Lost Cars of the 1980s - 1988 Chevrolet Nova Twin-Cam

1988 Chevrolet Nova Twin Cam. Images courtesy GM Media Archives.

In 1988, Chevrolet launched a new model variant that came to market with the brand's first-ever four-valve-per-cylinder head, dual overhead camshafts, electronic fuel injection, a variable induction system to boost high-end performance and a stratospheric 7,500 RPM redline. As you'd expect, this mysterious car came with a four-wheel independent sport suspension and four-wheel disc brakes, too, but the car in question wasn't a Corvette, Camaro or Beretta. Purists will argue that it wasn't entirely a Chevrolet, either, because many of its parts came straight out of the Toyota parts bin. The mystery Chevrolet that few enthusiasts have ever heard of is the 1988 Chevrolet Nova Twin-Cam, a compact car that seemed to follow the same recipe served up by the Cosworth Vega of the mid-1970s: Take a compact car, stuff it full of cost-be-damned sophisticated four-cylinder engine, improve the handling and release it on an unsuspecting public.

Prior to the 1990 launch of the Saturn brand, General Motors found itself struggling to compete with compact cars from foreign automakers such as Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen. Adopting an "If you can't beat them, join them," philosophy, General Motors established New United Motor Manufacturing, Incorporated (NUMMI), with Japanese auto giant Toyota in 1984. Using an existing (but shuttered) General Motors plant in Fremont, California, Chevrolet would build its fifth-generation Nova at the plant, learning all that Toyota could teach it about lean manufacturing. Toyota, on the other hand, gained a manufacturing site in North America, and would soon begin producing its Corolla (platform mate to the Chevy Nova) in the same facility.

"Understated" is the term that best describes the Nova Twin-Cam's styling.

While General Motors hoped to increase quality and streamline production of its compact-car offerings, Toyota was hoping to circumvent restrictions on automotive imports proposed by the U.S. Congress. Prior to the plant's reopening in 1984 (two years after it was shuttered for numerous reasons, including problems with its workforce), selected workers were sent to Japan in order to learn Toyota's unique production system, which emphasized quality and teamwork. This training imparted a new attitude on the UAW workers at the plant, and production quality scores soon rivaled those from Japanese manufacturers.

The NUMMI-built Nova may have been well-built, but from an enthusiast's perspective it was about as tasty as boiled cardboard. Its Toyota-sourced 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine sent  just 74 horsepower to the front wheels, but the car did give fuel-economy-minded buyers the option of a five-speed manual transmission (though many buyers still opted for the three-speed automatic). Even its box-on-box sedan styling seemed uninspired, and while the four-door hatchback version looked a bit better, styling alone wasn't enough to draw import shoppers in to Chevrolet showrooms. Like the brand's other period offerings of Japanese origin (the Isuzu-built Spectrum and the Suzuki-built Sprint), the Nova was sold on its fuel economy, quality, and, to a lesser degree, value (but only after deep manufacturer discounts were factored in).

Aside from the red body stripe, only the Twin Cam badge and red bow-ties distinguished it from other Novas.

As the 1980s came to a close, General Motors prepared to launch its Geo brand in an attempt to lure import shoppers into a "world brand" showroom. Knowing that 1989 would be the final year for the Chevrolet Nova, its engineers decided to send the model off with a high-performance bang, and the limited-production Nova Twin-Cam was born. Starting with the same AE82 Corolla platform that underpinned base Nova models, NUMMI added four-wheel disc brakes, stiffer springs, gas charged shocks, larger anti-sway bars and additional suspension bracing to make the car capable of better handling. While wheel diameter remained at 13 inches (same as on base Nova models), conservatively styled alloy wheels shod with 175/70HR13 Goodyear Eagle GT tires increased grip noticeably.

Better handling was one thing, but the heart of the Nova Twin Cam was, of course, its Toyota-designed engine. Originally appearing in the 1983 Toyota Corolla FX-16, the double-overhead-camshaft 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine boasted 16 valves and a healthy 68.75 horsepower per liter, not bad for a normally aspirated engine in the 1980s. Taking advantage of the car's lofty redline, a skilled driver could take the compact sedan from 0-60 MPH in less than 10 seconds, running the quarter-mile in the 17-second range. While not particularly fast in a straight line, the 2,350-pound car was agile, and better suited to carving corners than many compact sedans of the day. By all period accounts, it was an engaging car to drive, something that couldn't be said for many Chevrolet compacts since the demise of the Cosworth Vega.

Even the basic interior did little to convey the car's semi-sporting mission.

The Nova Twin-Cam came in any color the buyer wanted, as long as that choice was metallic black with a gray cloth interior. The same could be said of body style, as the Twin-Cam was produced only as a four-door sedan and not as a hatchback. Perhaps that played best to the Nova Twin-Cam's "Q-Ship" mission; aside from the previously mentioned alloy wheels, only a red decorative rub strip was used to adorn the compact's plain-black-wrapper exterior. Whatever Chevrolet's intentions, buyers looking for performance-oriented cars wanted a bit more of an exterior styling statement than the Nova Twin-Cam served up, and its $11,395 sticker price probably didn't win it many fans, either. That was $2,420 more than the sticker price of a base Nova sedan and exactly the same base price as a 2.8-liter V-6-equipped Camaro coupe.

While the Nova Twin-Cam disappeared following the 1988 model year, a remarkably similar vehicle appeared in GM's Geo lineup from 1990 to 1992. The Geo Prizm was the NUMMI-built continuation of the Chevrolet Nova (in a slightly sleeker package), and its high-performance model, the Prizm GSi, received an updated version of the 1.6-liter twin-cam Toyota engine, now rated at 130 horsepower. Unlike the limited-production Nova, NUMMI produced as many Prizm GSis (in both sedan and hatchback variants) as dealers ordered; thanks in part to aggressive marketing of the Geo brand, it sold in higher numbers, too.

The NUMMI plant produced roughly 3,300 examples of the Nova Twin-Cam during the car's one-year run, though it's not clear how many survive today. Few were treated as collectible, and most were simply discarded after having passed through two or three generations of drivers. While the car may not be as memorable as a 1969 Camaro Z/28 or a 1990 Corvette ZR-1, it still deserves a place in Chevrolet history.