Have you ever seen a particular car and instantly knew that you had to have one dead-on just like it? Not just a make, model and year, but build…matching stance, matching sound, matching audio clues from the exhaust, matching attitude. What was that car for you? For me, the image is clear as a bell: it was a white 1976 Chevrolet Camaro Type LT, hunkered down over turbine mags with it’s tail in the air ever-so-slightly, with the most useless glasspacks allowing the otherwise dim-bulb 350 to idle as if it was going to intimidate someone. Clean, kind of classy, yet kind of evil. To this day I’m trying to find the right car to fit that mold for a full build, and who knows…maybe one day I’ll end up building a shovelnose Camaro like I wanted when I was five.

For Mike Cosculluela, it was a chance encounter with a street machine Nova while out delivering papers that sealed his deal, so much so that to this day it’s the only car that really does it for him. He’s got a couple, but it’s his pretty-much daily driver 1969 Nova that we get to check out. From the fuzzy guy on top of the mailbox scoop to the sidepipes to the rake and Cragars, this Nova is all about reliving the past every day, a car that makes Cosculluela feel young again. It’s nothing wild, but tell that to anybody who isn’t into cars that when they see him topping off the fuel tank…or even better, taking his kids to school in a car with “DILLIGAF RACING” on the lace-painted hood!