In my opinion, this is one of the best cars in the world. Now you might disagree, but bear with me on this one.
This was the vehicle that gave me my freedom, my first car. Because of this, it is the best car in the world.
Reliability was amazing. Yep, amazingly bad. The biggest and most expensive problems I had was with the distributor. I still remember having to fork out £130 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 could put your hand through to the electric cables. These 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. Emergency stops were possible. You would need to be able to fit both feet on the brake pedal and press with all your might. This is living on the edge.
There was no headrests in the rear, no three point lap belt for the rear passengers. They were left with a lap belt only.
Quite a few things did go wrong, most of them minor. The headlight bulb went a few times, it had a tendancy to breakdown in the wet. Most of the parts to buy for this car were very cheap however.
You will need to be a member of the AA, RAC or other breakdown service. You must budget this into your cost if you want to buy one.
Tyres were cheap as was the insurance. Although when I say cheap, I was comparing to other cars at the time such as the Volkwagen Polo. Maybe things have changed but this car was one of the cheapest I could find to insure, except for the 1.0.
The rust was fairly prominent on the bodywork. Hence, for this reason I recommend finding an orange one. Mine was green. With orangey patches.
Handling was brilliant. Turn the steering wheel and the car would continue straight forward. Turn it a bit more and the tyres squeeled whilst the car continued straight on. I don't suppose it was meant to be driven that quickly! Although, when I say quickly, there are some corners I had to brake for in the Nova which I regularly go around in my Merc these days without even thinking about it.
The car was much more fun in the snow. Accelerate forwards and feel the car going sideways, yes this was fairly typical.
Interior cloth was the upmost of cool. Well, it was cool when I was about three years old. By the time I got the car, it wasn't quite as cool. It looked quite dated really. Although, I did like the fact that mine was a light coloured interior. Suprising on a car such as this. The material was a cream colour with an early 70's pattern in them. Even the plastic components were coloured a dark cream. I liked this light colour so much, that most of my cars have had light interior colours ever since.
The heating system was good. The biggest problem would be if you left the heater on full for a bit too long and it would burn your face off. It was hard to impress the ladies when I had no face, arriving in a rust bucket which barely managed the turn into the parking space.
It's rubbish.
Would I have another one? Probably not, but I would love to drive another one for a one off.
I love this car so much. It gave me my freedom. I can't really recommend this car to anyone, not unless it's your first. But be warned, you will smile when you see another on the road. They are getting rare now.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
My best friend had one of these as his first car and used to let me drive it before I passed my test, not the best cars in the world, but good enough for awhile
Dec 20th, 2008
very helpful by (77%):
helpful by (23%):
