By Craig Corcoran
In 2011 I unfortunately ’wrote off’ my previous car (1982 Z28 Camaro) in NSW. Armed with the insurance cheque I set about looking for a replacement.
As some people will remember, that year was during the GFC which was hitting the USA particularly hard, looking through eBay there were some cars being sold at incredibly low prices. Several sellers said they did not want to sell their cars but had not worked for six months.
I had many vehicles in mind including Chevelles, GTO’s and Cuda’s. The Nova appealed to me as they were not that well known here and for an American vehicle are quite small and compact, meaning the power to weight ratio is very good (this is why they are more often race cars than street cars).
This car came up during the search and considering what was claimed to be done to it, seemed to be worth a ’bid’. Thinking I would not be anywhere near the reserve I put in a low offer anyway (FYI exchange rate was $1.05 at the time), to my surprise the next day eBay messaged me that I had won the bid…oh Lord, now I have to figure out how to get it here!
One of my best mates had contacts who could ship the car from LA to Melbourne, if I could get it to the LA terminal which I was able to arrange fairly easily via the internet. A few months later the car was in Melbourne and my friend and I were assessing what needed fixing (I had been led to believe the car was drivable and ready to ‘race’ . This was far from the truth, the perils of buying a car from four photos on eBay! )
After making a list and ordering a pallet of bits from the states, and deciding the whole car would need a repaint, some new panels etc, Denis set about stripping the car. A lot of rust and ’dodgy’ repairs were discovered and as these things often go, a quick freshen up turned into more than ten years of replacing, remaking, repairing practically every part of the car…it is now for all intents and purposes a brand new, fifty year old car, nothing is untouched!
The two-tone paint scheme for the car was agreed early in the process, and, after purchasing the wheels we decided to colour match the stripe dividing the Orange (Ford Festiva Colour) and Gunmetal Grey to the Gold on the wheels. The car was painted in stages, first the Gold for the stripe, then the Orange and finally the Grey, then clear over the lot. The two colours also have some ’pearl’ in them which changes the appearance in differing light…love it.
The Interior is all new, headlining, trims, carpet, dash pad, aftermarket seats, retrimmed rear seat to match fronts. Digital Dash has been added, which gives a lot more info on all the cars systems. A new fuel tank was fitted by me recently, along with some fabrication of new pump mounts etc.
The engine has had a few more improvements, additions and tuning on top of what was originally done and now runs very strong and impressively, it is not subtle! Supposedly this was built to ’drag race’ and hopefully I will get to give it a run when the Warwick Dragway reopens one day. In the meantime, I’m just happy to have a drive now and then, and enjoy the ’thumbs up’ and ’smiles’ it seems to generate when I’m out and about.
As mentioned before, none of this would have been possible without my friend Denis Maloney of “Rat Rod Industries“, and truthfully even though I have a long history of working on my own cars, if I had to deal with some of the issues he faced on this build, I probably would have walked away…it would not be finished to the standard it is now.
I’m looking forward to sharing my “tales of Nova” at the Jumpers and Jazz Grand Automobile Display on Sunday 23 July.
