But back in those days, American manufacturers knew that “basic” and “cool” weren’t mutually exclusive. There was no time to overthink the Nova–it just needed to be made so people could buy it. It was never intended to be the glory car of a generation it was basic, functional, and thrifty. It was designed as a compact, economical car with a unibody construction–one of the fastest-developed models in GM history, designed and sold 18 months later. This wasn’t like the other cars we drove as a family–like the Ford station wagon–and I always knew by the way he treated it.īack in 1962, the Chevrolet II (later becoming the Chevrolet Nova) was introduced by General Motors as a “conventional” car that rivaled Ford’s well-selling but simplistic models. But there was one model that my father kept wrapped up year-round that he barely drove–a two-door, top-trim 1978 Chevy Nova Coupe with a V8. My parents raised me to be frugal–to buy a decently-priced car and drive it until it fell apart. Stick shifts were something you avoided because they were for old people, not something you took advantage of to make driving fun. My friends drove beater sedans that were striving to reach 200,000 miles, so what badge your car touted, how many doors it had, or how many horses it held (whatever that meant) didn’t matter. By the time I could drive, gas prices were high enough that MPG mattered more than muscle. I’ve always been suited to the arts more than the sciences, so I don’t have a natural interest in machinery.
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I would never have smelled the burning rubber of beat-up stock cars on a local oval track I wouldn’t have made trips across the state to see vintage vehicle museums and I wouldn’t react to seeing classic cars on the road by giving the driver a thumbs-up (okay, maybe that last behavior I learned from my mother). Were it not for my father and his camel-colored 1978 Chevy Nova, I probably wouldn’t think of cars the way I do. Are they dusty scraps of old-fashioned engineering? Status symbols to impress the ladies? Outdated machines in need of flashy modifications? Or relics of a golden era of transportation? The family who raises you has a tremendous impact on the way you think of classic cars. Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size Text Size Print This Page Send by Email Reminiscing about the impact of one classic muscle car