Thread: Vauxhall Nova's

I know there's a few of us on here that started our driving and modding interests in one of these. Things is, do you still like them? Personally, I had a red GSi and loved it to bits. Courtney everything. Dyno'd at 157bhp.

Let's keep it to the good ones - 1.3/1.4SR's and the GTE/GSi. And the special editions...

Even though I had 2, I'm not sure they were ever cool...

Ill handling, badly built, rusty...I guess in the years before the Chavs got them, they were pretty cool...at least a respectable alternative to a Kev'y XR2.

The Nova Sport was cool...

Anything with a 1.8/2.0/2.0 16v/2.0 16v Turbo engine is not cool though...they don't 'do' corners. At all.

I guess the 3dr blistered arches made it look a wee bit cool.

I had a 1.3 SR, it sucked! Hated it and it was forever being broken into...

chavs car.

I had a 1.4SR and really enjoyed it, Courtney alloys, 30mm lower.
Then a Saxo VTR .... again loved it.

Then I got a grown up car and never looked back.

Uncool.

Originally Posted by Ess_Three

Anything with a 1.8/2.0/2.0 16v/2.0 16v Turbo engine is not cool though...they don't 'do' corners. At all.

I had the second Nova to have a 2.0 16v turbo in the country, and tbh, it was quite good on the twisty stuff. Courtney springs with spax and pilot sports on 16" Speedline Alessios. With hindsight, yes it did have a lot of weight up front and was very stiff. But any shortcomings were made up on the straights. Also had the Quaife ATB in there. Which helped. Really don't think it was that bad.

Chris.

Christ, the Citroen AX GT will be on here next!!!

Had a 1.3SR absolutely loved it, used to annoy XR2 owners in it! Handling was suspect now i look back at it but it was a cool first car for me.

a couple of my mates had novas and said they were good, but i used to have a mk2 xr2 that was better looking, faster and handled a lot better. used to struggle a bit against the later gsi novas though!

Unable to be driven sensibly!

Wedge the steering wheel under your rib cage, put a couple of thirteen year old girls in the back and drive through Les Smith with double sided tape on the outside of your car and you're there!

Not fast, not safe and not cool... But do come with a free ASBO!

(Although, respect if you have had one and personally transpanted the old turbo lump into it.)

Not many left now!

Nice username, errr Hairy.

old skool in a way easy to mess with and adapt been there seen it done it,excellent for what it was but way past its sell by date now and ruined by the asbo weilding council estate mentality it attracted towards the end and never a true classic in the making

Originally Posted by SteveS

chavs car.

Your wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had the second nova SR in the country and back in those days it was the dogs!!

OK now Iam bit older and got an S4 and an M5 as well as an Atom but come on guys, at the time the nova SR was a cool car put up against the XR2 and XR3i

PS if anyones got a genuine MK1 nova SR (thats the 1.3) i`ve got ££££ waiting.

Its a good car

I was going to get a 1.3sr as a 1st car, then decided i needed more so went to look at a gsi,we got there took it out and it seemed fine, so i hpi'd it and got told it was a write off, so with that i made my mind up and said im going to follow my heart and get what i really want and as a follow on from that i ended up getting my mark 2 golf gti :-)

Was so glad i chose that over the Nova!!

Originally Posted by smitch

Christ, the Citroen AX GT will be on here next!!!

Hard to judge -

Now, there is no way they are cool

BUT in 1989 a Nova GTE - body coloured mirrors and bumpers - they were kinda cool ......

IF you avoid the usual chaved up tat and look at the enthusiast owned cars I think they are very very cool. Can't beat a nicely fettled Nova with an XE or LET under the bonnet.

Originally Posted by s3bow

I had the second Nova to have a 2.0 16v turbo in the country, and tbh, it was quite good on the twisty stuff. Courtney springs with spax and pilot sports on 16" Speedline Alessios. With hindsight, yes it did have a lot of weight up front and was very stiff. But any shortcomings were made up on the straights. Also had the Quaife ATB in there. Which helped. Really don't think it was that bad.

Chris.

agreed!! i had a 2ltr nova and still have a 2ltr corsa and it handles great, plenty of track day fun without seein a patch of grass or gravel!! and i'm not exactly shy on a circuit!!

gsi in silk violet on courtneys or cav gsi wheels

My mate had on of the VERY rare 1.3 Sport and that was definitely a cool car. Twin Webers and >100bhp, instead of the SRs puny ~75. Also, the insurance companies always insured it as an SR...

The only Vauxhall, (except a Monaro) that could ever be cool IMHO.

Cheers,

I had a 1.3SR on an F plate which at the time was the face lift, the only mod it had was a set of GTE rims which made it look like a nice clean tidy car....i loved it and although only a 1.3 could take alot of stick, took me to over 100,000 miles with no problems....brilliant little car. If i drove it now it would no doubt not be how i remember it, but at the time it was great fun....wasn't far off the pace of my mates 1.6 XR2. The only real bad point at the time was the brakes, absolutely shocking !!

I loved the look of the silk violet GSI when it came but never owned one....

Had a few Novas when I was younger, love them !

My favourite out of mine..

Had an early B reg Nova for a while, proper mint it was too, some old granny owner from new.
Built up a screamer of a 1.3 engine, made a little over 100bhp, put some better suspension and tyres on and was the most fun I've had in a car for ages.
But wouldn't wanna do more than about 20miles in it tho LOL

Originally Posted by Ian W

Had a few Novas when I was younger, love them !

My favourite out of mine..

Smart looking car....best wheels for the Nova imo !!

Cool, the really early MK1's particularly.

Many are hideous now though,.......Halfords has a lot to answer for.

I Had an SR, then a Sport, then another Sport, then a Sport replica, then a 2.0 16v 1.2L sleeper.

If I had more space, time and money, I'd LOVE to have a mint Sport again, or a rally prepped A reg one in white.

The Nova was a magic car!

Had two in a row after mk2 XR2, moved on to 16v Astra GTE and have so many happy memories of them all. Nights and weekends seemed to last forever then, Bryan Adams & T-REX crackling out old screwed into the parcle shelf speakers, top quality happy days.

Must go and dig out old pictures...

DTM

I was never at all fond of them originally. As people say they have a bit of a reputation of the 'chav' side of things but there are some really decent examples out there today.

I say Cool for the main reason they can be modified quite nicely. Especially with the C20LET engine.

Ahh memories! I bought an MoT failure MK1 SR for 70 quid, spent 1 weekend repairing bits, then blasted all over the country in it for a year...brilliant little motor imo.
It did have a HUGE 'novadose' sticker in the back window when I bought it......yes it was removed ASAP!

horrific cars imho

Uncool, horrible little rot boxs.....

Owned by chavvs then, the very few little rotters that are left are still owned by chavvs, just needed a full on chav out burberry paint job.

Made popular by the fact that the `SR` was cheap to insure compared to proper hot hatches of the day.

But to be fair, these things were kicking around before the word chav was even invented
Still not cool IMO.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm NO NO NO NO NO

What are you all thinking! Back in the Day the XR2 was always Better (excusing the later Gsi) BUT even then it is just a corsa! (well in europe is a corsa as Nova means It nongoes in spanish, not a good name for a car)

In the Day they were ok mainly Chavvy but Now they need Scrappin All of them! aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh! Cant bleve it could be discussed on a site like this, u no a site about nice cars! lol

My 'Sport' wasn't chavvy

Originally Posted by DrugDealersAudi

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm NO NO NO NO NO

What are you all thinking! Back in the Day the XR2 was always Better (excusing the later Gsi)

The XR2 was in a different class.
It was a 1.6 - far more to insure.

If anyone young wanted a nippy hatch with the option of getting some decent tuning parts for and getting into Motorsport, you were better off with a Nova as they were strong and had a decent rally pedigree - Hence the Nova Sport being homologated with twin 40 Webers.

So the XR2 wasn't alwaysa better at all (I've had both).

In the Day they were ok mainly Chavvy but Now they need Scrappin All of them! aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!

Another enlightened post...
Chavs came along later on (many years later), when text talk became popular, spelling and punctuation deteriorated and badge snobbery came along.

Personally, I still smile when I see a really good Nova - preferably a Sport, SR or GTE/GSi. There aren't many left though.

Cant bleve it could be discussed on a site like this, u no a site about nice cars! lol

Hmm...what's the word I'm looking for that describes this sort of comment...
C....
Ch....

2dr nova loons are where its at not a fan of the hatchbacks tho but i think thats more to do with how badly modified the majority of thm are

Think back to the day everyone wanted (including me) an XR2 or a XR3I but could not afford the insurance - the SR's were i think a group 7 insurance - i worked in an insurance brokers at time with more kids walking in wanting quotes on Xr's than you could shake a stick at - of course non of them had bought the car at that point - whilst qouting a 4 figure numer for the xr i also sugested and quoted on a Nova Sr ...at least half the price :-) Best bang for buck going on insurance at the time

I had 4 novas, 3 sr's and a 2.0 16v converted one! which i crashed! best fun ever in a nova!

Originally Posted by Roscoepeko

Think back to the day everyone wanted (including me) an XR2 or a XR3I but could not afford the insurance - the SR's were i think a group 7 insurance - i worked in an insurance brokers at time with more kids walking in wanting quotes on Xr's than you could shake a stick at - of course non of them had bought the car at that point - whilst qouting a 4 figure numer for the xr i also sugested and quoted on a Nova Sr ...at least half the price :-) Best bang for buck going on insurance at the time

Yeah, the 1.3 SR and Sport were group 5 and the 1.4 SR was group 7.

Daft thing was the Sport was way faster than the 1.4, and could even nudge group 11 1.6 GTE's out of the way

Originally Posted by woohoo

I had 4 novas, 3 sr's and a 2.0 16v converted one! which i crashed! best fun ever in a nova!

You'd have liked my battered 1.2L runabout then ...........

I can remember mine like it was yesterday. Originally started out as a 1 litre but after becoming bored very quickly i taught myself the finer points to combustion engines and hand built a 1.6 from scratch. Lightened up the bottom end, inc flywheel. Stuck a polished/ported nova sport head on it (which a Vauxhall mechanic told me couldn't happen) and wham bam thank you mam a set of twin 40's. Boy was it good fun.....!!!!!!!

The Nova Sport head was a standard 1.3 SR/GL head

The Nova Sport head was a standard 1.3 SR/GL head




--- Yes it was. A lot of compression but ran well on the 40's------

love em. hence username. good cars to work on, and learn from, cheap, reliable and easily modded. good ones are getting pricey and hard to come by.

i have 3 and a half. a 1.3 sr (25000 mile 1983), 1.6 gsi (silk violet), 1.6 8v hillclimb car with tb's cage etc (work in progress) and enough parts to probably make another nova out of (the half). heres my sr dont have pics of the others available rite now.

^lovin' the SR above - clean and original

Originally Posted by Dan Gliballs

My 'Sport' wasn't chavvy

LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!!!!! ALWAYS WANTED ONE!! love the fact that when you bought one new you got a box of performance parts that needed to be fitted!!!!!

I loved my 1.3SR , wish i still had some pics of it, proper beast (to a 17 year old it was anyway)

it was a light metallic blue, rare colour, looked sharp, and i had the obligatry peco 4" backbox to boot !

classic

Haha classics, i had a b-reg 1.2, possibly a merit???
Was in a **** state when i got it although it was running fine. I put a genuine gsi kit on it, lowered it 60mm and slapped on a set of 15" tsw alloys and re-sprayed it bmw imola yellow.

Was a legend!!