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 200,000th mile, not bad for a 1.2 litre engine.
I am not one for giving a car a name, but I had my Nova so long that I did get almost ... Read review
Advantages: Reliable, cheap and nippy. Disadvantages: Getting on a bit now.
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 200,000th mile, not bad for a 1.2 litre engine.
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 ... ...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 accustomed to in the mighty 1.7 litre Princess of Doom, this is tongue in cheek ok?
Wrong! Sure she wansn't a super car in terms of performance, but it ... more
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 200,000th mile, not bad for a 1.2 litre engine.
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 accustomed to in the mighty 1.7 litre Princess of Doom, this is tongue in cheek ok?
Wrong! Sure she wansn't a super car in terms of performance, but it certainly isn't a slouch 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! If you haven't heard of cadence braking, this is where you rapidly press the brake and then realease before pressing again. With practise you find this is better in the wet than normal braking, it simulates how ABS works.
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 was very cheap to insure too, being group 3 less than £200 a year for me, fully comprehensive insurance that is.
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! He has done a lot of work on the car, including replacing the cams which had worn away so they were round!
Overall this car is superb for anyone looking for a cheap and reliable first car or second car if you know what I mean! There are quite a few around today and it is especially nice for people who like to get their hands dirty as you can maintain it yourself. Unlike modern cars which need to be plugged into a computer when they are serviced. Not the most attractive car on the road today, but I wouldn't say they were ugly, just getting on a bit.
Advantages: Cheap to run, easy to acquire parts, nippy, comfortable Disadvantages: I've had my fair share of problems (See below)
...a little smaller than standard Vauxhall steering wheels. The dashboard contains white dials for the speedometer and rev counter - however I am planning to get them for the fuel and temperature gauges also. I can't think of much else to say about the interior apart from that I've got a Magic Tree hanging from my rear view mirror! The SRi spec Novas also come with body-coloured wing mirrors and clear indicator covers at the front - a nice improvement ... ...20 miles to my nearest Vauxhall dealer (I was told by the mechanics at my local garage that this would be the only place to get a hold of this part) to get a price for one. It came up at £12 for the new hose, which had to be ordered and picked up the next morning by me, meaning another 20 mile each-way journey. After all of this hassle, I fitted the hose and there was no more swelling. It is now April 18th 2001 and it seems that, at last, my car ...
k.mccrindle 20.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average: very helpful Review of Vauxhall Nova 1.2
Advantages: Memories. Cheap to run. Disadvantages: Breaks down, disintegrates into rust, handing is poor
...for a reconditioned replacement. The Vauxhall garage wanted half the cars value for a new one.
The power on these was actually quite a suprise, perhaps the lightweight body made this much, much quicker than it really should be. Fortunately, I never crashed one, nor would I like to.
Interior design left a lot to be desired but all the buttons are switches were obvious what they did. There was no panel fillers, big holes near the footwell where you ... ...holes are generally out of the line of sight but make repairs very simple indeed.
Once you have got to 70mph, you may need to stop. Right, this is the part where we see how your nerves stack up.
Press the brake pedal and everyone knows you are slowing down, neither of the brake lights never failed on the car. Unfortunately, the driver and passengers are unaware of these lights and the speedo didn't give much of an indication of reducing speed. ...
NegativeG 20.12.2008
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average: very helpful Review of Vauxhall Nova 1.2
Advantages: An in-town runaround which is cheap to insure and run Disadvantages: Boy racers have spoiled the image of a reasonable car.
...continue, if you own a Vauxhall Nova or in particular a modified Vauxhall Nova, you probably won't like this opinion. I am writing this in order to vent anger at something that myself and many of my friends find to be a particularly amusing, but annoying syndrome. That of the boy racer.
The Vauxhall Nova was originally designed as a cheap run-around car for the ladies to do the weekly shopping. A small engine coupled with light bodywork made for ... ...being sexist in any way..this was the reason for this car being made!
For the reasons above, it was a decent little car. It suffers from the normal cheap car troubles like corrodability and so on, but for it's purpose it was an okay car.
The only trouble with the Nova was that it was cheap to insure and as such the boy racers decided to pick up on it, as with the Ford Fiesta and the Astra.
Here in Exeter we suffer from probably the largest contingent ...
poodu 12.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average: very helpful Review of Vauxhall Nova 1.2
Advantages: Nippy little first car Disadvantages: Rusts badly, was gold in colour!
The Car:-
Bought from a young female student, i was now the 6th owner, with 100'000 in the clock it was probably a bad buy. A 1.2L, gold in colour and granny brown inside, but for a first car it had all i wanted, an engine and wheels! My aim? To make a superb boyracer mobile.... mision... failed. I kept knocking things, trees, fences, etc, etc. BUt what the heck, its a nova, never did me any favours. Even cost me more than my fiancee!
It had NO ... ...a tractor on ice and rusted like there was no tomorrow.
But i loved it!
Drive:-
Every bend felt like i was going to go straight on, the brakes were rubbish, (sat there learning all the stopping distances from the highway code for the test, then had to double them when i got in this car!!)
The ride was bumpy, the tracking was always out of line, but it acelerated well, the lightness of the car made it quick (not quick enough though)
Inside and ...
Ric_mears 18.05.2003
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average: very helpful Review of Vauxhall Nova 1.2
Advantages: The good name of Vauxhall, plus reliability Disadvantages: None
I bought my Vauxhall Nova GTE in 1990, when it was only three months old. It sat in the garage forecourt, snow white in colour and gleaming, with only about 20 miles on the clock, the owner before unfortunately finding that he could not finance it after all. It is a GTE with a full bodykit, and it is something really special, even after 10 years. It's not a flashy looking car, but more a special and unique looking car, as the bodykit really sets ... ...have nothing but respect for Vauxhall cars as I think they have such a good name behind them and their quality speaks for themselves. My daughter was after a car herself a couple of months back, being near to passing her test, and settled on a Corsa, which took over from the Nova. That is also a lovely car to drive. ...
backstreetwoman 08.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average: helpful Review of Vauxhall Nova 1.2
