This is the way to do a box Nova right, boys and girls, especially the one with the sleekest, sweetest sheetmetal ever arranged on an X-car. These coupes are good-looking, sure; but surely, they ain't got a shred of substance. No handling power. Won't take a big engine without a major frontend hack. Brakes work better when you drag your feet. Handling? Wheeled washtubs. But man, they look good, don't they?
Aftermarket comes to the rescue. Compared to the old Nova, one with the right updates has adapted envelopes of hellish power but still looks stock on the outside. It all works like a champ. So why isn't Bo Harden tired of this car yet? It is no longer a car. It has become a fixture in his life. He's owned the Nova for more than half of his 38 years, tending it like a child, giving the best stuff imaginable. The Nova has naturally followed him into adulthood. The Nova is here to stay.
Though it vibes badass right in plain sight, the Nova's impulse is subdued by the Artesian Turquoise pigment, the rollcage mostly tucked away from sight, and those big back tires that look like they just fell on the car. It's kind of like stealth implied. Yup, your eyes see me but your head is looking at me in a completely different context. Novas were ingrained in the young Bo. You could say he was brainwashed by 'em. His grandparents had them, "so I always wanted one," crows Bo. Granddad laid Nova Number One on him with a stipulation: The motor couldn't get any bigger than a 283.
"I found this car locally. The gentleman had five from which to choose. I picked the '66 SS because it had a Turbo 350 with a shift kit, new silver paint, and a 262ci V-8 from a '75 Monza. I rebuilt the frontend and did the interior over. By the end of my senior year in high school, I'd built a 283 and a 10-bolt Posi. Six months later, I had a 355 with a tunnel ram on it. "I drove it that way for two years," Bo continues. "Then I built the 406 that's been in it since 1991. I stopped driving the car every day because I lost my license for too many tickets. Guess that's why Dad didn't want me to have a fast car." We'd guess that Dad's reasoning, however, was deemed pathetic and completely lost on Bo. "On a 150-shot, the street tires spin but it still clipped a high 11," Bo confides. The no-bite situation got him hot for a mini-tub job. With slicks, it ran 12.20s on the motor.
In 2003, 20 years to the day after he got the Nova, Bo blew it apart again and completely redid all the systems except for the bullet, because he wanted "everything to be new all at once. If I could find N.O.S. or new parts, I bought them. It's all new, from brake lines to wiring harness."
And so it was. Bo stuck a coilover front suspension in the Nova, thus freeing up lots of useable real estate and blessing the car with enviable handling characteristics to go with the much improved braking power. The frontend swap also stiffened the car, bringing parity to the eight-point rollcage and the subframe connectors. All the right stuff for this unibody. Though braking is curtailed by wheel diameter, at least the binders are discs all around.
"I've had a bunch of offers from people wanting to buy it," Bo says. Then he explains that he couldn't do something like that because it was his first car and it is quite irreplaceable. Amen, Bo. (But if you do, please call me first!