1972 Chevrolet Nova - Almost Criminal

Stumbled across this 1972 Chevrolet Nova recently and it brought me back. Way back. Not sure when exactly as some memories don't line up chronologically for me anymore. Funny how that happens as you get older. Details once so crystal clear to you suddenly begin to fade. 

Anyway, I was dating a girl named Regina through my senior year of high school and freshman and sophomore years of college and sometime during that time her older sister Sandy and her husband Wayne offered to sell me their Nova for, are you sitting down? $75. 

Even in 1982 or 1983 that was the deal of a lifetime. And, of course, I didn't take them up on it. It looked just like this '72 here save for that super-rare and strange optional "Sky Roof". Fun facts, the Skyroof was an odd, quasi-convertible top meets a massive sunroof and was only offered on 1972 and 1973 Chevy Nova's. Just over 10,000 or so were ever sold making this one here quite rare. Anyhoo, back to Sandy's Nova. 

They wanted to get rid of it because it was a hassle to park it where they lived. Parking then as now was a premium in the overcrowded commune like community of Long Beach, New York on Long Island. Many times they'd have to park one of their two vehicles upwards of a mile from their apartment. Better to have just one car to worry about. Only having one car would save on insurance, shoes and sneakers too.  

No surprise, it was far from perfect. Rear quarter panels were rusted through exposing the trunk, the finish was all but gone (like on this one) and the interior was torn up. Dash had cracks in it too. I don't remember how many miles were on it, but it had a lot of wear for a car that at the time was just ten or eleven years old. Then again, years ago cars didn't age nearly as well as they do today. Says the guy who uses a twenty-year old car with almost a quarter-million miles on it as a daily driver. 

What I really liked about it was how it rode and handled. Although it had Chevrolet's 307 cubic-inch V-8 like this car and not a "350", it had far more "go" than my Comet had. Way smoother too. Despite it having a funky, "when-is-this-thing-going-to-shift" two-speed Powerglide. The muffler was shot so it seemed as though it had a lot more power than it actually did. Sounded great too. Why didn't I pull the trigger?

Frankly, I've never been the biggest fan of these cars. Anything "Chevy Nova" to be honest. Too small while at the same time being too big, in my humblest of opinions, they have little of the design magic that many Bill Mitchell era designs have. And the safety-bumper era Nova's (1973-1979) look as clumsy as my Comet did. I also didn't think it that much of an upgrade from my shit-box Comet. Perhaps if it was in better shape but as it was, the move would have been lateral. 

In the end, Sandy and Wayne couldn't even give it away. After I rebuffed their offer, they said they'd let me have it for nothing. Save for the $1 they had to charge me for it to make the sale official. I politely declined. Again. They offered the same deal to others, and no one took them up on it either. The poor little Nova sat unloved. They eventually junked it. Seems almost criminal in retrospect. 

1972 Chevrolet Chevelle - Imagine

 

Only in hindsight do we realize the futility of a situation. I probably had a better shot at dating a member of my high school cheerleader squad than I had with a 1972 Chevelle I found for sale one fall day back in 1982 on my way home from Nassau Community College. This one's quite similar to it except for the aftermarket rims (I don't care for), a chromed-out engine and who knows what else it wasn't born with. 

She sat at that corner of the parking lot at what is now a real estate office at the intersection of Long Beach Road and Seaman Avenue in Rockville Centre back on Long Island with "FOR SALE 1200" painted on her windshield. I was fish hooked and had to have a closer look. Forty-years ago, $1,200 was not an insignificant amount of money but for a car even back then that had the rock star allure of Mick Jagger, it was the deal of a lifetime. Can you even imagine finding a rust-free, all-original '72 Chevelle these days for what amounts to $1,200 today? That would be approximately, give or take, $3,500. Non-running junkers are going for north of ten-grand. Way north. 

I turned my squeaky, rusty Comet right around and was amazed, stunned actually, when the guy behind the counter didn't flinch when I asked for the keys. He either didn't care or he bought into the notion that someone with the map of Ireland on his face and the outward disposition of an altar boy meant that no bad could happen. Seeing how hard I got on the thing something bad certainly could have happened, but nothing did. Unless you count my not ending up with the car as a bad thing as I most certainly do.

 

The problem was that at even less than fifty-bucks a credit at NCC back then, working up to three minimum wage jobs meant I had little money for anything let alone another car. About the only capital I had was wrapped up in my wretched, 1974 Mercury Comet. To get cash I'd have to sell the Comet. Then how would I get to school? 

The only option was to ask my mother for a loan. I still see the smoke from her Raleigh cigarette, plain, no filter, puffing out of her nose and mouth in a syncopated rhythm as she slam-dunked me; "You already have a car. Why do you need another one?"

On the face of it I couldn't argue with her less than sanguine logic. She wasn't a car person although I know she was aware of my displeasure with the Comet. Didn't matter.  "No" meant "no" no matter how much I pleaded my case that I would sell the Comet, give her the money I got for it and pay the balance back in installments. No. The Comet wasn't worth anywhere near the lordly amount of $1,200. 

Perhaps it's just as well I didn't get that Chevelle; I'd probably just have driven it into the ground like I do all of my "drivers". It's sweet to think about how much I would have loved that car to say nothing of how much it would have improved my "cool" quotient. Although it was just a base model, "307" car. That warm, pride of ownership feeling coming with the purchase of my beloved 1975 Chrysler Cordoba the following summer; just goes to show you how desperate I was. However, that Cordoba was more symbolic than actually a good car as it introduced me to a world I wasn't aware could exist before it. A world were anything was possible if you worked hard enough. I don't wax nostalgically if poetically for my long lost Cordoba per se, I remember fondly the feelings I had before it when nothing seemed possible. Imagine if I had a Chevelle.