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MY 1975 NOVA PAGE -- THE EARLY YEARS
I managed to locate some early pics of the disco-era Nova from the early
days, and came up with a few. The Disco-Era Nova was a replacement
for a 1965
Chevy II Nova 4-door that my dad bought in late 1969 or early 1970,
and sold off around ?April 1976. Since February 1976, the Nova
has been a part of the household.* These pics came from an era when
my family settled in northeast Fort Bend County, near the Harris County
Line. For 22 years, this has been my home, and today, a ghetto.
Originally, the neighborhood had a few whites, but the influx of African
Americans turned this section of Houston into a middle-class ghetto.
*The official date on the vehicle title is April 14, 1976, when the
title was finally in my mom's name. More details are revealed on
the third page.
This pic was taken in ?March 1979, and at the time, the 1969 Chevelle,
my dad's car, was sold off a few month earlier. (The whole 9 on the
Chevelle can be found at the Chevelle
Memories Page.) I was in the first grade at the time, and the
newest addition to the vehicle collection was a 1978 Cutlass Supreme.
This car has been repainted in 1994 and 2001, and is still active today. My
mom paid $2795 for the Nova (at the time, Chemical Bank {located at Kirby
and West Main}co-signed the contract in purchasing the car), with the tip
money that she saved from working as a cocktail waitress at Trader Vic's,
a restaurant located in the Shamrock Hilton in Houston, Texas. Both
the Trader Vic's (shut down in 1980) and the Shamrock Hilton (leveled to
the ground in late 1987) are long gone, and this pic reminds me of an era
that has faded.
This pic was snapped in the ?July 1979, at R.A. Apfell Park in Galveston,
Texas. This location is near the east end of Galveston Island.
Note that the Nova's paint was about to fade from the sun and elements.
This is the garage pic, snapped in July 1980, and the only difference between
the 1979 pic is that the Nova emblem is missing from the grille.
My dad had a front-end collision, and the front section was damaged.
The damaged section included a front bumper and a busted grille.
A.J. Foyt Chevrolet (later known as TexStar Chevrolet afer 1988, shut down
in 1991) repaired the front end damage, and this appearance remained until
1994, when I bashed the front clip on the Southwest Freeway at the South
Rice overpass.
This pic was snapped back in 1988, when I was doing the bodywork, before
the car was painted black, which is the current color today. I was
only 15 at the time, when I only had a learner's permit. (I had a
perm back in the day, but did not have a Jeri curl.) There were numerous
rust areas, like the section around the taillight lenses, and around the
weatherstripping around the trunk. Some of the rust was never repaired,
and is in need of repair to this day.
The Nova was parked outside from 1985-88, but by the time I started
driving the car, the rear header panel was corroded around the weatherstripping
lip, and the sheetmetal around the taillights were rusted. To this
day, the entire car will have to be refurbished, with new sheetmetal, since
the rear header panel is a rust-prone area, similar to first-generation
F-cars (Camaro/Firebird) of 1967-69 vintage. The lower rear quarters
behind the wheel had slight rusting, and is in need of ruat repair.
These flaws were overlooked when the car was painted black, seen on the
main
page. The downside to owning anything post-1972 is that there
are no parts manufacturers available, and when I did the bodywork in 1988,
I used Bondo and primer. Modern restorationists shy away from using
Bondo when patching rust holes, which is a futile way of repairing rust.
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