Where it all started
I originally purchased the car second hand in 1989. It was my dream car (well at least one that I could afford at the time). I drove the car for a couple of years and then soon started to get restless and want to make a few minor improvements. This was unfortunately the start of something that would remain in progress up until today, the continual rebuild and design process! I have had the car to the point it was almost finished and was drivable on two occasions, each time I then decided to go back and start again by changing something fundamental that required a total rebuild. For example one time I decided that I had to cut the chassis in half and remove one and a half inches out of the chassis to correct the wheel base length so that the wheels sat correctly in the wheel arches. It’s also changed engines 3 times and currently has an Alfa Romeo boxer engine.
The pictures of the car below are as it was in 1989 when I first got it
This was my Nova when first purchased, for 1989 (17 years after its launch) it was still a very impressive design which has stood the test of time and still looks great today
The car originally had some fiberglass crazing on the bonnet so the previous owner / builder had used a sticker to cover it
The wheels were Wolfrace (well actually Allycat which were copies of the Wolfrace design), as per many Nova's of that period
When polished well the original green "Gel Coat" finish would shine very well, but took a lot of work keeping it that way. The colour would not have been my first choice, but the car was reasonably well built, hence the purchase
The hydraulic opening canopy is one of the trade marks of the Nova design and was well ahead of its time and is even being copied today (Saab Aero-X concept car 2006)
The rear end was a mark II version with a wrap around bumper, which is the least desirable of all the marks
The interior was the mark II "swoopy" dash
The original engine was a tuned VW Beetle type I, it had a high lift cam and twin webers. Unfortunately I still managed to blow it up!
This is how major the rebuild was
I pretty much ended up stripping the car right back to the basics and carried out some pretty radical changes as part of my rebuild journey
The chassis was shortened to bring it back to the correct length. The floor pans were further dropped to about 4.5 inches, and the engine was swapped out for water cooled.
