RE: Vauxhall Nova: Shed Of The Week

[anonymous-user]

RoverP6B said:

Ran P6 3500S daily for eight years, never let me down, was brilliantly comfy, refined & bloody quick for its time.

Also had Metros, Maestros & Montegos on company fleet at BAe, crap interiors, crap handling, crap engines, deeply unreliable.

No first-hand experience of Nova but enough people I knew had 'em and hated 'em.

P6 2000 won European Car of the Year, and my V8 version was substantially better than the 2000. Quite a few still around today, which is more than you can say for the Metro.

Was your Rover fitted with the experimental straight 6, you know the one which is stronger than the V8?

The Fiat Tipo won car of the year, it was awful. As for Novs's they did a job, usually as a first car mind but we're better than lots of comparable things at the time. People need to go and drive the mk1 Firsta, Chevette, Renault 5 etc..before commenting

[njw1]

My mate had a couple of Novas back in the day, I can still remember the day I put the hazard switch in upside down by accident after fitting a new stereo and everything lit up, my mate was afraid to leave it anywhere after that! The best thing about them was the fact you could take the 1.2 engine out and a 2.0 would bolt straight back in, was especially amusing when you kept the 1.2 gearbox with it's short gearing.

[RoverP6B]

No, I had the V8, it was a good engine of its type. Smooth, refined, light, made decent power for what it was.

There's no need for crappy little tin cans like Novas. Can't afford a nice car of today? Buy a nice car of 20-odd years ago instead. The reason it's prohibitively expensive for youngsters to get insurance is because too many die in little stboxes when they could be driving a cheap old barge that'll keep 'em relatively safe.#

How many here have let their kids drive the likes of Novas, Ford Kas, Peugeot 106s?

I simply wouldn't let my lads near a car like that.

[DKS]

My wife has a Nova, 3 door 1.2 SR replica. She usually does 50 miles a day in it on her commute. She loves it and despises almost any other car her friends have as they're so dull to drive, MINI, Golf etc. We have a pair of twin 40s to fit to it, too.
I can almost hear all those toes curling.

[anonymous-user]

RoverP6B said:

No, I had the V8, it was a good engine of its type. Smooth, refined, light, made decent power for what it was.

There's no need for crappy little tin cans like Novas. Can't afford a nice car of today? Buy a nice car of 20-odd years ago instead. The reason it's prohibitively expensive for youngsters to get insurance is because too many die in little stboxes when they could be driving a cheap old barge that'll keep 'em relatively safe.#

How many here have let their kids drive the likes of Novas, Ford Kas, Peugeot 106s?

I simply wouldn't let my lads near a car like that.

Then you're a muppet. An ancient half rotten piece of crap like a P6 has all the crash protection of a Chinese SUV. As for power, don't make me laugh

[dumfriesdave]

As mentioned a few times already these are horrible as 5 doors - no box arches.

Had 4 of them over the years.
1.3SR
1.4SR
1.3 Sport
1.8 Astra engine. Self built with twin 40 Dellortos.

Good handling little things in their day.

[snuffy]

RoverP6B said:

The reason it's prohibitively expensive for youngsters to get insurance is because too many die in little stboxes when they could be driving a cheap old barge that'll keep 'em relatively safe.#

I see your reasoning there; When they crash their car into another car/person/lamppost/brick wall, it's much better to be in some big old heavy car because they will be safer. The fact that said big old heavy car will do far more damage to another car/person/lamppost/brick wall is therefore someone else's problem.

Yep - cracking bit of thinking there.

[njw1]

snuffy said:

RoverP6B said:

The reason it's prohibitively expensive for youngsters to get insurance is because too many die in little stboxes when they could be driving a cheap old barge that'll keep 'em relatively safe.#

I see your reasoning there; When they crash their car into another car/person/lamppost/brick wall, it's much better to be in some big old heavy car because they will be safer. The fact that said big old heavy car will do far more damage to another car/person/lamppost/brick wall is therefore someone else's problem.

Yep - cracking bit of thinking there.

Erm, if my daughter was in a crash (she's nowhere near old enough to drive yet thank god!) I would much prefer it if the object she hit was worse off as selfish as that may sound.

[B'stard Child]

RoverP6B said:

B'stard Child said:

RoverP6B said:

Rover P6s are very good cars.

Metros and Novas are very poor cars.

Quantify that opinion with real life experience for me, I'd really like to see just how big a hole you can dig for yourself

Ran P6 3500S daily for eight years, never let me down, was brilliantly comfy, refined & bloody quick for its time.

Also had Metros, Maestros & Montegos on company fleet at BAe, crap interiors, crap handling, crap engines, deeply unreliable.

No first-hand experience of Nova but enough people I knew had 'em and hated 'em.

P6 2000 won European Car of the Year, and my V8 version was substantially better than the 2000. Quite a few still around today, which is more than you can say for the Metro.

ooh this is all working out well

I know people who hate P6's - does that mean they are are ste?

So you've never driven a Nova but people you know say they were ste and you believe them

Seeing as you lumped Metro in with Nova

This was a nice little van



Nova SR in the background was a cracking little car - a smidge over geared and under tyred but a lot of fun at the time - yes it didn't handle like a 205 but it wasn't awful - just average.

A doggy overtake by another party led to a choice of side swipe a innocent metro or head on with oncoming traffic - the chose side swipe



Walked away........

[Baz Tench]

teacake said:

And the bracket at the bottom of the steering column that rubbed against your left foot as you turned the wheel.

My mk1 Astra GTE used to do that too. It was quite a strange feeling.

ETA: it didn't happen in the Mk1 Astra 1200 I had though.

Edited by Baz Tench on Sunday 11th October 23:42

[Batster]

I had a 1986 1.3SR in red as my first "fast car"....it was my second car after a 1.05 Polo so it felt quite quick! I loved it and it never let me down- engine took all sorts of abuse and it felt agile if you drove around the understeer.

It loved getting airborne! It was replaced whilst I went travelling (and unbeknown to me) by a brand new 1.2 merit in white which was the facelift model but a step backwards. Things got back on track with a 8v Golf GTi with big bumpers, which felt like a scud missile after the white nova.

As many have said, this Shed brings back many happy memories, though don't want to own one now...

[AlexC1981]

RoverP6B said:

Ran P6 3500S daily for eight years, never let me down, was brilliantly comfy, refined & bloody quick for its time.

Also had Metros, Maestros & Montegos on company fleet at BAe, crap interiors, crap handling, crap engines, deeply unreliable.

No first-hand experience of Nova but enough people I knew had 'em and hated 'em.

P6 2000 won European Car of the Year, and my V8 version was substantially better than the 2000. Quite a few still around today, which is more than you can say for the Metro.

As the highest spec model from a luxury manufacturer from the days before injection moulded plastic dashboards, you would expect it to be a bit nicer and longer lasting than the Metro, which was the cheapest car from a mid-range manufacturer. As far as handling goes, I would guess an MG Metro/Maestro/Montego would beat a P6 around a track.

I'd rather have its competitor though, the Jaguar 340 which was cheaper to buy new

[eldar]

Batster said:

I had a 1986 1.3SR in red as my first "fast car"....it was my second car after a 1.05 Polo so it felt quite quick! I loved it and it never let me down- engine took all sorts of abuse and it felt agile if you drove around the understeer.

It loved getting airborne! It was replaced whilst I went travelling (and unbeknown to me) by a brand new 1.2 merit in white which was the facelift model but a step backwards. Things got back on track with a 8v Golf GTi with big bumpers, which felt like a scud missile after the white nova.

As many have said, this Shed brings back many happy memories, though don't want to own one now...

I had the Opel version 1.3SR Corsa, which had an LSD for some reason. It was quite capable, understeered in a reasonably consistent way and appeared bulletproof.

The best of a fairly mediocre bunch, I think.

[RoverP6B]

yonex said:

Then you're a muppet. An ancient half rotten piece of crap like a P6 has all the crash protection of a Chinese SUV. As for power, don't make me laugh

P6 has designed-in crumple zones, steering column designed to pull the wheel away from the driver in an impact plus a honeycomb plastic dash structure to absorb more impact forces (plus the fuel tank is mounted over the rear axle, with heavy firewalls both sides, well sheltered from a rear-end impact). Would it compare favourably safety-wise with a similarly-sized modern today? Probably not - but it was a remarkably safe car for its time, and continued to be one of the safest cars on the road when I was running it in the 80s.

snuffy said:

I see your reasoning there; When they crash their car into another car/person/lamppost/brick wall, it's much better to be in some big old heavy car because they will be safer. The fact that said big old heavy car will do far more damage to another car/person/lamppost/brick wall is therefore someone else's problem.

Yep - cracking bit of thinking there.

Not that at all. It's simply that the bigger car has more metal to crumple and thus the decelerative forces exerted on the occupants' bodies is lessened.

Anyway, I wasn't advocating people buying old P6s for their kids. It was never meant to be anyone's first car and it wouldn't have been good as mine. What I was suggesting instead is that, rather than buying a cheap old late 90s/early 00s little hatch, you buy a big barge of the same era (Jag XJs are conspicuously good value for money) which will have more safety gear and more metal to keep the occupants safe...

[anonymous-user]

RoverP6B said:

Would it compare favourably safety-wise with a similarly-sized modern today? Probably not

Exactly, next.

RoverP6B said:

Not that at all. It's simply that the bigger car has more metal to crumple and thus the decelerative forces exerted on the occupants' bodies is lessened.

.......

RoverP6B said:

Would it compare favourably safety-wise with a similarly-sized modern today? Probably not

RoverP6B said:

Anyway, I wasn't advocating people buying old P6s for their kids. It was never meant to be anyone's first car and it wouldn't have been good as mine. What I was suggesting instead is that, rather than buying a cheap old late 90s/early 00s little hatch, you buy a big barge of the same era (Jag XJs are conspicuously good value for money) which will have more safety gear and more metal to keep the occupants safe...

You really do talk twaddle.

[DKS]

RoverP6B said:

P6 has designed-in crumple zones, steering column designed to pull the wheel away from the driver in an impact plus a honeycomb plastic dash structure to absorb more impact forces (plus the fuel tank is mounted over the rear axle, with heavy firewalls both sides, well sheltered from a rear-end impact)

So does a Nova...

[RoverP6B]

DKS said:

So does a Nova...

Nova's much smaller though, and handled like a pig...

...anyway, why do people keep dragging the car I had thirty years ago into this discussion?

[B'stard Child]

RoverP6B said:

DKS said:

So does a Nova...

Nova's much smaller though, and handled like a pig...

...anyway, why do people keep dragging the car I had thirty years ago into this discussion?

Cos you started digging a hole and frankly you've kept digging

And while the Nova wasn't in the same league (handling wise) as a 205 to describe as a "pig" shows you are still digging...........

[VX Foxy]

RicksAlfas said:

I had a red 1.3SR on an E reg. Fake Recaro seats, 6 clock dash, and no rev limiter.
Great fun, but would no doubt horrify any "young person" these days.

Me too. mine was mustard yellow. It was my first car and I loved it! It was an '88 E and I bought it at 2 yrs old for about £4k.
Then I killed it with a ditch.

[jeremy996]

My girlfriend/wife and I had a lot of these in the day and all of them were 3 door hatches and Carmine Red - we just did not like the look of the saloons or 5 doors.

1984 1.0 Pop
1885 1.2 Swing
1988 1.3 SR
1989 1.2 Twist
1990 1.6 GTE

In 1991, the 1.6 GTE was sold for a 1972 Morgan 1600 I still have.

Bizarre incident.

At my Grandfather's funeral, my Step-Grandmother and two nuns came in a Nova saloon. The driver locked the keys in the car and did not notice until after the cremation. Once they noticed, there was a suggestion from the remaining congregation to break a window to get in but I stopped them. I asked the vicar who presided for his cassock coat hanger and after a little judicious bending it in to a loop I popped the driver's door open without any damage. Head nun was a bit startled that it was that easy to get into her newish car, but that is how it was in the mid'90s.