1965 Nova sedan
(first posted 9/16/2013. Updated and expanded 4/6/2023) Ed Cole’s bold and daring rear-engine 1960 Corvair was to be Chevrolet’s ultimate answer to all those pesky imports and the other domestic compacts also arriving that year. But within just months of its debut, Cole realized it was not going to succeed in its original mission, thanks to the instant spectacular success of the pragmatic Ford Falcon. A crash program to build a Falcon-fighter was initiated and the relatively dull result was about as different from the Corvair as possible: The Anti-Corvair; otherwise known by its equally uninspired name: Chevy II.
Chevrolet had a lot riding on the Corvair; a bit too much on its swing-axle suspended rear wheels actually. GM made a mammoth bet on Ed Cole’s air-cooled, rear engine baby. The great irony is that although the Corvair essentially failed in its original mission of a low-end, economical compact, hence the decision already in November of 1959 to develop the Chevy II, the Corvair ended up being a surprise success once the sporty and well-trimmed Monza coupe came out in the spring of 1960. The Monza went on to bring in a lot of import owners and intenders, unlike the Falcon and Chevy II. And of course it directly influenced the creation of the Mustang.
By the late fifties, the Big Three’s strategy of ignoring the rapidly swelling growth of imports (and the Rambler) was running out of steam, if for no other reason than because the Big Three’s cars were foreshadowing America’s obesity crisis. The 1958 recession suddenly made Americans (and the Big Three) realize how large and excessive they had become. And the success of the Rambler and Studebaker’s Lark really forced their hand. Compacts all-round was the Big Three strategy for 1960, and they each went about it rather differently. The winner, strictly in terms of sales numbers? The 1960 Falcon (CC here), even if its sales undoubtedly cannibalized the big Ford, almost one-for-one. So the Falcon was not really a profit winner for Ford overall, but the inevitable fragmentation of the market had begun, in earnest.
The 1960 Valiant (CC here) was widely considered a better car than the Falcon, but its controversial Exner styling was all wrong for this class of economy cars. The Falcon hit the sweet spot of the market: cheap, simple, cleanly-styled, economical, and perhaps the most important quality: it was unchallenging, visually and otherwise. What both GM and Chrysler failed to grasp is that in order to move Americans into a compact, it needed to feel like it was “safe” to do so: un-risky in terms of styling, handling, technology, and even resale. The Falcon nailed all the key points; the Corvair and Valiant didn’t.
The Chevy II program obviously was a fast-paced one, given that the go-ahead was given in the late months of 1959, and it appeared in the fall of 1961; that’s some 21 months or so from the green light to Chevy IIs rolling off the assembly lines. And this is for a completely new car. If you ever read that it takes 3-4 years to create a new car from scratch, here’s one obvious exception, but hardly the only one: the 1960 Valiant did it in some 18-19 months.
The Chevy II was a surprising anomaly, given that GM’s body-sharing program was such an intrinsic part of its whole operation. It shared nothing with the B-O-P compacts (Tempest, Special, F-85), which used a lengthened version of the Corvair’s body and also bristled with adventurous technology too: alloy V8, V6, slant four, independent rear suspension, etc. No, the Chevy II was a clean-sheet car; well perhaps a clean back of the envelope car, as there wasn’t really much to it: as simple, boxy and pragmatic as possible. And cheap to build, most of all.
Unlike every other GM car (except the Corvette) the Chevy II’s original (1962-1967) X-Body platform was never shared by any other car. The 1967 Camaro used a significantly different 2nd generation X-Body derivative, as used on the 1968 Chevy II. It shows the huge power and profitability of the Chevrolet Division and Ed Cole at the time.
But GM did take advantage of its later start to give it some features that the Falcon and Valiant lacked, like a proper hardtop coupe with a unique roof.
As well as a convertible, which neither the Falcon or Valiant had.
And lo! Even a three-seat station wagon. Take that, Falcon! Yes, Chevrolet was determined to outdo the Falcon on every point possible; if the Corvair had failed in its original mission, Take II would not.
And that included under the hood. Instead of just a small six, Chevy threw a four into the fight. Why? Chevy obviously needed a new six for its full-sized cars and trucks. So rather than develop a small-block six like Ford did for the Falcon, Chevy created a new six cylinder that it could share across all its lines, and then lopped off two cylinders for an economy four. How’s that for cheap and pragmatic? And a bit unusual, as fours just weren’t big with American car buyers of domestic cars.
Realistically, the 90 (gross) hp 153 CID four ended up in a lot of fleet cars, as well as in the cars of a few thrifty retail Chevy II buyers.
But the little tell-tale I6 badge on the lower fenders was to be seen on the vast majority of Chevy IIs. The 194 CID Hi-Thrift six made 120 (gross) hp, which put it ahead of the Falcon 170 CID six, and about midway between the 170 and 225 inch slant sixes available on the Valiant.The 194 six gave quite decent performance; a Car Life test of a Powerglide-equipped ’62 Chevy II yielded a 0-60 time of 14.0 seconds.
But Chevy was determined to get and keep the II ahead of the competition, and solution was once again highly pragmatic.
So starting in 1964, the tell-tale V8 badge appeared in the fenders II. The 283 was available in both two-barrel (195 hp) and four-barrel (220 hp) versions, making it the undisputed hot rod of the compact class in 1964. But that was just the warm-up act. In 1965, the 327 joined the Chevy II party, in 250 and 300 hp versions. As if that wasn’t enough, for 1966, Chevrolet upped the ante again.
The 350 hp L-79 1966 Chevy II Nova SS was simply in a class by itself; an unbeatable combination in terms of bang for the buck. And now a highly sought-after collectible. Not many survived the street wars they were subjected too.
Chevrolet had already teased a 340 hp 327-powered Chevy II back in 1962, when it built one as a prototype for a dealer-installed package. A Motor Trend review showed it to be a veritable rocket, not surprisingly.
Here is a 1962 Hot Rod article detailing the swap of a 360 hp fuel injected 327 into a ’62 Chevy II. They used over-the-counter parts available to facilitate this, including engines with modified blocks and oil sumps, as well as all the other parts to affect the change-over. Despite the skinny little 13″ tires, the resultant Chevy II scooted from 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, with endless strips of black rubber on the road left behind as a testament.
The resultant car was utterly unprecedented in 1962; a genuine GTO or hemi-killer. Needless to say, many Chevy II’s gave up their sixes or fours for this greater good, and probably many didn’t use all the factory parts either.
The point being is that the Chevy II quickly became the el-cheapo hot rod of choice, for decades on end (has it ended yet?). There was simply no cheaper way to get down the road in a straight line faster than to find a beater Chevy II and drop in the sbc of choice, and…
The result is that finding an unmolested Chevy II, like this coupe here, has become almost impossible. It took several years since I started doing CCs in 2009 until I found these two original Chevy II CCs. Meanwhile, how many hipster-driven Falcons, Rambler Americans and Larks are there on the streets? Is it because there aren’t any original Chevy IIs left, or because their image is so tied up with hot rods?
One thing is for certain: those early V8-swappers quickly came to realize the profound limitations of the Chevy II’s “Mono-Plate” rear leaf springs. It was a perfect example of how the Chevy engineers wrung out every unnecessary expense, creating a single tapered leaf spring that thickened in the center to take the place of the usual pack of leaves. It worked reasonably well enough on the milder versions, but the V8 Chevy IIs were notorious for axle tramp, and drag bars or other stiffeners quickly became the number one aftermarket accessory for anyone hoping to keep the rear tires in contact with the pavement. The Mono-Plates eventually went the way of the Corvair’s swing axles.
Before we leave the Chevy II’s engine compartment, perhaps the most unusual (and likely least common) engine was the 155 hp version of the 230 six, available only in 1964. It had a slightly more aggressive cam, and was lavished with standard chrome engine trim, which oddly was not the case with the V8s. On to the passenger compartment, which wasn’t nearly so well lavished-upon.
Fawn; the favorite color of Chevy II interiors. And this is a Nova, no less, the top of the line. Below it were the 300 and 100. Chevy wasn’t exactly being generous with its interior appointments, unless one sprung for the SS’ decent vinyl. The base 100 really did the expression “stripper” justice. My father-in-law briefly had a Chevy II, which he called “a tin can lined in Saran Wrap”. It was known as the Shitty Little Chevy in the Squires household, rather understandable given that it replaced a late fifties Mercedes 220S with leather and wood.
But plenty of shitty little Chevies were sold in 1962; 403k of them, which was slightly more than the 1962 Falcon’s 397k. And presumably few of those cannibalized big Chevrolet sales, as the ’62s had a banner year too. In fact the Chevrolet Division had the highest market share (29.1%) ever in 1962, thanks to the Chevy II and Corvair sales peaking at 293k units. Ed Cole struck gold twice, with both compact Chevys.
But the compact boom of the early sixties was short-lived; by 1966, the Falcon’s sales fell off a cliff, and although the new 1968 Nova sold decently enough, pony cars and mid-sized cars had become the hot new thing, leaving the compacts fighting for the crumbs. But they enjoyed a resurgence in the seventies, by which time the Valiant and Dodge dominated the segment, looking much like pragmatic Chevy IIs, updated a bit.
Related CC reading:
> And lo! Even a three-seat station wagon. Take that, Falcon and Valiant!
Wait, didn’t the Valiant wagon offer three rows of seats? I recall that being discussed here last year in the comments regarding how the Valiant used Captive-Air run-flat tires in 3 row Valiant wagons to make space for the rear-facing seat (see service bulletin below). And I found this video below showing off the Valiant’s third row. Ramblers and Larks also offered 3 row wagons; I’m surprised Ford didn’t bother.
Quite right. I will amend the text.
Weird thing is I can’t find a single photo online of a 3-row ’60-62 Valiant or Lancer. The brochures mention them though and one shows the actual seat. Doesn’t look like there’s much room for feet; maybe that’s why it wasn’t popular.
Never gave it any thought, but the Corvair wagon couldn’t offer a third row seat for obvious reasons. Maybe that’s why Chevy felt compelled to offer one on the Chevy II even though Ford didn’t.
oops, pic:
The Y-body wagons were offered in three-seat versions as well, although they were very rare.
Here’s a link to a terrific discussion about the Captive-Air tires:
http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=55714
I think this was true of the E-body used by the 1963–1965 Riviera as well. Its frame was derived from the one used on full-size Buicks, but the body shell wasn’t, and while the Riviera was pretty successful, the tension over the one-car-only body helped push the Toronado to share that shell.
(To share that shell for the second-generation 1966–1970 model, I mean.)
This was much later but the Fiero had its own platform and body.
The early X body was used on another car – the Acadian sold by Canadian Pontiac dealers – but I don’t think that counts given how little was changed from the Chevy II.
Actually, it very well might. Obviously, the main point was to spread the tooling costs over as large a number of units as possible, but I think it was also desirable to extend that across distribution channels, to also help to offset those channels’ overhead costs. From a financial standpoint, it’s almost always better to maximize commonality. The fact that GM’s American-market products of that period generally weren’t as obviously badge-engineered as the Canadian Pontiac models was largely a reflection on GM’s skill in developing different-looking cars that still shared a useful degree of tooling commonality, along with the fact that each of GM’s U.S. auto divisions was usually selling in large enough numbers to justify stuff like different engines.
The later X-body clones (Oldsmobile Omega, Pontiac Ventura, Buick Apollo) were almost as similar as the Chevy II and Acadian, which was pretty clearly good for the bottom line. I take as evidence the fact that they stuck it out through the seventies despite often not selling all that terribly well individually. Sales of the Ventura, for instance, probably would have qualified it as a fairly disastrous bomb if it HADN’T been a thinly veiled Chevrolet clone; since it was, Pontiac could afford to keep it around just in case the market happened to swing that way.
Good point.
Some things just go around and come back. I think most Mercedes Sprinters use single leaf rear springs. And in fact the front transverse leaf on a Sprinter is also single leaf, albeit fiberglass. Perhaps monoleaf springs are more common than I thought; I associate them with Chevy II’s, reinforced in my memory by a colleague whose Nova got rear-ended and the springs curled up … but didn’t break.
The Mono-Plate springs were a surprisingly involved effort, and Chevrolet was quite proud of them. I’m not sure the ones on the Chevy II actually ended up saving much if any money over a multi-leaf semi-elliptical spring because the top of each spring was shot-peened under tension. Chevrolet asserted that the tapered single-leaf spring had several advantages, including being quieter and smoother (due to the lack of inter-leaf friction) as well as greater durability because spring stresses were evenly distributed throughout the spring length. In applications where it didn’t have strenuous axle location duties, like the Toronado and FWD Eldorado, it worked well enough. I assume the advantages also apply in transverse mountings where the spring just has to support the mass of the vehicle rather than doing double duty as a control arm.
I can see why people criticize it as being pretty bland, but whenever I saw one I always thought, it might be the only post-1960 Chevy I might consider to buy. Reliable platform in a convenient package that you could do with what you like. It’s like Chevy built a Volvo and didn’t know it. I would bet Chevy wished it would have brought it back instead of the Vega in the 1970’s – it would have been like Nash bringing back the original Rambler!
You can tell that’s an old picture at the top of the article, asking price would be $7995 now.
“[hipsters not into them]… because their [II/Nova] image is so tied up with hot rods?”
So much so that younger ‘car guys’ think of all Novas as “muscle cars”. On a Motor Trend TV show, it had a young guy fixing up his inherited ’72 Nova ‘muscle car’, whiich was just a plain base model with 340 2bbl carb. On You Tube, to some, any old RWD car is a “muscle car”.