Champagne Super Nova (Vauxhall Nova)

Member Name: DavidJWest

Product:	Vauxhall Nova
Date:	24/04/01 (273 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap and Reliable.

Disadvantages: They Don't Make Anymore!

Well it wasn't exactly champagne but I couldn't resist the title!

My old, dear, departed Nova was certainly a super car though, lasting well past it's 200,000 mile.

I am not one for giving a car a name, but I had my Nova so long that I did get almost affectionate towards it, I said ALMOST!

I bought 'her' in 1991 for a mere £3,600 when she was a sprightly young 2 year old with just 60,000 on the clock, having been a company car. I only got £100 trade in for my silver dream machine of a Princess (titter ye not!) but it turned out to be a bargain.

Now at the time I was concerened that the mere 1.2 litre engine was not going to be able to propel me to the awesome speeds I had been accostomed to in the mighty 1.7 litre Princess of Doom, this is tongue in cheek ok?

Wrong! Sure she aint a super car in terms of performance, but it certainly isn't a slough either. After the Nova I had a Rover 214 Sli (16v etc) and the Nova felt quicker, you will be pleasantly surprised by the performance, I imagine the SRi (or whatever) is pretty impressive to drive.

The car handles well through corners, in that there is surprisingly little body roll, my Nova didn't have it's suspension lowered either, or blacked out windows!

If you do go a little too adventurously into a corner, the car is quite forgiving, you will find it drifts rather than giving under or oversteer.

You must be careful when it's wet though. My saloon model had a scary tendacy to lock it's rear wheels if brakes were applied vigorously when wet. Cadence braking sorted that out, but it was certainly a wake up call!

The most impressive feature of the car was it;s reliability and economy. I regularly got 50 mpg even when the car was getting old(er). No matter how stupidly I drove, even around town I always got around the 40mpg mark.

It only let me down once, when the cam-belt snapped. Other
than that it needed three new exhaust pipes which were around £60 and MOT's. I serviced it myself maybe once a year when I could be bothered and washed it sometimes too!

OK so the interior is spartan to say the least. Very few mod-cons but that means there is less to go wrong with it. Our 7 year relationship ended when the MOT was going to cost about £300 which included a new windscreen as the existing one was cracked.

I gave the car to my half-brother who is a mechanic and it is still going strong to this day! Fingers crossed!

Overall this car is superb for anyone looking for a cheap and reliable first car or second car if you know what I mean!

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