74 NovaMan’s … Novas

[1badmonkey]

Charles - I love my air shocks. They are especially handy for Power Tour when the car is overloaded with tools, luggage and cooler. I'm planning on buying a new pair for the current iteration this week.

i had to have the air shocks to get the car off the tires!! funny stuff!

a friend had this photo of my car on his 'puter, but only way i could get it was take a pic of the screen... this was from the mid 90's the car had 275-60-14 bias ply tires... loved that raked look....

[74NovaMan]

We wound up staying in a little place called Kayenta. We arrived in the dark. Not couting the air travel, we covered about 410 miles on day 1.

[74NovaMan]

After that, still in the park, we got snowed on. We travelled from Wisconsin to Arizona in the first week of May and got snowed on. Go figure.

[74NovaMan]

We wanted to drive by the Grand Canyon and take a peek. We did make it before dark but the weather was not cooperating.

[74NovaMan]

From there it was off to Flagstaff.

[74NovaMan]

We saw this super clean Cutlass at that gas station.

[74NovaMan]

The owner picked us up at the airport at about 9:30am and drove us to his place where the car was parked. He already had the plates on it so we tossed our luggage in and hit the road. This was our first gas stop a couple of miles in.

[74NovaMan]

Needless to say, I was very impressed. On Wednesday, April 27th I asked Squirrel (Jim Forbes) to take a look at it for me and he graciously agreed to check it out on Saturday (April 30th). I did not even make it through the day (April 27th) before calling back the owner and agreeing to his asking price of $4,000 if he would hold it for me. Went to the bank, got a loan, shipped some plates and tools and caught a plane with my then 4 year old son Joseph on Friday, May 6th.

[74NovaMan]

The car had 28,000 original miles, a 250 straight 6, a TH350, manual drum brakes, rubber mat flooring, and power steering. The owner offered to clean the car and take some better pictures. Being from deep in the rust belt I asked him to skip the cleaning and take his camera and crawl under the car for some shots.

[74NovaMan]

In 2004 I long hauled the car with a new 3.08 Eaton posi. In the spring of 2005, I took a hard look at the materials that I had to work with and did some math on what it would take for body work. I decided that it would be cheaper and easier in the long run to buy a complete running vehicle. On Tuesday, April 26th I found this online.

[74NovaMan]

It was pretty decent. It only needed a couple of rear floor pans (rust and forklift damage). The frame rails and everything else underneath was spotless under the 1/8" of rock hard undercoating.

[MP&C]

That body sure is nice and solid!

[74NovaMan]

Sometime in the late 90’s I decided that it would make more sense to pick up a more solid starting point. My buddy and I drove out to Rapid City and picked up the car below. It was nearly complete (less motor and trans) when I bought it. This one still needed a lot of work but the floors and underbody were in great shape. I never really did much with this besides strip it, chisel off the undercoating and prime the underside.

[74NovaMan]

I've always liked the Ventura taillights. I once had plans to swap them onto the Nova.

[Scott Liggett]

I'm jonesing for a 71-72 Ventura with Randal's 400 in it with a stick. But, I would have to sell one of my current cars to pull it off.