Nova we go! (Vauxhall Nova)

Name: Road_knight76

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Product:	Vauxhall Nova
Date:	05.02.03 (1938 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to repair/maintain/modify, Lots of power for a 1.2, Responsive drive

Disadvantages: High insurance, especially for young drivers, Can succumb to rust if not looked after

Ahhh. I like Novas. People always seem to look at me strange when they ask what my next car will be and i reply "a Nova".

I'm currently the happy (ish - come on to that later) owner of a 1991 J reg 1.2 Nova Merit, and have been since October 2000. Purchased with about 54k miles on the clock, it's now pushing 91k and so far the car has done me no wrong - it's reliable, nippy, economical and looks good too (I *HATE* round cars like the corsa!!).

And more important of all it gave me that bug for modifying cars.

The car had been sitting on my driveway for about 4 months before i bought it, as my sister owned it before I did (she'd taken to driving her boyfriends Citroen Saxo, then bought one for herself later on - see my other review on it). She'd already fitted some 15x7.5 Oz Evolution Alloys and a new JVC stereo with pioneer speakers on the parcel shelf. In fact my first modification came before any money had changed hands - some nice bosche laser blue headlights, as the standard ones were a bit lame.

Considering I had come from an older 903cc Fiat Uno to this, i was expecting a car with more power, comfort and smoother ride quality. All of these i got, but it wasn't until i later compared the Nova with driving other cars i realised just how good it was.

Although the ride was nice and smooth, the car did have a lot of body roll round corners. This was soon rectified with some lower springs (nabbed from a Corsa) and new bushes from vauxhall which tightened things up greatly.

The gear change has always been very positive on the car, you can feel exactly where the gate for each gear is, and although there is a bit of free play, it's not so much that would make the gears fee sloppy. On mine the clutch was hard to get used to - it might not be like this on all 1.2's (it's certainly not on my mate's 1.3SR) - but there was a lot of travel in the clutch and the 'b
ite' was very high up. This lead to problems when my foot was resting on the pedal, sometimes it would push it down just enough to pull the car a little way out of gear. However, i soon found this clutch very easy to drive with, and especially easy to hang the car on the clutch (as in hill starts etc).

For a 1.2 the car has got plenty of power under the bonnet. Although official figures from vauxhall say it is around 55bhp (remember it's not the later 45bhp injection model), it feels much more than that. It can easily match 1.3s and even 1.4s, and give even the GTE/GSi's a bit of a run for their money. It acclerates well up to 60 in just a shade over 10 seconds (again, vauxhall figures say 14) and will keep pulling in 3rd well up to 75-80. Rumours of 1.2's going over 110 are true... and i did that with a passenger....!!

However, the brakes on the car are it's weak point. To get some decent reaction on them you really do have to stomp on the pedal, and in normal driving there is what could be a rather un-nerving, to someone who is not used to the brakes, amount of free play on the pedal. This is why it's a common find to see lower spec Novas with performance disc & pads, GSi brakes, or even Astra items, all of which are a marked improvement over the standard stoppers.

Steering on the road with the standard wheels is very light, probably due to the lack of weight from the engine. However, with the alloys on it becomes heavier - yet still light when driving, and lighter than other cars i've driven with alloys. Beware that with wider tyres the car does have a bad tendency to follow the road, and lumps or bumps can pull the car sharply to one side. Although the car is not fitted with power steering, personally i don't feel it really needs it anyway, especially if you are running on standard wheels. You get a lot of feeling from the road below through the steering wheel, but not so much that it drives you rathe
r than you driving it.

Economy is great, i can fill the tank from totally empty for about £28, and from that I'd expect to get around 350+ miles, around 43-50mpg. Reliability is also good as long as you look after the car to a certain degree - there are plenty of people who talk about Novas breaking down, but i bet these are all unserviced and hammered ones. The 1.2 engine is pretty strong and can take a fair beating but being a 4 speed gearbox model it doesn't like prolonged periods of high speed. Yet it will cruise along quite happily at 60-70mph with no trouble and some power left for over taking.

Parts are also cheap and easy to fit. Second hand parts can be easily obtained from scrapyards, and it may be a good idea to go take a look for any higher spec models to graft parts off. Even new parts are relatively cheap from Vauxhall. Fitting parts is quite a simple task as the majority of the car can all be unbolted with a couple of spanners (as opposed to many other cars of the age which were welded together all over the place). My dad and I once managed to recondition and refit the head in the space of one afternoon (ok he's a trained mechanic but even I knew what we were doing!) for a total cost of under £120, and that includes skimming the head and a number of new parts such as cam belt, water pump, oil filter, distributor, etc.

Insurance can be expensive, so i wouldn't generally recommend them to people as a first car *especially* if you're going to perform the odd tweak and tuck here and there. I'm insured with CIS and pay about £550 fully comp (20, 3 years no claims). Although they don't charge extra for bodywork and internal modifications, they will rack up the premium of you do anything to the engine. If you have the money, and are dead set on modfying the car I'd recommend companies like Adrian Flux, Liverpool Victoria and HIC (the latter who do agreed valuations as well - handy if you've spen
t a fair £££ on the car).

Internally the car is (in my opinion) much improved over earlier Mk1 Novas. No more nasty brown interiors, and the whole thing looks much more modern and brightened up a bit. The seating is quite comfy and there's plenty of legroom up front. In the rear, there is no centre arm rest as found on some other cars and little legroom if the front seats are far back. I also found that if you're tall or have long legs (like me) you might find your legs rubbing on the underside of the steering wheel.

The dashboard is well laid out, in this model there is no rev counter so you have a nice big speedo in the centre which is easy to spot without taking your eyes off the road. The stereo slot has also been moved down towards the gearstick from it's high position on the Mk1 Novas, it's just at arms reach and a little more out the view of people looking in.

Externally, the look of the car is somewhat more modern and sleek looking than the earlier Novas. However, the bodywork quality can vary greatly from car to car. Novas are well renowned for their rust, although in Mk2's (90-93) it's not quite so bad as made out. The arches are one of the worst places, especially if it's been fitted with alloys - some people just slap in bigger wheels which rub the arch and let in rust, whilst others just grind or fold the arches out, leaving exposed areas underneath that the rust eats into. Ideally the arches should be properly rolled back to accomodate larger wheels, if in doubt check for any receipts to prove a good job. Other areas for rust are the underside of the doors; in the engine bay (along the inside edge of the wheel arch), and the boot & spare wheel well (take out the carpet and have a look underneath the wheel and check along the back of the boot).

Security is another poor part of Novas, they are very easy to get into even without any tools (speaking from being on the receiving end here). An
d, on the '90-91 models (early Mk2's) there is a supposed fault which can bypass the ignition and start the car.... So it's definately worth getting a decent alarm & immobiliser fittted.

Ok so that's a bit about the general features of the car. But what about those of you who want one to modify? The 1.2 is a good place to start being (relatively) cheap to insure and run, and with a little tweaking it can outperform 1.3 and 1.4s. Sticking a decent filter on can help, but beware that although K&Ns are popular they don't actually give all that much of an increase in power on the Nova. Lowered suspension is a must to help the car corner better, and anti roll bars can be taken off SR/GTE/GSi's and bolted on to stiffen things up a bit.

There are still plenty of styling options for the car - not bad for a design that is essentially 20 years old - although beware that not all of them are a straight fit. The bodykit on mine took a lot to get it to fit, most of which my dad and I did after the bodyshop guy couldn't figure out how to get it on (then charged £500 for just painting it all! Cheek!), but being a bolt-together car, it only took about 5 minutes each time to take all the bumpers and grille off, and modify certain bits with a hacksaw and drill :)

I said at the start i was happy-ish with the car, the reason being that i'm never going to be completely satisfied with it until i've tweeked or tidied nearly every part of it at least a dozen times, and of course being such a simple car to work on this is quite an easy task (hence why they are so popular amongst modfiers).

Overall, the car has a lot of potential either as a small runabout or modifier's project car. Although cheap to buy, run and maintain they are however let down by the high cost of insurance. When serviced properly and regularly it can last for miles and miles, or with a bit of tuning the performance can easily match SRs, AX's,
205's and those nasty blue oval badges.

And of course there's the stigma of having a boy racer car as well... but some of us can put up with that one :)

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