When we think of the mid-’60s Chevrolet Chevy II/Nova today, we tend to envision either a mousy schoolteacher’s car or a GTO-eating sleeper armed with the rare, ultra-hot L79 SBC engine. The car tested in the July 1966 Motor Trend was something in between: a Nova Super Sport hardtop with the less-racy but still potent 275 hp 327 and automatic transmission — the first commuter muscle car?
I think one can sum up a lot about the Chevy II from the difficulty I had in finding pictures of an unmolested 1966 Nova SS for this article. So many L79s! So many four-speeds! So many oversize aftermarket wheels, nearly all of them hideous! After an hour of this, the casual Internet searcher might assume that almost no Nova ever left the factory with automatic transmission, or with anything less than the hottest available engine option.
Fortunately, I eventually found an auction listing for the Marina Blue 1966 Nova SS 327 hardtop pictured below, which is equipped almost identically to the 1966 Motor Trend test car except for its aftermarket cassette player and F70-14 tires. (Standard Nova V-8 fare in 1966 was 6.95-14 rubber on 5J-14 wheels.) It even has narrow whitewalls — not the now-ubiquitous raised white letters — and the original SS wheel covers.
1966 Chevy II Nova SS Sport Coupe / Street Dream Texas
More importantly, the blue car retains the original powertrain: the RPO L30 327 cu. in. (5,354 cc) small block V-8 and two-speed Powerglide automatic.
The Chevy II debuted for the 1962 model year with your choice of meek four-cylinder “Super-Thrift” or mild six-cylinder “Hi-Thrift” engines; it intended as a Falcon-fighter, not a sporty coupe. However, it took almost no time at all for Chevrolet fans — and the automotive “buff books” — to start pondering what it could do with a V-8. The factory eventually obliged, adding the 283 to the regular production options list for 1964 and the 327 starting in 1965.
Although Motor Trend doesn’t mention it, there were actually two 327 options in 1965: the L30, with 250 gross horsepower, or the L74, with a bigger carburetor and 300 gross hp, both shared with the 1965 Corvette. For 1966, Chevrolet essentially consolidated these two previous choices into a single 275 hp L30 engine, while adding the racier 350 hp L79 engine as a new option. You couldn’t order the latter with automatic in the Chevy II, and the hot engine cost an extra $198.05, both of which presumably deterred casual showroom customers. NovaResource estimates that only 5,481 L79 engines went into the Chevy II and Nova in 1966, not all of them in Super Sports.
RPO L30 275 hp 327 engine / Street Dreams Texas
Nonetheless, the milder L30 was no mean consolation prize, especially in the lightweight Chevy II. As the text above notes, the curb weight of the Motor Trend Nova SS 327 was only 3,040 lb, which is only about 100 lb heavier than a 2025 Honda Civic Sport sedan. Chevrolet in this era published only gross outputs for its hotter engines, but they did publish both gross and net ratings for the milder options, and the specifications reveal that the L30 had 210 net horsepower at 4,400 rpm and a stout 310 lb-ft of torque at 2,800 rpm — making for a very respectable power-to-weight ratio (and torque-to-weight ratio) even today.
To spare you the suspense, Motor Trend recorded a 0 to 60 mph time of 8.6 seconds for their Powerglide-equipped Nova, and while their acceleration runs were cut short by a serious quality-control issue (more on this below), they managed a decent standing quarter mile time of 16.4 seconds, with an 85.9 mph trap speed.
Maybe the most surprising detail in this road test is their observed fuel economy: 15.2 to 19.2 mpg in typical city and freeway driving, doubtlessly aided by the 3.08 axle ratio. If you really wanted to save on fuel, the Hi-Thrift 194 six was still the way to go, but getting this kind of mileage with a 327 and Powerglide was impressive, and would have made the Nova SS 327 a pretty painless commuter car.
Standard Astro Bucket seats / Street Dreams Texas
Painless, that is, unless you were over 6 feet tall, in which case the bucket seats (standard on the Super Sport) might have had you more up close and personal with the headliner than really seems proper in a car this size. (Despite the stubby look created by the short nose and dowdy-looking front clip, a Chevy II of this vintage really wasn’t a small car, stretching 183 inches long on a 110-inch wheelbase.) Evidently, the hardtop’s low 53.8-inch unladen height came at a cost. What price style?
The same question could well be asked of the upholstery. The vinyl trim is attractively designed, and the bright blue color is certainly appealing, but I can almost feel the sizzle of singed flesh on hot vinyl in the summertime, and those little metal trim bits in the center of the seat backs seem like they could become miniature branding irons on a bright, warm sunny day. Add that to the limited headroom, and this was a combination that might have worked better in the showroom than on the road.
Unlike some GM Super Sport packages, the Nova SS was really just an appearance group, with no performance equipment or special instruments beyond the horizontal speedometer and fuel gauge. Chevrolet did generously supply a clock, which was a dealer-installed extra on non-SS cars.
Dashboard with clock, standard on the Nova SS / Street Dreams Texas
If you ordered a Super Sport with four-speed or Powerglide, you did get a floor shifter and console to go with your bucket seats.
Console shifter, standard on the Nova SS with Powerglide / Street Dreams Texas
However, you did not get two-stop door hinges, apparently, a minor but irritating point when you consider that the body-side crease that runs through the center of the door had no rub strips to prevent minor dings. Stylists may become disenchanted with rub strips and protective moldings as affronts to the aesthetic purity of a car’s shape, but the designers aren’t the ones paying for touch-up paint and ding removal!
Color-keyed interior / Street Dreams Texas
Motor Trend editorial has often had a reputation for obsequiousness, and this road test is a case in point, with its almost apologetic description of their adventure with the incorrectly installed radiator hose being severed by contact with the alternator fins during acceleration runs.
This might have been a one-in-a-million fluke, as editor Steve Kelly asserts, but it was one that could have had much more expensive consequences if it had happened in a less-controlled environment, and it does raise uncomfortable questions about Chevrolet quality control. The obvious question for a disgruntled owner in that situation would be, “If they didn’t notice that they installed the wrong hose, what ELSE did they miss?”
For its time, the Chevy II handled fairly well, but its brakes were only mediocre, a function not only of the smallish (9.5-inch) drums, but also the limited axle control provided by Chevrolet’s vaunted “Mono-Plate” single leaf springs. There was a lot of interest in single-leaf springs like this for smaller cars because they were lighter and improved ride quality by eliminating the inter-spring harshness of a multi-leaf semi-elliptical spring. However, with more powerful engines or in hard braking, the single-leaf spring tended to fall down on its second job as axle-locating arm, a problem that also plagued the early Camaro and Firebird.
Mono-Plate single-leaf semi-elliptical spring / Street Dreams Texas
Drivers of lesser Chevy II or Nova models with the milder engines might not have ever had issues with axle hop, but the limited ground clearance of the exhaust head pipe seems like a less forgivable problem. Not everyone drives very hard, but most drivers do occasionally have to cope with parking garage ramps and the like, and the prospect of damaging the exhaust system on a particularly steep ramp is not very appetizing.
1966 Chevy II Nova SS Sport Coupe / Street Dream Texas
But, to some extent this is all nitpicking. A Nova hardtop wasn’t a fancy or expensive car, even in SS trim, and while there were aspects of its design, styling, and proportions with which one could quibble, it still won points for its lack of pretense.
I suspect a buyer looking for a sporty commuter car in this price range in 1966 was more likely to choose a Mustang, and even some Chevrolet fans must have — the Camaro was still a year away at this point — but that would probably have let you negotiate an attractive discount from this Nova’s $3,165.15 suggested retail price. A Nova Super Sport was a car that a single person or young family could live with every day without too much strain on either pocketbook or ego, to eventually be traded in on something with more back seat room for the kids.
As for its performance, the L30 Nova SS 327 wasn’t ready to tangle with any of the really hot intermediate Supercars, but it was pleasantly brisk for 1966, and you could lay a lot of hurt on Mustang drivers with one of the milder 289s. Of course, getting more power out of a 327 was not difficult, so you could have transformed this Nova into one of the stoplight terrors of legend, and a beefed-up Powerglide was not a handicap for serious drag racing. On the other hand, you could also have left well enough alone, content with more-than-adequate acceleration and surprisingly decent fuel economy.
1966 Chevy II Nova SS Sport Coupe / Street Dream Texas
How many cars had the 327/Powerglide combination in 1966? Hard to say: Official Chevrolet production figures aren’t broken down by engine type and are rounded to the nearest 100, but they show that the division build about 16,300 Nova Super Sport V-8s for the 1966 model year, not quite 10 percent of 1966 Chevy II production. NovaResource, which has researched this question more thoroughly than I probably ever will, estimates that actual SS V-8 production was 16,311 units, of which 5,108 had the L30 327. Most of those undoubtedly had Powerglide, which went into about two-thirds of Chevy II production in 1966.
So, in a way, the Nova SS 327s seen here were rare cars, but not in a way that is usually gathered in and preserved. A Nova Super Sport equipped like this seems more like the product of an impulse buy or showroom upsell — a car bought by a customer looking for an easy-to-park, relatively economical go-to-work car with a bit of verve, who saw the $92.70 price of the L30 option, asked if they could still get automatic with that, and then said, “Sure, why not?” It’s reassuring to know that at least a few Novas of this vintage have stayed that way.
Related Reading
Vintage Motor Trend Road Test: 1962 Chevy II With 340 HP 327 Corvette V8 – Factory Built; Dealer Option Coming Soon! (by Paul N)
Car Show Outtake: 1966 Chevrolet Chevy II Nova SS – An Opel Kadett Crossed With A Riviera (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1963 Chevy II Nova SS Coupe — The Only One Left Wearing Its Original Wheel Covers? (by Paul N)
Chevrolet quality control was awful from ’66-’69, A good friend of mines parents had a ’66 Impala wagon-total POS. My dads ’69 Townsman wagon-total POS. But the Chevy fanbois with their rose colored glasses would never admit that today. The fact the test car had the wrong hose doesn’t surprise me one bit. Even my brothers ’69 L78 Camaro had its share of issues. And the same thing happened with the Maverick; people were swapping SBF’s in before the factory did.
And you can bet that air pump and rest of the bits was yanked and trashed first thing.
“Dowdy looking front clip”? It’s my favorite of all Nova’s, except maybe the final (non-NUMMI) generation. As I get older and my miles behind the wheel of automatic equipped cars approaches three-pedal miles, I think I’d really enjoy this powertrain. V8, minimal shifting and tall gearing.
I agree, it’s got a nice crisp clean look to it. In the real world a pragmatic powertrain giving you the boost and the right sound, just needs better brakes.
The powertrain has nothing to do with the dorky looks, though.
It’s inoffensive, but the proportions are odd and the headlight/grille treatment makes it look like Smithers from The Simpsons. I’d still take it over the 1968–1974 Nova, whose styling was so crudely detailed that it looked like a magically enlarged Hot Wheels car, but the ’66/’67 vibe still screams “high school math teacher” to me.
The pre-Camaro Nova hardtop would seem to have had an impact on Chrysler’s ‘do whatever GM was doing’ decision to continue denying Dodge a version of the Plymouth Barracuda for 1967.
Instead, Dodge would get a very Nova-like Dart hardtop (most popularly known as the Swinger in later years) that, like the Nova, would get the same performance engine line-up as the Barracuda (including the infamous, race-only 1968 Hurst Hemi-Dart), as well as a convertible version.
It’s worth noting that, with a new for 1967 Barracuda coupe and convertible, the Valiant lost its previous hardtop and convertible models, with the only two-door Valiant now being the quite stodgy 2-door sedan, which would go away with the introduction of the 1970 Duster.
The Duster 340 usually gets the nod as the Mopar equivalent of the 1966 Nova L79, but it’s really closer to the 1967 Dart hardtop in both appearance and execution.
I long suspected that GM just lowered the stated hp ratings of the ’65 300 and 350 hp 327s to 275 and 325 hp in ’67 in order to meet the GM corporate edict of no less than 10lbs/hp (Corvette excepted). I did a bit of poking around and it seems that that’s largely the case, but the 275hp L30 does seem to have some minor difference from the 300hp version. But then Chevrolet was constantly tweaking and shuffling components on their V8s, and the advertised hp numbers didn’t always reflect that.
I had mixed feelings about this restyle. It did look more contemporary but I tended to have an aversion to making a car longer just for the sake of style. That really bugged me about the ’63 Y-Bodies too.
The 275 was very close to the 300, minor differences in the heads (slightly smaller ports), ignition curve and at first a smaller 4 barrel. As far as as I know, 300s came with dual exhaust and 275s with single. In ’66 most 275s came with a Carter AVS carb while later versions had the quadrajet. 300s used a Carter AFB.
I suspect the dual exhaust made more difference than anything else.
A good friend had a ’66 Malibu SS (Canadian car) withe same power train as the Nova tested here and it got surprisingly good fuel mileage as well.
The 325 was exactly the same as the 350 except that the nice aluminum intake and 4160 Holley were replaced with a cast iron manifold and a quadrajet. Ironically, the 325 may have had a bit more top end due to the bigger carb.
My hot rod buddies and I must have had 20 or 30 327s and early 350s scrounged from the u-pull yard at 100 bucks a piece. If you knew what to look for there were some real deals out there back when!
Chevrolet didn’t release net ratings for the 327/300, but the official specs show the same net horsepower (210 hp @ 4,400) for both the 250 and 275, with slightly different torque ratings: 315 lb-ft @ 2,600 rpm for the 250, 310 lb-ft @ 2,800 rpm for the 275. So, it does look like there was some effort to split the difference in terms of engine specs, but that the 275 was still closer to the superseded 250? (I’m not up on the intricacies of the many versions of the SBC, and the AMA specs don’t talk about porting differences or other such nuances.)
Well, the 3 engines were all very similiar. All 3 used the same block,crank,cam and pistons. All were advertised at 10.5:1 compression. The differences were in heads, intake and carb. The 250 used the same heads as a contemporary 283 which had 64cc combustion chambers and 1.72 inch intake valves. It also used a small rochester 4 barrel, maybe 450 cfm.
The 300 used the famous “double bump” heads with 64cc combustion chambers and 1.94 inch intake valves, along with a Carter AFB 4 barrel, maybe 600 cfm.
The 275 used heads with 64cc combustion chambers, 1.94 inch intakes and a Carter AFB carb of around 550cfm. 1967 and 1968 275s got the Rochester Quadrajet which was good for around 750cfm if required.
I suspect the 300 really did have 10.5:1 while the other 2 had a little less due to thicker head gaskets but it’s been (many) years since I pulled an original one apart.
The 250 was stronger on the bottom end, the 300 much stronger at speeds above 3000 rpm. The 275 did kind of split the difference. The 275 and 300 both responded very well to basic hot rodding tricks, but the 250 really needed the bigger valves.
Its all kind of arcane now, but once upon a time I lived and breathed this stuff!
I often like to dream about what car I would buy for any given era and in 1966, I would have bought a Chevy II with the 327 and four on the floor. Mine would have been a wagon and most of the options available on the coupe were also available on the wagon.
Havent ever seen one like that but am no stranger to the powertrain exactly that was installed i Holdens by GMH in 68 it was in their rocketship model ,the Monaro GTS either auto or 4 speed,they even imported the speedometer, Perfectly driveable in traffic or you could burn the tyres off it, the same powertrain could be ordered in a sedan.