(first posted 6/13/2014) Base engine. Dog dishes. Powerglide.* This Chevrolet Nova from 1970-72 is a survivor of the plainest kind, the sort of car driven in large numbers by young families and grannies on tight budgets during the 1970s and mostly extinct for a quarter of a century. It is old-fashioned basic transportation without the hipster chic of a Falcon, the bulletproof appeal of the Dart/Valiant, or the budget muscle car second life of most surviving Novas. It was common and boring in its own time, but after the passage of 40 years, it is unusual and interesting because of its plainness.
* Any resemblance between this opening and the “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” commercial jingle of 1975 is entirely intentional.
Spotting this car parked on a side street in Washington, DC in May, during the same jog in which I found a household with Chryslers spanning six decades and five Eldorados and a Riviera on one street, brought back memories of my family’s slightly less basic 1973 Nova coupe, which drove past this very location many times. Our family’s first new car, it had a 307 two barrel V-8, automatic and full wheelcovers, but no A/C or other creature comforts. Its beige paint, always chalky, was the epitome of dullness but did a remarkable job of protecting the car from rust, because it never had any significant rust during the seven years that we owned it. This Nova has a lack of engine callouts indicating that a base six cylinder or perhaps even a four cylinder lives under the hood. Dog dish hubcaps, the first that I have seen on a Nova in many years, and white paint complete its basic and anonymous look.
Inside, the basic nature of the car continues. A shift quadrant marked PRNDL reveals a Powerglide transmission, which together with a base engine, would have given this car a leisurely accelerating but durable powertrain–unexciting, but fine for driving the kids to softball games or for granny to drive to church, with little trouble for many years. The vertical ventilation control panel with its many levers, identical to the first car controls that I was ever allowed to touch in our 1973 Nova, show no A/C markings. The fuzzy seat cover is the only dash of color in the dark interior, and it is probably a vast improvement over either the standard vinyl or the optional “cloth” of our Nova, a material reminiscent of woven synthetic fishing line whose only virtues were wear resistance (it inflicted wear on you, not the other way around) and imperviousness to sweat and barf (thoroughly tested during my childhood).
Looking around this old Nova, a fundamental “rightness” emanated from it. Straight, almost rust-free (the rust-through on the bottom edge of the passenger side door, probably from water pooling inside, was the most significant rust visible), and apparently unaltered from its original condition, it appears to be a car that has been used lightly and allowed to age gracefully. Only the seat cover and slightly oversized rear tires that give the car a slight rake depart from originality, and neither suggests hot rodding or any other adolescent attitude toward the car. At the same time, this Nova generation’s good proportions and slight “Coke bottle” hips give it a bit of style, and its versatility in accommodating any Chevy powerplant would make this car either a nice as-is daily driver or a great sleeper. I am not looking to re-create my first childhood automobile memories (Sweat and barf? No thanks!), but I do find starter classics appealing, and this Nova would be a very good one.
Related reading: Powerglide–A GM Greatest Hit Or Deadly Sin?, 1970 Chevrolet Nova – Have It Your Way
Speaking of Chevrolet Nova, this is the Nova Family Photo Montage Compilations including its future replacements back then in the following order: 1980-85 Citation, 1988-96 Beretta/Corsica and the 1997-current Chevrolet Malibu which INMHO does not really follow the family niche’ of the 1964-77 Chevelle Malibu nor the 1978-83 Downsized Malibu versions since the Celebrity, Lumina and the FWD Impala were Malibu’s successors. Some of the 3G and 4G versions of the Nova in Mexico and South American Countries were also called Malibus which were strictly RWD X-Bodies. I have even included the Toyota Corolla based Nova on my 4 Door Nova Family Photo Montage Compilations but the first which I will be posting will be the 2 Door Coupes.
Now as mentioned here are the 4 Door versions.
Quite a montage of photos there. I like the 4 door Chevy II/Nova over the two door model any day. I also prefer the six cylinder engine than the V8 cylinder engine. The only thing I’d do to upgrade the car would be to give it a more complete gauge cluster, including temperature, and oil pressure, in place of the standard warning lights that usually come with the car.
THX Jason!
would love to get a hold of this one. the 73 restyle never looked as good. remember, a big block was factory available on this body…widened steelies with dog dishes and larger tires…
This could have been my 68. Six with three on the tree. Can’t remember style changes but guess there are some. One of just a few that I regret discarding. Btw IMO just as indestructable as a mopar.
Takes me back to the day the skinflint owner of the chemical company I worked for purchased his son a 71 Nova for personal and business use. I had never seen a brand new civilian car so completely devoid of accessories. Painted wheels, no radio, no AC, no floor mats. Nothing. He wanted me to wax it using a horrible paste wax manufactured by the company. I did such a crappy job he never asked me again. Mission accomplished.
For an extra-special driving experience, sample one with a 153-inch four and P-glide.
0-60 timed on the Mayan calendar.
The Powerglide wasn’t available on the 153 according to my copy of ‘American Cars 1960-1972’. Your choice was either a 3 speed manual or Torque-Drive. The PG was only available on the Sixes or various small block V-8s.
my sister went shopping for one in ’70. there was a maroon torque drive 4 banger in the showroom and a light green six cylinder with pglide on the lot. we talked her into the 6 and that car lasted into the 80’s with 200k miles. i believe the torque drive was a powerglide that only shifted manually.
A pretty good CC article on the Torque Drive is only a click away…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-chevrolets-torque-drive-a-dumber-powerglide/
Ah, the dirt track racer’s dream car (well, at least until the G bodies depreciated into the disposable price range). I can remember going to the stock car races as a little kid, and every car out there was either this generation Nova, or a second generation Camaro.
Ah, that indefinable thing called Hipster Chic. Why do old Novas lack it, when old Falcons have it in spades? I suppose it’s because Novas (like Camaros) are associated with Those People… those Joe Dirt types. But if you’re looking for a car that’s easy to work on, a Nova with a six is a good bet. Hipster Chic ain’t everything.
This is an interesting question and I suspect it has to do with GM, itself. GM is kind of the ultimate poster-child for soulless corporate greed (whereas Ford and Chrysler have a tiny bit of soul in how they went about designing their compacts). McNamara’s Falcon was designed as an American VW Beetle, a car that anyone could afford to own and maintain, and the Valiant went after the engineering crown with the rock-solid slant-six and Torqueflite.
Ford and Chrysler gave the impression that they actually cared about and had pride in their cars. GM? Not so much. It was GM CEO Thomas Murphy who once famously said, “GM is not in the business of making cars. GM is in the business of making money”. That pretty much says it all as to why hipsters avoid the Nova.
As an example, the original Falcon’s rounded front fenders were supposedly designed for better forward visibility. GM had no such reputation for safety in the design of any model Nova. It was never more the bottom rung on the GM ladder, built as no more than a response to the better sales of the traditional layout of the compacts from the competition when Corvair sales failed to meet expectations, and was designed to extract the maximum profit with the least amount of effort. With the 1968 redesign, the Nova had even lost the street-scorching L79 327 hardtop, a legendary favorite of the street racing crowd. The second generation cars, musclecar version or not, were much more mundane, less consistent and successful.
Simply put, owning a Nova (especially the ones made after 1968) was about as bland as you could get, both then and now. Falcons and Valiants have a certain cache the Nova completely lacks.
Interesting to posit the Falcon as the “American Beetle” rather than the Corvair, but in some senses it the Falcon was indeed more of a Beetle corollary.
Probably better to call the Falcon a latter-day Model T. It could probably even be said that the Beetle was the ‘German Model T’.
All 3 cars have their strengths and weaknesses, but corporate greed can’t be limited to any one company, and most hipsters likely don’t care about how a company was run: that style (falcon) simply resonated with that crowd.
The L79 was still offered in 68, but extremely rare, as it was overshadowed by the big block option. This also speaks to a major strength of the nova platform: an engine bay large enough to fit all available engine sizes: something the valiant and falcons didn’t have.
Dad had a ’72, just this plain. Always got 14 mpg, highway or not. Handled like a bathtub. Sister got a plain ’75 a few years later, and it handled like a bmw in comparison. Turbohydramatic helped too. Most improved car, ever.
Sounds like the ’75 might have been an F41 suspension car. It was a very inexpensive option that made a night and day difference in handling. Novas with the 350/F41 combo were among the more fun to drive cars of the Malaise era.
The 1975-79 Novas were the best handling cars because it also used the same suspension from its chassis companion the 1970-81 Camaros.
There’s a Nova very similar to that one here locally. Dog dishes, no chrome, really good shape. I see it parked nearly every morning in front of our local Golden Corral. (for those outside the US, it’s a chain of all-you-can-eat buffets) When they recently opened a new, much larger Golden Corral across the street from the old one the Nova moved along with it.
It’s done well to survive without a V8 transplant or worst of all be turned into a “tribute” car.I like this a lot,I see tons of Falcons and Valiant/Darts but comparitivly few Novas at UK shows.The last one I saw was a white 4 door 6 with 3 on a tree misers special.
Long time since I have seen one of these. Six and a Glide, just a minor updating of a 63 Biscayne, only smaller. I would guess that this is pre 1972, as I believe that Chevy went to those baby-moon style hubcaps in 72. I always thought that these looked better.
I never really spent any time in these. My Nova (or Chevy II) experiences were all in early models, both I think were 63s. A neighbor mom had a maroon 2 door (plainly the “second car” that people were starting to buy then) with a three on the tree – I was transfixed watching her work the shifter and muscle the manual steering. The second was a white 63 sedan that my stepmom drove before she married my father. I believe that hers had the automatic. A very basic little car that had that indescribable “Chevrolet feel” to it (from back when that was a good thing.)
That was the problem with compact cars by the late sixties: in their basic form, they were crappy to drive, with their slow and heavy steering, balky three-on-the-tree, and dull handling. With a V8, automatic, higher trim level, PS, PB, etc; they made decent cars; a slightly smaller big American car. They had lost their roots as import fighters. Which is exactly why compact car sales tanked in the late 60s, and import sales surged. Young folks wanted fun to drive cars; these weren’t.
I remember vividly my brother’s GF situation. It was 1970; she wanted a VW Beetle or Corolla; her dad bought her a stripper Nova just like this one. She hated it, and for good reason. A couple years later she bought a Corolla 1600 and never looked back at an American car again.
Cars like this stripper Nova poisoned a lot of young Americans on domestic cars, and are directly responsible for the success of the imports. They might have been rugged enough, but to drive, they were dull, dreary, deadly…
The Japanese efficiency model of fewer options, more standards and avoiding a complete stripper feel to their basic cars also helped the foreign invasion. Standard chrome side window frame mouldings, full wheel covers, maybe a wire grid rear window defogger, better standard seat upholstery, remote driver door mirror, dump the base 4 banger and you’d have – damn near an updated ’65 Mustang. Or pretty close to a Duster, which helped Chrysler stave off bankruptcy as long as it did.
The Japanese figured out the Mustang playbook and made their even smaller 4 bangers seem just a little exciting compared to this Nova.
A Nova was a step up from a Land Crab,Allegro or Marina!Come to think of it a bus pass was a step up from most of BL’s offerings.
Japanese cars were copies of european cars…not mustangs.
That’s a bit harsh .. the comment ignores that there was a strong tradition of building low option base models from ALL manufacturers going back the Model-T. Studebaker saved itself coutless times with the idea .. the ’39 Champion, the ’47 Champion Delux, the ’58 Scottsman. These cars
thus had some appeal to a certain segment of the Detroit market, and the
expectation was that the salesman would bump their clients up to the nicer
versions available.
But is the side effect of killing-the-future-market-from-a parent-buying-their-kid-one-of-these-stripped-bombers really a latent defect? No.
The Depression, WWII and Korean-war generations just weren’t going to buy a Japanese car in the 60’s, so the Japanese could focus on building towards the youth market in America.
But you can’t really call anything ever built by Toyota, even down to the
present day, as ‘fun’ either. Competent, reliable, and tuned to the market, yes.
Fun, not so much.
Studebaker hardly saved itself with the Scotsman. Anyway, yes, low end strippers were built by everyone in Detroit, for too long, and at their peril. Traditions from 20 or 30 years earlier inevitably become irrelevant. Are you suggesting that there’s still a market for strippers?
But you can’t really call anything ever built by Toyota, even down to the
present day, as ‘fun’ either.
You must be kidding me. Drinking some kind of Detroit-flavored Kool Aid? Toyota 2000GT; ok, not really relevant to the US. But let’s start with the Corolla 1600 from 1971. Reread the tests; they all marked at how sporty it was compared to anything else in its price class.
That started a long series, including the legendary AE-86 Corolla GTS. My CC is here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1985-toyota-corolla-gt-s-the-legendary-ea86/
Or the Corolla FX-16: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1987-toyota-corolla-fx-16-when-corollas-still-induced-lust-not-sleep/
Maybe they weren’t your cup of tea, but they were about the hottest little cars available at the time, or right near the top. And that goes for many others.
Do I even need to remind you of the Celica, especially the turbo AWD version. Or the Supra? No; not fun at all.
And you said down to the present day. If you don’t think the Scion FR-S is fun, than I can only feel sorry for you.
I left off many others; no more time. But please, let’s end that worn out cliche that all Toyota ever built was dull appliance-mobiles. Go take a Camry V6 SE out for a drive sometime; you might be surprised.
The other point I would add is that one of the various reasons people ended up gravitating toward the better Japanese small cars was that they didn’t feel dreary to drive in quite basic form. They might have been noisy or kind of bouncy on rough pavement, but you didn’t feel like they were intended mainly to make you feel like an ass for not buying the fancier versions.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but something like a basic early ’80s Honda Civic hatchback with five-speed is great fun to drive. It’s no-frills — no power steering with a manual transmission, probably no tach, quite possibly no A/C — but it’s a lot like having a puppy: It wants to play and you never have any question about what it’s up to or what it’s going to do. An E90 (1987–92) Corolla is also an eye-opener, particularly with five-speed and the injected 4A-FE engine (not the hot 4A-GE that makes the boy racers drool, but your basic 102-hp 1.6). A really slick, nearly bulletproof powertrain, a surprisingly plush ride, genuinely impressive gas mileage, and better road manners than you might expect. Is it an exciting car? Not at all, but driving one in decent mechanical shape, it’s easy to see why a lot of people concluded that it was all the car they needed.
(Much of this would also apply to my parents’ similarly basic Volkswagen Rabbit, but my feelings about that car are colored by its persistent electrical problems and eye-watering repair costs.)
There are various reasons we could point to, like the fact that cars that Americans think of as tiny minimalist subcompacts are often a step or two up the ladder in their home market. However, a lot of it just comes down the fact that cheap, smaller American cars have often tended to feel like they were created because someone said they needed a car in that niche or at that price point rather as something someone might buy because they wanted to.
My first car was a Corolla 1600 and with 100 bhp in a light car, it went like stink. The brakes were quite good, too, and with radial tires, the handling great. It was really easy to get the tail out on gravel and dirt roads!
It was lots of fun.
Sadly, the 9,000 extra Scottsman cars sold
did seem to help keep Studebaker afloat in the recession, and it led
directly to the planning of the Lark, which
actually made a profit for one year. But that is a different story.
Before we go down a path of hyperbole of later period ‘fun’ cars (which I started and shouldn’t have ), my point was basically that the stripped Nova shown here is/was fine for what it was at the time — a basic, reliable cheap car like most manufacturers used to entice people into the showroom.
But I wouldn’t put this car into the category of those that killed GM.
While the stage was perhaps primed for ultimate failure by the success
of the corporate strategies of the 1960s, I think it was the American failure cars of the 70s (Vega, Pinto, Citation et al) and the sclerotic corporate structures that produced them and could no longer self-correct that led to their downfall.
Japanese imports, at least by the time the 1980’s rolled around, also had their strippers, that punished you for not buying the higher level DX, LX, LE, or what have you model. Case and point, my first car…a 1985 appliance gold Honda Civic 3-door base model with diarrhea brown interior. No power steering, only a 4-speed manual, a 1.3 litre mill producing a whopping 63hp (a total dog, even in this lightweight little can), AM radio only, no RW defroster (which sucked in upstate NY winters), and not so much as a cigarette lighter, let alone any other features.
You had to buy the DX model to get such features as a 5-speed stick, the upgraded 1.5 litre powerplant (81 hp, I think?), Power steering, A/C, FM stereo, power anything, and yes, the coveted cigarette lighter. Maybe by then the Japanese were taking a page out of Detroit’s handbook from the early 70’s? I hated that car…my friends called it “the bus” because of the tall spindly shifter much like that seen in a school bus…along with the lack of power and synchro that was on its way out and made for some nice gear grinds. What can I say though, it was $700 in 1994 and it got in the 40’s for mpg. I will say though that my gen-2 Escort I bought 2 years later felt like a BMW in comparison, which is actually kind of sad for the Honda.
I agree Paul, having 5 or 6 turns lock-to-lock means you are doing something wrong and should bite the bullet and use power steering at least.
“Which is exactly why compact car sales tanked in the late 60s, and import sales surged.”
In this era, I don’t think there was actually much of an inverse relationship between sales of domestic compacts and sales of imports. Sales of domestic compacts bottomed out around 1967 or 1968, then surged upward again quite rapidly; far from tanking, the generation of Nova introduced in 1968 was probably the car that first sparked the turnaround. I think the imports were no more than a minor factor in the decline that ended around 1967-68 (if they were even a factor at all), and the surge that followed was driven by the same rising interest in smaller, more efficient cars that was driving much of the import sales boom.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that anything else in Paul’s post isn’t valid. But I think the effect of those things, at least in the late ’60s/early ’70s, was just a gradual loss of a slice of the market, limiting growth potential more than causing an actual drop in sales of smaller domestic cars. It’s true that sales of domestic compacts had been in decline for much of the ’60s, but that was over by the end of the decade, and mainly the work of factors other than competition from imports.
The small side marker lights peg this one as a ’69.
I agree, I think it’s a 1969. The thing that is throwing some of us off (like me) is that the front bumper is from a newer car. After 45 years, who knows how much of the car is original.
Growing up, we had a nice, new ’70, with a 350/350 drivetrain, F41 suspension, and some bright trim on the outside. The build quality was poor, but it was still respectable car. I miss it.
Unfortunately, I think the future of the subject car includes a V8 conversion and Rallyes, at the very least. It should be best left alone, this is a good looking car.
I gotta say I agree with almost nothing Niedermeyer says about basic American cars of this era. I do agree with his points about the japanese imports.
The criticisms of US brand vehicles of this era are really tiring. They are oblivious to certain driving conditions very prominent in north america of the time. Which is long distance high speed boring straight line roads with very low traffic. This is reminiscent of small airplane travel. Steady level high speed and long distance.
Thus what I call the aircraft principle:
To make your car traverse…oh, say…salt lake to des moines, in november, in 1969, you do not want a european or japanese nimble little sport car vintage 1969. You would be an idiot to choose one for this task. You want a big heavy solid American car designed based on the aircraft principle.
Here’s how it works…determine the steady monotonous speed you want to design for and from that calculate the required horsepower. You are designing a drivetrain that will withstand this monotonous speed for what is termed 100% continuous duty cycle. To do this with an airplane you choose an engine that produces the required horsepower at very low engine speed and you focus on maximizing average power output and time between overhauls and minimizing the stress on the engine components at its maximum rated power output…you do not care about maximizing the peak power output per unit of displacement. Doing so is meaningless for this design parameter. So you invariably go with huge displacement engines at lazy rpm and you pay attention to ease of rebuild and rebuild costs.
Note that this is the opposite approach to a race car. It is also the opposite approach used in countries such as in europe which tax a vehicle according to engine displacement. North america did not have such a tax scheme.
Now lets return to the peculiar situation of driving salt lake to des moines circa 1969. Lets say you are not well off and you need the cheapest car possible to do this trip 5 times year for 5 years at the speed limit. Maybe higher. American auto producers had the car for you. It would be a medium sized 2 door vehicle with a large straight six maximized for low rpm torque, a 3 speed manual transmission, and a rear differential ratio for high speed interstate travel. Cruze control would be the most important option. More important than power steering and power windows. Acceleration and handling are not important. Straight line steady speed comfort is important. A massive heater is important. A quality AM radio is important. Excellent air flow in the cabin is important. Fresh air vents and wing windows need to be excellent if a customer is to avoid paying for A/C.
This should all start to sound familiar. It is a perfect description of a medium sized american economy car of 1969 vintage.
Good heavens, suddenly I’m a kid again. Plain, sturdy coupes like these so commonly roamed the streets in the 70s. What is the common equivalent? We don’t do plain very much anymore, excepting perhaps the entriest-level Kia, and there’s not very much sturdy about one of those.
In non North American markets the equivalent would be the Toyota HiLux or similar light utilities. You guys don’t get those any more?
Even the specs are similar IFS, live axel, large four and medium sixes, RWD, seperate chassis
The Nova has a monocoque construction right? If the under-structure has suffered multiple years of road salt exposure there us usually considerable corrosion (i was looking for a big block to import for a while, but couldn’t find one with a good enough under-body to pass NZ’s tough structural inspection. Most had dodgy floor pan inserts and ‘fissure splitting’ around the sides and tops of the transmission tunnel, not to mention deteriorated rail corrosion at the rear spring mounting points. In the end i just gave up trying to find a good one under 15k). But a sleeper 4 speed 454 with posi would be a bit of fun..
The X-body Nova is like the F-body Camaro/Firebird: unitized up to the cowl (scuttle), but carrying the front end on a big subframe.
Ah, though these were full chassis, my mistake!
It has to be said the under-body of the original Pony Car is a LOT less substantial-looking than the later GM equivalent (Nova/Camaro/Firebird)… there must be a corresponding weight difference one supposes, but the Nova looks to be a stronger front structure..and the Mustang quite puny-looking by comparison..
The Nova looks to be a very solidly engineered vehicle from the underneath..
…cradle
…sub-frame to body
these cars were notorious dog trackers as i guess the subframe would go out of alignment. i used to say they needed windshield wipers on the vent windows.
…the factory 396 would have presented quite a decent ‘twisting’ force applied through that albeit solid-looking sub-frame 🙂
Found one of these once with the 153 cube 4 cylinder and the forgotten Torque-Drive semi-automatic transmission.
BTW- how is a sturdy old Nova ‘deadly’, particularly compared to an old VW bug or early Corolla?
This ’68 body shell is actually a nice design. Never could figure out why GM didn’t continue a hardtop version. That alone may have given Chrysler a leg up when they brought the Duster out.
I would bet no hardtop so as not to interfere with Camaro sales..same reason why sporty Falcons went away.
Plausible, but by ’70 the Camaro was a two seater for practical purposes, and darn near void of luggage space. Probably distinct enough to avoid cannibalizing each other. The Falcon Futura convertible and the Mustang convertible occupied very much the same space.
The Nova (’68), Falcon (’66) and Valiant (’67) all lost their two-door hardtops to the ponycars in the lineup.
Yes, but Valiant added the two door hardtop Duster in 1970, selling over 217,000 copies. With that success, they added the Valiant Scamp two door hardtop in 1971 that was more true to the sedan sheet metal – worth another 50,000 copies. 1969 Valiant two door sedan sales totaled about 35,000 cars. Adding the hardtops was clearly the right decision and moved Plymouth a bit away from the stripper compact look. The Valiant two door sedan was dropped for good after 1969.
Total 1970 Nova sales were about 315,000. If even about 70% of those were two doors, Plymouth may have bested Chevy’s two door sales – and Chevy had a lot more dealers and momentum going for it.
In ’71, Chevy’s compact was performing dismally, sales were down to under 200,000, probably thanks to both the Vega and Plymouth’s strong entry in the compact field – which sold 277,000 cars. The Vega and the Plymouth were both answering Paul’s call for a more stylish, better equipped, better handling small car. Chevy in particular squandered it’s success in this area as the Vega fell apart.
The American Falcon lost its way like a drunken sailor, progressively merging with the mid-size Fairlane. It was more of a short wheelbase stripper Fairlane than anything else. It took the Maverick to get Ford back in the compact game.
I would argue that in terms of its position in the Chrysler lineup, the Duster was closer to being a pony car than a compact. Obviously, the Duster was not technically a specialty car, since it was really just a Valiant with a different roofline, but it was as close as Chrysler came to matching the early Mustang formula: an affordable coupe that was both sporty enough and practical enough to appeal to a wide range of buyers. In short, it was exactly what Plymouth had been trying and failing to do with the Barracuda for the previous six years.
Also, I think part of the reason the Duster was so popular was that it captured some buyers turned off by the fact that the latest Mustang and Barracuda/Challenger were now in the heavyweight division. (If all you wanted or could afford was a six or a base V-8, the Duster was a much better choice than an entry-level Barracuda — better power-to-weight ratio, less cumbersome, and more of a back seat.)
It’s worth noting that, prior to the introduction of the Camaro, there was a Nova hardtop. A similar situation existed at Ford. When the Mustang became a smash success, the Falcon 2-door quickly turned into a sedan, as during the A-body years of the Barracuda, the Valiant 2-door was a sedan.
Chrysler might have continued to follow the formula, too, if not for the lack of a Dodge ponycar in the sixties. This is essentially what fouled-up the compact 2-door sedan playbook for them because the Dodge Dart was a hardtop in an attempt to at least get some ponycar sales (Swinger 340 and Dart GTS models). These cars had to carry the Dodge pony car load during the A-body Barracuda years.
Unfortunately for Chrysler, they fouled-up in 1970 with the introduction of the swoopy new Duster coupe (it wasn’t technically a hardtop and had ‘flipper’ style quarter windows) and they also kept the Dart Swinger hardtop in production. Both cars simply took a huge bite out of E-body sales (and likely some B-body musclecars, too). The E-body had quality issues, anyway, but the internal A-body competition pretty much killed any chance it might have had.
GM and Ford played it smart by making sure that when ‘their’ ponycars were in production, they completely cancelled all 2-door hardtop versions of the Nova and Falcon, and the Falcon’s replacement, the Maverick, followed suit. They were all designed with more upright, sedan-style, framed glass front doors.
Plausibly valid argument: Mopar compacts cannibalized Mopar mid-size cars.
Plausibly better valid argument: GM had 4 divisions producing 6 lines of mid-size cars that were demonstrably better than any mid-size car Chrysler (and Ford for that matter) was putting out. GM simply whipped the Mopar entries in the mid-size segment.
“The Falcon Futura convertible and the Mustang convertible occupied very much the same space.”
As others have already noted, the disappearance of hardtops and convertibles from compact models in the mid-to-late ’60s was usually tied to their introduction in ponycar or intermediate models. This wasn’t unique to GM but happened at Ford and Chrysler as well. Sales of the Falcon Futura convertible plummeted after the Mustang was introduced, and it was dropped completely when the Fairlane got a convertible in 1966. As rudiger alluded to, a hardtop (and convertible) on the Dart/Valiant body only survived to the end of the ’60s because Dodge lacked a ponycar. Somewhere in the late ’60s, Chrysler realized that there was a niche for the hardtop, kept it around even after Dodge got a ponycar, and expanded it back to Plymouth with the Scamp. It did give Chrysler something unique that its competitors didn’t have.
“In ’71, Chevy’s compact was performing dismally, sales were down to under 200,000”
When I first read this, my reaction was “That can’t be right”. But my Standard Catalog confirms that Nova production in 1971 was 194K. That was an anomaly, though (maybe even a typo?); production in had been over 200K in 1968 and 1969, over 300K in 1970, and would bounce back up over 300K in ’72. By 1973, production was up to 369K, then 390K in 1974 in the wake of the first oil crisis. I’m not sure what happened in 1971, but it was not at all a typical sales year for the Nova of that era.
“Valiant added the two door hardtop Duster in 1970, selling over 217,000 copies”
The Duster was unquestionably very successful. I’ve always seen it as a reaction to the ’68 Nova, though, with the same kind of semi-fastback styling. As rudiger alluded to, whatever else it may have been, I don’t think it was really a true hardtop.
“The American Falcon lost its way like a drunken sailor, progressively merging with the mid-size Fairlane. It was more of a short wheelbase stripper Fairlane than anything else.”
Agreed. All of the Big Three de-emphasized their compact lines for a while in the mid-to-late ’60s, but Ford really let things go, seeming to completely lose interest in this segment of the market for several years.
“Plausibly valid argument: Mopar compacts cannibalized Mopar mid-size cars.”
I think the argument is more that they cannibalized sales of the E-bodies than of the B-bodies, although there may have also been some impact on the B-bodies, particularly the muscle car versions. Whether it was styling, quality issues, or whatever else, the 1971 Chrysler B-bodies were simply flops.
Seems like there was a big labor action in 1971 that targeted plants that built the F-body (Camaro and Firebird) for that year, severely reducing production. Could this explain the reduced Nova production for that year, as well, since the Nova used much of the same chassis components?
Could also be that a lot of folks bought a Vega instead of a Nova; it was the hot new thing that year.
Safer & quicker than Sominex to produce snores.
I usually don’t mind of base sixes but never with an automatic and especially never with a Slushglide; my dad’s ’57 Bel Air with the 265 started my dislike for that transmission. However this Nova would make a great sleeper with a modern small block V8 or even the newer 300+ hp sixes with the six speed manual that are in the base Cameros or Cadillacs. Of course keep the dog dish wheels.
Good looking well built basic transportation. If it could have been ordered with a decent 5 speed, ps, and front disc brakes along with cloth interior and carpeting and a couple of extra gauges, along with maybe a 2 barrel carb and a little head, cam and exhaust updating along with the F41 suspension option, the 68 to 72 6 cylinder could have been an affordable alternative to the imports.
From that era, even a 4 speed would be OK; I think you could order most of what you specify, except for the engine mods. That said, a Nova set up this way could have been an entertaining, competent car. You could have bought something similar from GM in a Firebird in the late ’60s, but a balanced, affordable alternative to the imports wasn’t in style.
Not sure, but I think you only could get the 3 speed with the 6, I believe 4 speed was V8 only. If the Pontiac OHC cam 6 with 4BBL carb was as good as it was on paper, it would have been great in the Nova. But it had a lot of problems. The 250 6 was a good engine that probably would have ran well and been reliable. I do agree there was little interest in this setup at the time in American cars.
You just described the Argentine version.
The interior.
A ’75 model.
The Chevrolet Marketing People in Argentina still decided to hold onto the 1968-72 3G vintage body versions through 1978 which they have given many names depending upon the Body Style and Trim. For the Two Door versions, the base Chevrolet Chevy, the sporty Serie 2. The Four Door versions, the base Chevrolet Chevy and their fully loaded luxury version called the Chevrolet Chevy Malibu. In the spirit of the renamed Novas, the Mexican version of the ones with the sporty package on the 4G was called the MALIBU RALLYE and here is part of the sales brochure page mentioning more about this.
Perfecto! I really like the brown color with the black vinyl roof. I generally don’t care for vinyl roofs, but on this example it really looks good.
It looks like it is passing on its mantel of being ubiquitous in every town and city to the Volvo 850 and the 00-07 Taurus behind it. Once the Nova in all body styles were everywhere and it seemed like every street had at least one parked on it. Now the Taurus and the 850 are in the same boat as every street seems to have at least one of them on it. When I owned my 2006 silver Taurus I named it Y.A.S.T which is short for Yet Another Silver Taurus because it seemed like every Taurus out there was silver.
Still that Nova is a survivor so whatever engine is in it we gots to give it props. Plus its owner did not decide to make another SS clone so that is also a plus.
It is easy to see this a dealers loss leader ad car: “Brand New Chevy Nova with AUTOMATIC – only $1999!” O,r whatever a loss leader price would have been at that time. Now they make dealers actually have the ad car. Most ads in Houston show the stock number. No idea what rules if any applied then.
MSRP on the stripper 6 with automatic was $2458 in 1970. The average equipment Impala had an MSRP of around $4,000. Priced under sticker, the loss leader Nova would look like an absolute bargain compared to the typical Chevy on the lot.
Dealers then did still need to have at least one car in stock that met the advertised price, although they didn’t usually run the stock number or VIN in the ad. That was often the only way people with little money to spend could get a new car: Toward the end of the model year, dealers would have one or two of these ultra-strippo price leaders gathering dust on the back of the lot and would be willing to let them go for well under sticker just to clear them out. You could get a particularly good deal on stick-shift cars because a lot of people just didn’t want them.
I owned a 73 this basic, perhaps more so. White. Small six (I confess I know not the size) and three on the tree. I’ve owned two 1960 Falcons but the interior in the Nova was as cheap as anything I’ve owned. Rubber floor coverings. One pc. molded door coverings. And a single piece black overlay for the drivers side dash that MAY have had silver trim paint on the ridges.
Hello Robert,
That’s a nice neighborhood block in Washington DC. Would you mind if I asked what street it’s on?
-Yoshi
That looks identical to lmy dad’s ’69 Nova, circa 1977, when I was still in elementary school. Same specs too- 250 I6, Powerglide, no power steering. When the 250 spat a rod out the side of the block, my dad sold it to our neighborhood mechanic and bought a ‘ 72 Pinto.
I guess I’m old as I love this car and pretty much all those long gone base model people movers .
Very few people ever bothered to properly tune the I6 engines , the standard 194 C.I. was a terrible slug , the mid option 230 I6 was barely adequate and the 250 was actually peppy unless you had your friends in there too .
-Nate
Nice survivor! As mentioned it could become a great sleeper with a big block…
Passed this 74(?) Nova on a street in Stockholm two weeks ago.
Pretty certain the pictured car is a ’69, by the small front side marker lights. Later years had more elongated lights. Different taillights too. This looks very much like my first car, a gold ’69 coupe, 6 cyl., Powerglide, AM radio, wheel covers and whitewalls. Pretty spartan interior with no carpeting and a vinyl seat. Purchased new at the end of the model year for $2,250. Always thought the coupe was styled nicely, particularly in comparison with the pre 1968 model.
Wavered between getting this and a VW beetle. The deciding factor was that if I got an automatic that mom could occasionally drive the parents would kick in some bucks. Seemed like a good deal to me.
my first car was a ’70 in white but it did have a black vinyl roof and trim stip. Also was a 307 rather than the 250. Now my friend Ron had a ’70 SS350 with a 4 speed, damn! was beautiful maroon, even had the rally wheels you all hate on. I don’t think these things were built as good as the Dart.
Rallye wheels are fine when the car came with them from the factory, but it seems that every Chevy from that era wears them now. They’ve become a cliche.
After coming back after summer break, in the faculty lot at high school there was a new ’70 Nova coupe in Autumn Gold that had custom exterior trim, 350, Rallye wheels and whitewall tires. Easily the best looking car in the whole school.
As much as I liked that Autumn Gold car with Rallyes, this plain car with white wheels and dog dish caps looks cool, too.
As I noted earlier on my Comments and Postings, some of the 3G & 4G Novas marketed for Mexico and South American Countries were given the name Malibu. It was an irony that in 1978, you can have 3 different versions of the Malibu which includes the real RWD A/G-Bodied Malibu for the North American Market. For the purpose of coincidental comparisons, these were the Malibus of similar sizes which would otherwise be different cars altogether. On the top left was the real RWD A/G-Bodied Malibu made for both US and Canada, on the top right was the RWD X-Bodied 4G 1978 Nova SS/Rallye which in Mexico Chevrolet decided to name this car YES a MALIBU RALLYE and at the bottom center, the RWD X-Bodied 3G (our 1968-72 Chevy II/Nova) 1978 Chevrolet Chevy Malibu made for the Argentinian Market. This is why INMHO, the 1997-current Malibu is more of a continuation of the Nova line rather than the original RWD A-Bodied 1964-77 Chevelle Malibu and the Downsized RWD A/G-Bodied Malibu which replaced the 1964-77 vintage. In truth as I have mentioned before, the Malibu after 1983 were supposedly replaced by the FWD A Bodied Celebrity from 1982-90, FWD W-Bodied Lumina from 1990 through 2001, the updated FWD W-Bodied Impala/*Impala Limited from 2000-*16 and the current FWD GM Epsilon II Impala.
Dull is as Dull Does.
I love it ! I had a 79 Nova two door, with the straight six and three speed automatic. It was Firethorne Red with matching interior and came with Cragar S/S’s on it, I actually sought out four steelies and dog dish caps to put on it.
My auntie had a white one with a red interior, and one of the ugliest bench seats in living memory. I don’t know if they were lifted from another car or not, but they were ugly and smelled like a chemical plant in the summertime. She had no AC either.
Prior to the Pontiac Ventura II and the NOVA Group. Besides the Argentinian Chevrolet Chevy, Canada also had their version and its called the GM of Canada Acadian which were sold at their Pontiac and possibly Buick Dealerships or GMC Trucks Dealer. Other than some renaming, it was basically a Nova in which all the Nova identifications were removed and replaced by the Acadian name especially if the US imported those models to Canada.
My father’s first, and only, brand-new car was a ’72 Nova. Not sure what trim level but he tells me it was a dark blue 2 door with a 307 and auto. Got it once he graduated college and got a Real Job, so probably summer ’72 (end of model year special? Or did the model year align more closely with the chronological year back then?)
He enjoyed it for about 5 years, but by that time the floorpans were starting to rust out. The New Jersey road salt must have taken its toll. (We’ve come a long way in rustproofing–nowadays any rust on a 5 year old car would be extremely unusual!) Traded in on a ’74 or ’75 Dart sedan with the slant six–less stylish but presumably missing the rust.
Looks barer than Eddie Murphy’s “crappy blue Chevy Nova” in “Beverly Hills Cop”:
Hipster scale:
As domestic beer:
Nova – Budweiser
Falcon – PBR
Valiant – High Life
As underwear:
Nova – white briefs
Falcon – plaid boxers
Valiant – navy boxer-briefs
As facial hair:
Nova – goatee
Falcon – full beard
Valiant – stubble
As music:
Nova – pop rock
Falcon – garage rock
Valiant – country
As housing unit:
Nova – ranch house
Falcon – cape cod
Valiant – rental house
As denim:
Nova – Levis
Falcon – Wrangler
Valiant – Lee
As footwear:
Nova – Nike
Falcon – Birkenstock
Valiant – Ked’s
My first car was a 69 Nova. Frost green and 350 V8. Great car, but had advanced tin worm damage, no money/skills to fix. Still miss it.
This story reminded me of a much earlier test drive with my dad and aunt when she was shopping for her first car. The subject was another 69 nova, Frost green, but with the 4 cylinder and dreaded torque drive. I distinctly remember the test drive being about 2 blocks before dad had auntie turn around and return it to the dealer. Nope!
When I was growing up in the early 80s, these were the choice of criminals. Someone knocked over a gas station or liquor store? Yep, it was probably a Nova in the papers.
That’s actually probably a plus in their column: cheap enough but yet still reliable 5-8 years later, distinctive styling so people could ID the car, fast enough to GTFO.
One of my friends had a 1970 with the 153 cu in four cylinder and a three on the tree manual. It was dog slow, as in VW Beetles would show it their tail lights. I’m not sure what kind of economy the car got, but it’s hard to imagine that it was any better than the six cylinder.
It was so slow, I’m not sure who I would pick in a race – it or Paul’s F100 loaded with a ton of mulch…
One sort if like it can seen here>>> http://www.streetkingsokla.com
A car build show on cable TV, featured a ’72 Nova, which was “Gramma’s car” once. The host kept calling it a “muscle car”!* I cringe when younger car fans assume “any” RWD 2 door built before 1980 is a “muscle car”. [Seen some 77-ish Novas called such]
The Nova in the show was an average Nova with larger 350 swapped in place of 307. Really was a ‘hot rod’.
* Only true Chevy II/Nova muscle cars were the SS396 or HiPo SS small blocks.
By chance I happened along this You Tube video. Did Chevy actually sell these with 4 on the tree? I never heard of them until I found this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-xe0BSPirc