I bought a 1987 Nova from an old lady. She literally gave me the "Never had any problems. I only drove it to church and the grocery store spiel". It made sense. The car had 30k miles on it and was like 18 years old at the time. I drove it for 2 months before it started overheating. Brought it to a mechanic friend of mine. When he took the head off he found a hole in the head big enough to fit a finger in and a ton of JB weld. Needless to say that old lady lied to me.
I remember seeing a few of them back in the day but I remember one in particular. I worked as a maintenance man at a hotel back in the early 90s and they had a few banquet rooms that they rented out for meetings,weddings etc. I remember a lady that had a hatchback Nova who was there every month for a local group that always had meetings there. She was a middle aged lady that had a 5 speed Nova which back then it was common for a car of that size to be a stick shift! Sadly you don't have many options to get a base car with a manual transmission like you did back then as many people would learn to drive a standard with an econobox and keep buying them until they were forced to switch to an automatic!
I had a well used 1988 and you couldn't kill the thing. Flipped it down a ravine and kept on driving. I think it had 400k miles on it when I got rid of it. The clutch was slipping and it was so beat up we sold it for $200...
I remember going to the dealership with my mom when she bought one of these when they came out. It was pretty well optioned for a Nova - cassette, air, 3spd auto, ps, pb. The carb on these engines were horrible when cold, stumbling and hesitation was something they were never able to tune out of these and plagued my mom's car the whole time she had it. It was a dog - had to turn off the a/c when going up hills to get over 45 mph!
Ever since I bought my 87 nova a couple months ago I've been looking for a motorweek review. On their channel for the 85 gm model year video they brought up the chevette, sprint, spectrum, and cavalier, but completely left the nova out. Then in 86 all they said was you could get in a hatchback. Thanks for uploading this.
We had an '86 5-door Nova with the CL trim level. The seats were really comfortable and the car was nearly perfect. The only real issue was that it had a weird hesitation and the choke on the carb would get gummed up. After we traded it in, I found out that Toyota dealers had a solution for the hesitation. The car was roomy, fuel efficient and being a 5-door could haul stuff very well. I put an aftermarket stereo with a big power amp in it and really hammered the stock speakers,which took it in stride. I would love to have that car today!
since last 10 years toyota is running on their reputation because their cars are not as good as it used to be, plus they cant build a turbo car neither a sports car or anything fun over 400hp like gm does, at least the sales of the new supra is not as catastrophic as the pos nsx, thank the germans!!
@@retrocompaq5212 uhh what do you mean they can't build turbo cars? They've built tried and tested forced induction engines since the 80s. Have you ever heard of the 2JZ, 3SGTE, 4AGZE etc?
This must be the car Romy and Michelle referred to when they said “if the people at the reunion see us pull up in a Nova, won’t they know we’re not really businesswomen?” 😂
This version of the Chevrolet Nova was an excellent car, and it was twice the car of the Cavalier. Prizm replaced Nova, and it carried on as a wonderful car to drive and was reliable. Prizm should have replaced Cavalier, for Cavalier looked and felt cheap. I would own a Nova like this or Prizm. My wife’s first car was a Nova, and she loved it.
I actually remember a Prizm sitting in the dealer showroom when I bought a brand new 89 Chevy Cavalier Z24 and I damn sure would not have bought a Prizm if it replaced the Cavalier.
My mom used to had a 1985 Toyota Cressida. I remember growing up seeing the mid to late 80s Chevy Nova's on the road before they switch to Geo Prizm in the Geo brand GE🌎...
In 1984 most people thought of a 6-cylinder 4-door '75-79 with strippo trim inside and out, they were still common as dirt and musclecar survivor bias hadn't set in yet.
my mom had that car long time ago she bought it in summer or late summer 88 till got broke down in fall of 1990 middle of the road ((sad rip 1985 nova)) same color as the motorweek
@@new2000car Tesla still maintains significant manufacturing operations in Fremont California - in addition to assembly plants in Texas and other places in the world. They did officially move their headquarters legal entity address to Texas, but that is more of an administrative detail.
I loved the '75 Nova my parents owned (and I learned to drive with). This Toyota with a GM badge may have been a good car for what it was meant to be but it certainly wasn't a good replacement for the beloved muscle car. They never should have made a bait and switch with the name like that.
It wasn't like the Nova was a muscle car only, it was Chevy's upscale economy car based on the Chevy II, now '80-'82 Charger / Challenger would be a better example..
It's called "badge engineering", in it's conception, the "NOVA" architecture was planned also for Oldsmobile "Omega", Pontiac "Ventura", Buick "Apollo", and of course Chevrolet "Nova". Take the first letter of each divisions model, it spells "NOVA"!
This had to be the biggest slap in the face ever to any car enthusiast. Hopefully they have all been scrapped by now. I have owned several 1963-1974 Novas. In 1980, GM replaced the Nova with the hideous Citation, one of the biggest pieces of junk ever. Then they had the nerve to put the storied Nova name on a tiny little Japanese front wheel drive golf cart?
This was a wake up call to GM; Nova was a credible car, and it isn’t a slap in the face. Prizm replaced Nova, and it carried on as a credible car. Cavalier was a car that GM should have improved on, but they failed to do so. Cobalt was just as bad, too. Prizm should have replaced Cavalier, and GM knows this.
