Vauxhall Nova's

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ChriS3

hud at ye bam
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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...
 
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Roscoepeko said:
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 :sex:
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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 :)
 
woohoo said:
I had 4 novas, 3 sr's and a 2.0 16v converted one! which i crashed! best fun ever in a nova!
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You'd have liked my battered 1.2L runabout then :whistle2:...........

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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.....!!!!!!!:icon_thumright:
 
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------:rockwoot:
 
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.
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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
 
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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!!
 
boya said:
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!!!!! :respekt:
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Great great rare cars :cool:

I'm always keeping one eye open for the perfect one to come my way again.
 
This was a mate of mines Nova GSI
He bought it standard and then went a bit mad with it...
We knew it as silky
I believe it was the fastest Nova in the UK when he was using it.
He sold it to build an even faster corsa that he won Ten of the best in this year, ( front wheel drive class )

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I liked it,
And think all though some may say it wasnt cool... It was very fast and ver very good fun
 
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Yes it was.
That reg. is now on his corsa.
 
i saw it blitz the pod a couple of years back, got like a 12.4 or summat!! i had a redtop corsa on throttle bodies, sounded like a tank 1st thing in the morning but was quicker than most stuff in my area off the mark..........those were the days.........but yeah, it was an awesome bit of kit that nova of your mates. you say he won fwd totb this year? i take it that other corsa didnt enter this year then with that awesome n/a fuel set up?
 
He did win this year yes.
It was even shown later in the year on sky !
I will ask him about the N/A corsa... he ended up in a shoot out with a good mate of his. But managed to put the power down in the wet that bit better.
 
cool, yeah i think it was last year this purple shed looking corsa took it, steely wheels and all sorts, think it was running launch control and that kinda thing, impressive stuff, think he was in the finals with a civic turbo and took the win.
 
Ah. ye the one that runs mad amounts of nos
Last time i heard he was on about his 4th engine, ****** good when it runs right,
Last year a few of my mates ran but with them being turbo powerd cars the hot weather played havoc with the intake temps.
 
As a nova enthusiast this thread is a delight to read and yet it saddens me as well as it seems the poor nova still has a bad rep :(. For all of you who slate them and think they are hateful rot boxes please take a moment of your time to hope over to the pngclub forum. In doing so you will find a hell of a lot very high standard cars and a massive community of like minded people. For those of you who know what the VBOA is then doesn’t the fact we as a club have been accepted by them say a hell of a lot about what we are trying to achieve.

Yes there are still idiots out there who own them but we bully them into buying fords instead. You seem to forget as well that as Mr. Clarkson has noticed there are also a lot of "*****" who own Audi’s to. at the end of the day there are that many idiots out there they are bound to end up in the cars we choose to love but don’t tar us all with the same brush.

I know this wont appeal to most of you but here’s a pic of my estate :icon_thumright: which at the moment is the only one in the UK :)

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The paint work is a temporary thing until I can afford to get it painted a factory colour

 
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nice speech burgo:respekt:
from a fellow pnger and one of the only hatch cabriolet nova owners, i also drive a b6 cab but cant get away from the little things lol
 
I was PNG member number 36 or something when it first started in about 1993/4 :)
 
I owned a 2 year old minf F Reg Nova GTE - I actually really enjoyed driving it.......drove from Rochester Kent to a wedding a Gretna Green......not a long distance car by any stretch !
At the time I owned it it was cool. (i.e. when you could still buy them new)...but once the council estate chavs got hold of them they became seriously uncool !
 
My first car was a 1.3SR. I loved it at the time and it never broke down. My mate had a 1.6 GTE and found it hard to keep up with me.
In my last year of owning it i put on a manual choke that gave it some extra poke. Nearly killed it when i hit 120mph (clock speed).
2mw81vk.jpg

Brought it bog standard and having lowered it 60mm it felt like a go kart.
 
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i had this gte/gsi back in 1999,this was it pictured before i sold it, with all the standard gear back on it, at one stage it was running a 2.0 16v on throttle bodies,330mm disc conversion,avo coilovers,compomotive mo's

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I always loved them, me and the wife had a beige 1.0l many years ago, which I don't have a picture of, but I do have a picture of my MK I SR that I had about 5 years ago.... I happened across it and gave £300 for it.

It was pretty tidy, it was never going to set the world on fire, but it did turn heads.


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All my mates had novas so caught the bug an had two, first was a 1.2 had it for a year then brother passed his test then parked it at 30mph into a parked car, then found a 1.0 log book double the suprise under the hood from north london which lasted just a year the power broke the chassis so had to scrape the shell kept everything else for when i have enough money for another, as you can tell i'm a fan, heres a pick of it, i miss this car dearly
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in the fridge
i had two, all my mates bought novas so i bought a 1.2 merit had it a year then my brother decided to park it into a parked mpv, then found a 1.0 log book double the surprise under the hood in north london, it lasted a year, rust and the power pulled the chassis apart so scrapped the shell kept everything else for another, i miss that car, heres a pic
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I had a 1.4sr last of the carb model and it was totally standard wish i still had it such a nice car. Thats 12yrs ago now f*** where does time go.
Seen one like it a few months ago same colour and totally standard it had only 50,000 miles on it, the fella was looking £3200 for it.
thumps up cool car.
 
My Mum's got an Opel Corsa and I'm not even convinced she knows what car it is; it's just a form of transport to her. When I drive it I fully understand why, but then it is a 1.2 (I think)

The Nova design is too square, and when they put body kits on they look like they don't match the squarness of the car. I seem to remember they drove OK, but they just never sparked any fire in my belly so I got a Mk1 Golf GTi instead.

The Corsa is too bubbly, and whilst I wouldn't want one, the latest incarnation which is now typically oversized for a supermini is actually looking quite a complete car for the first time in it's history. Bet the VXR Arctic edition is a blast (on the straights before it's engine gives way).

Not a glowing reference, but then it's easy to look back through rose tinted spectacles and think the death traps we drove in our yoof were more sensual that the over cossetted nanny state euro boxes we drive today. My Mk1 was a road going death trap (rusty, poor brakes, made from biscuit tins etc.) I bet if I drove it today I'd drive it straight to the tip!
 
I had a 1.2 Antibes with a k&n and a jetex rear box. I loved it to bits. Thought it was the fastest thing ever. LOL The ex sold it when i was away working. :gun2:
 
My dad had 3 novas - and living near the seafront you could sit and watch them rot away, never let us down though. My 1st car was a 1986 Antibes in White with Scirocco wheels on it, bright blue carpet and i loved it, next was a Silver 1989 1.4 SR which lasted a year before it rotted away and i bought a corsa sport as i couldn't find a decent gsi/gte

Fast forward to about 2 years ago, sold my classic mini and needed a run about and a car to go on holiday instead of renting one. i bought a 1985 5 door in white with about 48000 miles on it for £180 with 6 months tax and insurance, bought it off a local garage who I've known years and they had a right laugh at me for buying it, saying it wouldn't last a week blah blah - but i knew how robust the mechanicals are, i did 7000 miles in it, one of its last acts was to take us on holiday to the peak district and in trying to get to our cabin we were going up stupidly steep hills and trying to haul myself and the mrs and all our clobber up and down them hills all week i think knackered the seals on the engine as they leaked like mad but i kept topping it up and driving it till the last day of Mot and scrapped it and got £70. When i told the garage they were amazed.

Most mental moment was coming back home at 4am and by 6am someone had broken into it, tried to hot-wire it using the indicator stalk and burn out/butchered a shed load of wiring(probably didn't realise that was wrong nor that it had a choke!), smashed all the cowling, bent the back door and stole the only think of value which was my sunglasses. I put the cowling back together with glue, fixed the door and repaired the wiring.

Not many left now for various reasons - sad really as i always preferred them to the Corsa (even though they were called the corsa everywhere else in the world barring the uk)

1990 vauxhall nova commercial - YouTube
 
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