My dad originally bought this ‘69 Nova back in the day. He quickly decided he wanted a new truck instead, and the check that I wrote to him introduced me to the world of owning a Chevy Nova.

I bought this brand new Nova from him, and I drove it constantly to work, college, and reserve meetings for many years. This Nova was a 307 2-barrel automatic and always ran very well with plenty of power. Early on I added dual exhausts, a nice stereo, and ran rally wheels eventually adding American torque thrusts with spinners and white letter Goodyears. To this day, I still own one of those wheels; they were 14 by 7.5 with fat tires in those days.

Dad always loved this car. He loved the way the engine and transmission always worked so smoothly. He enjoyed the way it drove, the sounds of the dual exhaust and the ease with which he could pass slower traffic. I will always remember following him as he drove this car for me from Birmingham to North Georgia in 1997.

In 1997, the car ultimately wound up being stored at Dad’s place. It would stay there for nearly 20 years until his passing in 2016.

With my Dad passing at age 87, I decided it was time to pull the Nova out and give it some current updates.

Dad always loved this car — the sounds of the dual exhaust and the ease with which he could pass slower traffic.

I put in an LT1 350 vintage 1970 (block 3932386) bored 30 over with Vortec heads and a Comp Cam. The suspension, rear end, and transmission were rebuilt. All new brake and fuel lines, tank, and exhausts, headers, ignition, power disc brakes, vintage A/C, and power steering were added. I gave the interior new carpet, headliner, bucket seats, console, radio, speakers, tilt column and steering wheel. The disc brakes required larger wheels from American Racing with spinners and new tires.

The car became the Rest-Mod in early 2018 and has been driven about a thousand miles.