Chevrolet Novas for Sale

General Motors created the Chevy II compact car for the...

General Motors created the Chevy II compact car for the thrifty customer, with the base 100-series models equipped with little else beyond the necessary nuts and bolts that held it together and the mechanicals that made it move. But it wasn’t all austerity all the time. From the car’s launch in 1962, GM offered a top-of-the-line Chevy II, known as the Nova 400 series, which provided as many features as the bow-tie brand could pack into it.

Initially, this trim level offered a 153-cu.in. four-cylinder or a compact straight-six engine. The performance-oriented Nova Super Sport, which debuted in 1963 with bucket seats, fancy trim, and a floor shifter, came standard with the latter. But this was the muscle-car era, and people wanted power. So in 1964, Chevy added to the options sheet a 283-cu.in. small-block V-8 and, in ’65, the L79 327-cu.in. small-block drag-racing special.

The Nova continued as the top trim level for the Chevy II through 1968, after which Chevrolet made it the model name, dropping Chevy II. The Super Sport remained, though with the introduction of a redesigned, larger body and partially unitized chassis in 1968, it could now accommodate a 396-cu.in. big-block V-8. If the 396 didn’t suit an owner’s power needs, they could contact certain dealerships, such as Yenko Chevrolet and Fred Gibb Chevrolet, to have a 427-cu.in. V-8 or even a Corvette LT-1 engine installed under the hood. Such examples have since become some of the most sought-after Novas out there.

Throughout the 1970s, the model received a couple of redesigns to meet new regulations, and GM allowed other brands to build vehicles on the car’s X-body platform, resulting in the Pontiac Ventura, the Oldsmobile Omega, the Buick Apollo, and, to an extent, the Cadillac Seville. Chevy expanded the line to include a hatchback, which could accommodate a now-little-seen Hutch tent option, but Nova performance dwindled during the decade and sales eventually dipped.

Six years after GM replaced the rear-wheel-drive Nova with the front-drive Citation, the nameplate briefly returned on a subcompact built on the Toyota Corolla platform in the joint-effort GM-Toyota NUMMI plant in California. This model had little in the way of sporting aspirations, unless you count the one-year-only 1988 Nova Twin Cam, which boasted a DOHC version of the base car’s four-cylinder.

While the early versions of the Nova (particularly the 1966 and ’67 models) proved popular with street-rodders in the ’90s, the two-door Novas from 1968 to ’72 are seen as the pinnacle of the nameplate, frequently used in drag racing and as the basis for Pro Touring restomods. Demand for special versions like the L79 and dealer-tuned cars has far outstripped supply, so documented examples can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars and clones abound. Lesser Novas from the 1970s sell for several grand, and the ’80s cars, next to nothing. Anything in between is more likely than not modified, with prices dependent on what’s been done.

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