(first published 10/24/2011) How to best describe the 1968-1974 Nova? A plain brown wrapper for your choice of Chevrolet engine. And what a choice there was, more than any other car ever built. That’s come to define the Nova of this generation, and it’s still doing duty as an ever-eager receptacle of an engine swap. So don’t even ask what’s under the hood of this one; factory choices started with a 90 hp four cylinder, ended with a 375 hp L-89 396 big block; and in between just about every Chevy motor in production. And what all have folks stuffed into Novas? Everything known to man. This one might well have a Mazda rotary, for all I know. The Chevy Nova: it should have come with quick-release hood hinges: open wide!
Even the ads kept showing the Nova without a hood. The more mild-mannered ones featured the Nova SS with the 300 hp 350 V8. Was the hood an option?
The more serious ones were for the SS 396, which offered a choice of hydraulic-lifter 350 (gross) hp version, or the mechanical-lifter L-89 that was rated here at 375 hp, but had once been rated at 425 hp, before the bigger-bore 427 came along. Speaking of which, the 427 was the only engine that didn’t come (installed) from the factory, but a number of dealers did brisk business ordering 427 short blocks, and swapping them for the L-89 block. Have it your way.
And just who was having it their way on the other end of the spectrum? It’s been a life ambition of mine to find a Chevy II or Nova with the 153 CID (2.5 L) four. Even as a kid, I used to try and figure out if a Chevy II had the four or not, and a couple of times I thought I’d found one, but never long enough to open the hood and confirm it really existed. Has anyone out there ever driven one?
The four might have been a half-way suffer-able economy motor in the lightweight first generation Chevy II, which weighed as little as 2400 lbs with the four. But the all-new 1968 models were hardly compacts anymore, with a 111″ wheelbase just one inch shorter than a Malibu’s, and having packed on some 400-500 lbs. Is there an original four cylinder ’68-’70 Nova left in the world? (all of 2062 fours were built in 1970) If so, shouldn’t it be more valuable than the much-sought L-89 SS 396? Am I the only person in the world asking these important questions?
And to really up the ante, how about a 1970 Nova four with the optional Torque-Drive? It was Chevy’s answer to a fad that inexplicably erupted in the automotive world, and presumably had its origins in the VW automatic stick shift: the semi-automatic transmission. Suddenly, it’s 1940!
The Torque-Drive was basically a manual-shifting Powerglide. And how many cents did Chevy save by doing that? The one consolation was that with only two gears, not a lot of shifting was involved. You could even just leave it in Hi and let the 90 hp four’s torque do the rest. Too poky? Order a Muncie “rock-crusher” four speed behind the 396. Has a car ever had such a bi-polar personality?
In between these book-ends, almost every permutation of Chevy six and V8 was available, in configurations that changed somewhat from year to year. 230 and 250 inch sixes. And small-block V8s in 307, 327, and 350 inch formats, in low, moderate or high performance trim. Needless to say, they were the mainstay of the hot-rod crowd that soon saw the Nova coupe as the second coming of the of the holy trinity of ’55-’56-’57 Chevys: cheap, plentiful, and plug-and-play compatible. Just make sure it’s been sprayed with a half-dozen cans of gray primer.
Even though the Nova was designed to be a cheap and willing receptacle for engines, it did have a passenger compartment, strictly speaking. Obviously, it was an afterthought, not really designed to accommodate humans for any extended time, and then only in the front seat. The fact that the 1968-up Nova now shared much of its platform with the Camaro was all-too obvious. Space utilization was the lowest priority in its development, and interior ambiance, material quality and visibility were right there on the same low level. Nobody ever looked forward to getting into a Nova coupe, except for the thrill of unleashing what might be under the hood.
And yet folks bought them for basic transportation. Oh well. By 1968, GM had already given up on true compacts, at least until the Vega would show up. Of course, the Vega’s interior accommodations followed the Nova’s pattern, but on an even smaller scale. Anybody stupid enough to want a “compact” car should be made to suffer. Hey; it’s bigger inside than a VW! Next time you’ll know better and buy a Biscayne, sucker!
My brother’s girlfriend’s parents bought her a new stripper Nova six coupe in 1969. “Just the thing to drive to the community college, dear”. Kind of like buying your teenage daughter an obsolete cheap flip-phone. Oh the loathing! What she wanted was…a Datsun 510, an MG, or just a Beetle, even an old one, at the least. With its balky three-speed column shifter, slow and heavy manual steering, dinky drum brakes and depressing black interior; oh did we feel sorry for her, especially when she found out she had to make the payments.
Fast forward a dozen years, and my then-secretary was driving a similar Nova coupe, but at least it had a V8, automatic and power steering. It was a hand me-down form her dad, and although not exactly loved, she came to appreciate its simple ruggedness. It just ran and ran, and if it needed to be fixed; well, any greasy nincompoop with a set of cheap tools knew how to keep a Chevy going. No hunting for Peugeot dealers.
The comparison to my Peugeot 404 at the time was mighty stark though. The Nova had the interior ambiance of a bus station waiting room, rode like truck, and sucked gas mightily. There wasn’t one thing in or on it that expressed anything resembling attention to detail, craftsmanship, or quality. A joyless car, which is perhaps why Chevy offered consolations like the L-89 under the hood. When it finally croaked, she bought a new 1985 Corolla. And started smiling more.
So just what’s under the hood of this Nova? We’ll never know. That is the whole point of brown paper bags.
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I think these look nice .
I’ve had lots of Novas but only the early ‘ shoe box ‘ ones .
Good cars if cheap .
-Nate
The 2-doors have a nice profile, not a lot in the way of detail but with the right options they can be sharp-looking cars. They can also be invisible-boring. All depends on the options.
A ’72 Nova was my Dad’s first brand-new car, and to this day is the one and only brand new car he’s owned. Bought it after graduating college as soon as he had a “real” job. I’ve never seen it as it was gone well before I came along in ’80 but from what he’s said, it was a navy blue coupe with the 307 and a 4-speed. He quite liked it for a while, but evidently the ’72’s didn’t have great rust protection, or he got an indifferently assembled one. By ’76 the floorpans were rusty and the rockers were starting to go. He sold it to his sister in ’77 when it was still driveable and would pass inspection…but didn’t have too much longer to live by his estimation. And so went the one and only brand new purchase; I wonder how much the fact that it went from brand-shiny-new to rusty was a factor in deciding that used cars were the way to go in the future. It was replaced by a ’74 Dart with the slant 6, which he also got about 5 years out of but for a much more reasonable entry price!
I owned a 1969 torque drive iron duke nova and I still have some of the original engine parts
400 i paid for it in I think 1978 . Tuned it up and re jetted the carb and it got way over 30
mpg in Syracuse ny
the car was super cool !!
My dad worked with older cars all his life. He ran up on a four cylinder 68 2 door. 3 speed on the column. He said it was the only one he had ever seen. We restored it about 15 years ago. I put a 350 in it but have all original parts for it. Motor tranny everything. Is it as rare as he thought. Williams7777@gmail.com
My very first car I bought with my working money $2.75 hr in 1980 was a 1968 Chevy II Nova..I bought it just because it still had the Chevy II badges and nova..last year and new year of new style…love love loved that car..creme yellow 2 door 230ci torque drive 2 spd auto.No power steering or brakes no air condition didn’t even had a radio..only 39K miles, when bought. I didn’t care what engine was in it I would of enjoyed the 153 ci 4cyl, if it had it..I like the change over year period! I traded it in for a 1971 Chevelle 307 2dr royal blue.PowerGlide, no air condition which I wanted…i enjoyed and miss working on the 230ci 6 cyl easy to work on and the 4cyl might not have the power but still would of enjoyed tinkering with it..1968 Nova best cars had 2 other ones 70/72. YES I miss that Nova I was a stupid punk that just graduated High School 80…if I knew now what I didn’t knw then…Oh well
“…The fact that the 1968-up Nova now shared much of its platform with the Camaro was all-too obvious. Space utilization was the lowest priority in its development, and interior ambiance, material quality and visibility were right there on the same low level. Nobody ever looked forward to getting into a Nova coupe…”
And that was just like the first generation Camaros, too! The only thing that made the Camaro a better driving experience was that most of them had V8s, the smallest one a regular gas 327. And Camaros never had Torque-Drive!
And Camaros never had Torque-Drive!
It was available on Camaros too.
Oh, no!!! Did they sell any more than a half dozen????
Yes!!!!
The ’71 Vega offered it too. Perhaps they had some extras lying around?
Chrysler should have paid more attention to the Nova transition from 1967 to 1968. The earlier Nova started before the Camaro got into production (the ’66 L79 Nova was quite a street machine) and GM correctly figured out that the good-looking Nova would cannibalize Camaro sales. They even discontinued the L79 option for the ’67 Nova.
So, the brand-new ’68 Nova, although still available with high-performance engines, was styled as a much more stodgy car and Camaro sales didn’t suffer.
Chrysler, OTOH, made the 1970 Duster quite a bit more stylish than its predecessor. In effect, they reversed the GM formula, going from the 1969 Valiant 2-door sedan to a sporty car that ate into the more profitable Mopar E- and B-body coupes.
I must come to the defense of these Novas, as I really don’t believe GM designed the 68 Nova to be deliberately unattractive, it’s styling clearly echos the design themes present in the 68 A bodies and B bodies of the period just as the original Chevy II design did, and despite the front end of the 66-67s looking a little like the 63-65 Buick Riviera the rest of it looks almost indistinguishable from a 67 Plymouth valiant, especially in sedan form. The Duster was just styled for the times just as these Novas were, they happened to strike a chord for would be ponycar buyers disillusioned by the fact that the segment’s dimensions and price tags ballooned and practically plummeted with the E bodies
Besides that, if the the L79 disappeared to bolster Camaro favorability, why the L89 396 option in these? The Duster never got any of the mopar big blocks (which the A body Barracuda did) so it’s not like there wasn’t a deliberate effort to separate the Junior muscle cars from the senior muscle cars at Chrysler
Indeed, if deemphasizing style had been a deliberate goal they simply would’ve frozen the design, as indeed they did for 5 years from ’68-72, a couple years sooner and built the 1966 car until ’72.
FWIU the big block Mopar simply wouldn’t fit in the A-body, at least in a way that met corporate engineering’s standards of service access which was why the E-bodies were so much fatter than the older Barracudas. All of the Big 3 expanded their ponycars to take big-blocks just as the insurance companies shut down the party, it’s just that the Duster was a more convincing sporty compact alternative to the minned-out Maverick and one less accepted by management than the Nova which didn’t fully lose its’ big-block and SS options until after the party was well and truly over.
The L79 was discontinued on the ’67 Chevy II because of the 10lbs/hp minimum set by corporate for 1967. That explains why several Chevy models had engine line-up revisions that year. But that was apparently shelved again in 1969, which explains the 375 hp 396 available that year in the Nova.
And I quite agree with Matt that the ’68 Nova, especially the coupe, was a good looking car at the time. And there’s no doubt that it directly influenced the future Duster.
I wonder whether Torque-Drive was mechanically sustainable. If people were starting out in Hi, how might that affect the engine over time? Or would it? And wouldn’t the frequent shifting between Hi and 1st wear out the transmission? I’ve heard warnings to avoid shifting automatics between gears unless absolutely necessary.
It was, very much so.
It wouldn’t affect the engine; the original Powerglide and Dynaflow used to start in high gear all the time, unless manually downshifted into Low.
Automatics shift gears all the time. This was the same thing, except it was activated by a move of the lever instead of a valve body or such. Same thing in the end.
The warning you heard was maybe 40 or 60 years ago, when it was recommended not to shift down into Low more than necessary. Downshifts at higher speeds could be a bit harsh on those early automatic transmission. Modern transmissions? Since the late 50s or 1960s? Help yourself. Many have paddle shifters. Ford did call their 3-speed automatic “Select-Shift” for a reason. And console shifters were designed to make manual shifting easier; that was their whole purpose.
On a two speed automatic, a shift from hi to lo at anything over 80 km/h could cause some serious damage to both the motor and the transmission.
The Torque-Drive hits the fabled, “What were they thinking” gong dead on. The Powerglide in the Chevy II came from 1962 and the engineering from long before that. It was long paid off. GM kept it because it was a simple and cheap way to getting automatics to buyers. I can’t ever recall anyone complaining about.
it.
There simply wasn’t any point to Torque-Drive. Powerglide was already cheap and no doubt GM was making fat profits on each one but Torque-Drive was hardly any cheaper. The valve body on a Powerglide isn’t a very sophisticated piece of engineering so deleting it couldn’t have saved much money. Even at today’s prices, it’s like $200 and that’s retail.
I saw about a gadillion of these cars go through our shop. The majority of them were four door sixes with Powerglide from 1968-1971 and THM after that. The two doors had about a 50/50 V-8/6 split and those V-8s I saw were all 307s. Canadians were a pretty frugal lot in those days.
Torque drive cost just $68.65, in 1968 ($513 adjusted). Or a bit more than half the price of Powerglide. It was away to get rid of the clutch and balky shifting for quite a bit less than a full automatic. That was the whole point.
Full story here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-chevrolets-torque-drive-a-dumber-powerglide/
That’s pretty much the exact figure I got, the cost of the TD was $50 less, which is $335 today. I also found a production figure that stated 14,000. I have no way to confirm this but in a zillion Novas I never saw one. Loads of Powerglide and three on the tree, and a 50/50 split.
If all that was missing from the Torque Drive were the proper valve body and solenoids, I wonder how many people were slick enough when they got one so equipped, that they simply went to a junkyard and picked up a Powerglide’s valve body and solenoids for cheap and turned their Torque Drive back into a Powerglide.
That 153 four must’ve at least handled well, with the radiator shifted back close to the engine like that it’s practically mid-engined.
Later on, in 1977 (only), Pontiac offered the Iron Duke in the Ventura. It came with a 5-speed manual while the 6 still only had a 3-speed, so you could keep it on the boil. But of course being GM you could get one with an automatic. 0-60? Yes.
In fact, they all handled well. It was basically the same car as a Camaro.
I bought a used ’69 Nova 230 with the Torque Drive in 1975. The low power output of the 230 with the trans left in drive and the car did a very commendable job of going without getting stuck in Wisconsin Winter!
No power anything, but the car was reliable and just kept chugging along. Compared to my first ’69 Nova 250/PG, bought new, the second one was a fine low end automobile while the first was a trouble plagued PO$!
My last Nova, a ’79 250/3 on the tree was ok after it “ate” 3 camshafts resulting in a new short block. Following that transplant it was another reliable piece of low end transportation. Incidentally the ’75-’79s were the same basic car as the ’68, but with SOME new sheet metal that resulted in a rather successful facelift!! 🙂 DFO
“Incidentally the ’75-’79s were the same basic car as the ’68, but with SOME new sheet metal that resulted in a rather successful facelift!”
There were similarities. I’m thinking the dashboard in particular.
The ’68–’74 X-body subframe/steering/front suspension was based on the ’67 F-body piece, lightly massaged. By comparison, the ’75–’79 X-body subframe/steering/front suspension was based on the “70 1/2” F-body–far stronger/beefier/heavier; and subsequently used on ’73–77 A-body, and the “downsized” 77–96 B-body.
With either the ’68–’74, or ’75–’79 X-body, any engine that could fit into an F-body would fit into the X-body. The total lack of Ford/Chrysler/AMC engine compartment Unibody sheetmetal “shock towers” made engine swaps simple and common.
Unfortunately, the rear suspension was a horrible mess. As bad as leaf springs are, the F- and X-body was worse. Broken leaves are epidemic–show me a ’67–82 F-body, or a ’68–’79 X-body, and I’ll show you a car with broken leaf springs or leaves that have been replaced at least once.
When my father first started buying this taxi company (a huge mistake, based on sins in past lives) the cars were mostly six cylinder Novas with THM. It was not hard to see why these shareholders were going broke. Change the oil ? Phhht, that’s a waste of money, just keep adding! Carpets on the floor? Where did you grow up, what’s wrong with bare metal? When I started as fleet manager, they were utterly shocked I got the cars serviced once a month as maintenance. Funnily enough, I didn’t have many tow bills but they did.
But you know what? As horridly abused as these cars were, they ran. Yes, they stank of cigarette smoke and dirty feet, but they ran. The doors creaked and the windows were filthy but they ran.
We quickly replaced them with B Bodies.
I owned a ‘68 Chevy II Nova, bought in the Fall of ‘72… in that kind of weird, turquoisey blue, black interior, bench seat, 307 with a 4 speed, dog dish ‘caps… good car… kept it through all of ‘73, had it painted a bright gold at Earl Scheib in Anaheim, Ca. for $39.95 (a step up from the $29.95 they were famous for) and I quickly learned not to wash a car with a cheap paint job at a coin wash.
I then sold it to a friend in Summer of ‘74 in prep for the purchase of my first new car: a 1974 Fiat X1/9. Good times.
I’m glad you reran this entry. My brother came across a ’70 a few years ago and, for reasons he can’t quite explain, bought it. I think it was because it’s the car he’d like to have had back when he was in high school (Boomer nostalgia is a potent force). It was in a sorry state and needed, among many other things, a new engine (350 crate went in). He didn’t do a full-on restoration–just enough work so that (1) it looks respectable, and (2) he can drive it for fun. He loves it.
You really do have to love Pony Cars to ‘get’ these ~ they were cheap in every way but IMO still good drivers and as mentioned they -could- be maintained to last forever apart from the tin worms…..
Your Dodge Dart GT was indeed a better car in every way but looks….
I preferred the earlier ‘shoebox’ Chevy II’s .
-Nate
BTW : Boomers, yeah we’re weird .
-Nate
An interesting aside to the Nova story is something a guy once told me about trying to order a 1970 Nova. His claim is that the 454 was available but as a COPO (much like the famed 1969 427 COPO Camaro). Unfortunately, his claim falls flat when he goes on to say that the dealer couldn’t get it for him, so he, instead, bought a 1970 Super Bee.
I have my doubts since I don’t think I’ve ever heard (much less seen) anything about a factory 454 Nova. I suspect it was more of a typical sleazy dealer move to keep him on the hook until he finally relented and just bought a Nova SS396 off the lot.
My second ’69 Nova was a used 230/6 with the Torque Drive. I found the combo worked quite well on snowy/icy Wisconsin Winter roads and streets! Plus unlike the new ’69 Nova 250/6 PG I had, the 230 did NOT eat valves like my 250/6 never stopped doing!
Both of the ’69s were superior to the new ’72 California Nova 250 with PG I briefly had: it returned a BLAZING 15mpg highway!! I think it may have had more smog equipment bolted on than those 6 pistons could handle. Heck my ’56 150 2 door with it’s ’66 275hp 327 got 12-14 mpg, well if I took it very easy with my right foot. 🙂 The ’69s and the ’72 had the basic blACK vinyl interior. My ’79 broke the mold by having a multi toned “Light Tan” interior to complement it’s dark brown metallic exterior; still all vinyl though.
My last Nova was the somewhat restyled ’79 also with a 250/6 but a 3 on the tree, manual everything. After eating 3 cams, I got a new short block and the car was reliable and reasonably economical from then on! After all, what could be more reliable than a push rod Chevy 6? Uh-huh. All 4 were 2 door coupes. What handling, what brakes? A cu$tomer couldn’t have everything from GM for “paltry” Nova prices!! 🙂
I’ve always liked the Harry Bradley styling of the 68-72 Novas. Even the ’75 “refresh” appealed to my jaded eyes, mostly. DFO