![](\"https:\/\/assets.rebelmouse.io\/media-library\/1973-chevrolet-nova-year-unknown.jpg?id=50292639&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C170%2C0%2C1\"\/)
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I grew up in a working-class town near New Orleans, Louisiana. As an adolescent, I could count on one hand how many families I knew who could afford to buy their children a car. Mine wasn\u2019t one of them; however, it didn\u2019t quell my teenage fantasy of buying my own. <\/p>\n
A few months after I turned 16, I got a job at a fast-food restaurant earning minimum wage ($3.35 per hour). Eight months later, a high-school classmate said his parents were allowing him to sell the car that he drove to school: A two-tone 1973 Chevrolet Nova with faded gold paint and even more faded white paint on the roof. It had some minor rust issues, but it was all original, mechanically sound, and had 44,000 miles on the odometer. The price was right for a shoestring-budget teenager: $520. <\/p>\n
After paying cash on March 18, 1983, and the required fees and taxes at motor vehicles, I had $3 left in my savings account. Although I was elated when I took my first drive in the Nova, I wondered if I had made the right decision. If my car turned out to be a lemon, I would have thrown my hard-earned money away. <\/p>\n
That fear went unfounded. It turned out to be the best financial decision I ever made in my life. My Nova had Chevrolet\u2019s 307-cu.in. small-block V-8 and GM\u2019s Turbo Hydra-Matic 350 automatic transmission. It was a cheap-to-own, reliable, and indestructible powertrain combination. Even in below freezing weather, the Nova only needed one pump of the accelerator to set the choke and start instantly. Once running, it never stalled. The engine ran smoothly on leaded or unleaded gasoline, though typically I used low lead since it was cheaper (about $1.05\/gallon in 1983). My car never leaked nor burned a drop of oil, and the transmission always shifted nearly imperceptibly. <\/p>\n
I performed all the maintenance and nearly all the repairs since the Nova was a simple car. Every four months, I changed the oil and filter, and added five quarts of Quaker State 10W-30. These items cost less than $10. Annually, I would change the spark plugs, ignition points, condenser, and air filter at the cost of less than $20. Every two years I changed the transmission fluid. That\u2019s basically all it took to keep the Chevy running flawlessly, though not without a few adventures.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 1986, I was about to turn onto campus one day when I smelled burning rubber as the generator warning lamp illuminated. I opened the hood and noticed the alternator had seized, causing the fan belt to burn completely off. I dislike having a vehicle that\u2019s inoperable, so I drove the car very slowly to an auto parts store one mile from campus. It never overheated. I bought a rebuilt alternator and a new fan belt for less than $50 and replaced the parts with borrowed tools in the parking lot \u2013 in less than one hour. <\/p>\n
Later that summer, a six-week job in New Orleans required a congested 80-mile commute in 95-degree heat; I never missed one day of work. In July, I also drove the Nova to Pensacola, Florida, and back \u2013 about 500 miles \u2013 for a one-day vacation. <\/p>\n
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Photo by Darrell Farlough<\/small><\/p>\n
A year later, I landed my first professional internship at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. I drove my 14-year-old Nova roughly 950 miles nonstop to Chicagoland in May. About 50 miles from Chicago, I ran into a horrendous monsoon that night. Along with the darkness and the pounding rain, I could barely see the hood. It took me over an hour to find a hotel to end that 15-hour drive. Awaking the next morning, I was relieved to see the Nova had survived that epic journey unscathed. During that summer, I visited college friends and the many tourist attractions of Chicago. Ten weeks later, I drove back to Louisiana nonstop without issues. <\/p>\n
I landed a mechanical engineering internship at Eveready Battery Company in Westlake, Ohio, in 1988. That\u2019s when the Nova received a new exhaust system and four new tires. I also gave it a thorough tune-up, oil and filter change, and a transmission fluid change in my parents’ driveway. Then on Sunday, May 15, I drove the Chevy 1,100 miles nonstop and arrived in Westlake around 6 a.m. on Monday. After sleeping for only one hour, I checked out of the hotel and drove to Eveready for my first day of work. That summer, I dated a young lady who lived 30 miles away. I would see her nearly every day and on weekends, adding nearly 10,000 miles on the Nova; it was as reliable as any new car. <\/p>\n
In September, I drove about 500 miles from Ohio to New York City to finish my senior year of college at Columbia University in mechanical engineering. Through no fault of its own, the city and the Nova were not a match. My car was broken into twice, and its battery and license plate were stolen. I hated moving it frequently for Alternate Side Parking, though I was relieved when the semester ended so I could relocate. <\/p>\n
By December, I had owned the Nova for almost six years and had rolled nearly 80,000 miles on the odometer. Rust had eaten large chunks of its rear fenders and rainwater would leak onto the back seat, but mechanically, it still ran perfectly. <\/p>\n
A day or two after Christmas, I left the city for the 1,300-mile drive to Louisiana. The Nova was already showing more than 120,000 miles then. When I was about 100 miles from my parent\u2019s house, I heard an extremely loud bang. None of the car\u2019s warning lamps were illuminated, so I was perplexed. I pulled off the highway in the Gulfport\/Biloxi area of Mississippi and discovered the right-front wheel bearing had seized onto the spindle. The whole assembly needed to be replaced and it was not something normally stocked at auto parts stores. <\/p>\n
Luck was on my side, though. I had pulled over at a truck repair business by coincidence. A mechanic at the shop offered to patch the spindle assembly just enough for the front tire to roll reasonably well, but warned it wouldn\u2019t last long. I drove the last leg at 45 mph on the highway with the hazard lamps on. Nearly 24 hours after leaving New York, I arrived at my parent\u2019s house with a wobbly front wheel. At over 15-years old, the Nova had yet to leave me stranded on the side of the road. <\/p>\n
I admired my Chevy the most when it needed repairs because it was generally easy to fix. I\u2019ve read critics\u2019 reports proclaiming that the Chevy 307 small-block engine was a grocery-getter engine, and that it wasn\u2019t as durable \u2013 or revered \u2013 like its various displacement cousins, but in my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. The 307 wasn\u2019t powerful, but it was one of the most bulletproof engines ever made. <\/p>\n
Eight years after I bought it, I sold the Nova for $150, or 29 percent of my original purchase price. The new owner pulled the 307 and installed it into a late-model Chevrolet sedan, affirming my belief. <\/p>\n
I have owned many cars since then \u2013 all of them in nicer condition \u2013 but I have always had the greatest emotional attachment to the Nova. I bought it with my own money and kept it running strong with my mechanical skills. It was the perfect car for a student with very limited funds. I never named any of my cars, but in hindsight I would have to call it \u201cTrusty\u201d due to its reliability and rust. <\/p>\n\n
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