My high-school girlfriend's mother had a Chevrolet "Don't Call It a Nova" Concours similar to this 1977 for sale not far from the Triple Wide, with an asking price of $7,500.
Her car was all blue, with color-keyed wheel covers like this one from a 1975 brochure for the Concours' predecessor, the Nova LN. The one-year-only LN, followed by the 1976 and 1977 Concours, was Chevrolet's answer to the Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch: gussied-up compacts aimed at buyers being wooed by the wave of tony German imports then washing ashore here.
Forget the Bimmer, honey. I got us a Chevy Nova instead!
Chevrolet redesigned the Nova for 1975, its first major restyling since 1968. It remained an X-body, sharing some of its chassis and suspension architecture with GM's F-body Camaro and Firebird, although calling it a four-door Camaro would be stretching things a bit. Still, my girlfriend's mom's Concours felt positively athletic compared with my father's oafish and horrible 1972 Cadillac Sedan deVille.
That thing could move, too. Her car was powered by the 170-horsepower, 350-cubic-inch four-barrel V-8. This one has the 145-horsepower, 305 two-barrel V-8. Anytime she'd pick me up in her mom's car, I insisted on driving and having a sweet-old-time with the go-pedal. She'd also insist I chip in for gas, since the little car—which actually wasn't so little—used gasoline like a bus. Not as bad as my dad's Caddy, though, but it was hardly economical.
Chevrolet went to considerable lengths to make the Concours look and feel like something more upscale than the ordinary Nova, even giving it its own sales brochure for 1977. That year, it received a finer-mesh grille, stand-up hood ornament, new wheel covers and wider bright wheel-opening moldings. Chevrolet's brochure even described it as "International in style, it is American in function."
In a vacuum, this is not a bad-looking car. Such as it was intended to be, though, it's no wonder it found fewer buyers than Chevrolet had hoped for. Chevy cranked out 365,264 Novas for 1977, with roughly 75,000 of them being Concours models.
If you think the four-door Concours sent out mixed metaphors or messages, check out the two-door. Sorry, even a ribald coupe lover like me can't quite get his arms around these cars, with their very odd proportions. That half-vinyl top isn't doing this one any favors, either.
Chevrolet continued the X-body Nova through 1979, although the Concours name disappeared after 1977. Chevrolet continued the upscale idea with the Nova Custom in 1978 and 1979. Must have been a bit crazy being a Chevrolet salesperson in the late '70's explaining why someone should pay more for the new for new-for-1978 intermediate Malibu that was just a scooch bigger than the "compact" Nova. Which, again, with a whopping 111-inch-long wheelbase, wasn't so little.
The asking price on this one is $7,500, which seems out-of-this-world high to me. No doubt the seller did their research, because internet value guides peg the asking price as fairly reasonable. Those AI-powered sites do tend to be optimistic with their pricing.
There isn't a number low enough on this car that would sway me toward it at any price.
I wouldn't mind taking it for a spin, though, just to see if it's anywhere near as good as I remember it being.
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