters noted, it handled very well for the time.
This Nova didn’t even last one taxi shift. On a wet day, the driver gunned it from a red light and caused it to spin out, broadsiding a pole and writing the car off. It had lasted a grand total of three hours. From that time on, dad had the hate for powerful cars. He then decided he wanted B Bodies with V6s, in them, which were total dogs that ate motor mounts. The best motor for a taxi in this era was the good old low power Oldsmobile 307.
Edmonton police had a fleet of marked 1975 Novas and I heard from many constables who liked the car for its handling and power.
They were also more durable than some of the other cars that preceeded them (Chevelle for one) As a result many remained on the road much longer than you would expect given the tough winters we had up here back then.
The burning question I’ve pondered; could a 75 subframe bolt right up to a 68-74 bodyshell? There must be some catch because it seems like a great cheap(albeit cumbersome) upgrade for anyone with the older cars including first gen F bodies.
I find Novas incredibly dumpy looking cars but the surviving 74 demo is really cool looking.
I would think it is possible it could have bolted up, but I doubt it would actually work without significant modifications. Along with the differences in steering and suspension, the front body mounts are different and the track width is different. I am sure someone could make it work, but it would definitely require some custom fabrication.
The significance of the 1075 police Nova goes way beyond the car itself, from my perspective. I really don’t remember Chevy police cars being very common in California, either at city/county or state level, before these became popular. In fact it was mostly Dodge and Plymouth, with some Fords (or in the case of LA, a few Matadors). Then the Nova came along, followed by the ‘78 Malibu as city patrol cars. This seemed to open the door for GM to get California Highway Patrol business.. While the M Body Diplomat and of course Crown Vic, then Gord “Explorer” Interceptors and now Dodge Charger were also popular, there have been several decades with first the Chevy Caprice, and now Tahoe CHP cars becoming nearly ubiquitous in many areas.
” the Mustang purist cars” ~ Oops =8-) .
I don’t consider the Nova compact, it’s more an intermediate to me .
When I was a fleet Mechanic for L.A.X. we had several Malibu ‘police’ cars that were wretched ~ they had the smaller 307 (?) CID V8 engine and soft & flabby suspension .
Worse yet they didn’t come with the special wiring conduit, rather the selling dealer simply raised the rubber floor mats and slid in a 3″ flexible metal exhaust pipe, this meant awful foot room on the passenger side .
I’m piqued to learn they sold some coupes with this desirable package, I wonder if any survive, would make a really good road burner for those of us who like long distance auto travel at speed .
I wonder if the similar looking 1975 front sub frame could be retrofitted to earlier Novas ? .
-Nate
Fixed. The Nova’s powered by 307’s would have 1973 at the newest.