Kevin Kuhlkin




The blue car

Year 1975
Make Chevrolet
Model Nova
Body Style 2-door sedan

Engine 350

The red car

Year 1979
Make Chevrolet
Model Nova
Body Style 2-door sedan

Engine 250
1975 Chevrolet Nova
July 16, 1996: It all started with Wilbur, an almost "pristine" '79 Chevrolet Nova, who's peppy little straight 6 could get you from 0-85 in about 4 minutes. This was the first car I ever owned. I came home one afternoon to find Wilbur sitting in the driveway with no tags or stickers (inspection or registration), so I asked Dad about it as soon as I could find him. "Well, this guy at work sold it to me for $100. It has a new battery, new brakes, and a new waterpump. I'll either sell it to you for $100 or give it to your sister." There was no way I was going to let my sister have a car while I didn't, so I bought it. And I thought it was cool since it reminded me of a '75 Nova that one of my high school buddy's Dad had owned since it was new.

After Wilbur's front subframe literally fell out from 12 winters in New York state (probably living outside the whole time), I had to sell it to a recycler (not a junkyard) since I didn't want to have a guilty conscious from trying to sell it to someone else.
1975 Chevrolet Nova A few years later I moved to Virginia and decided that it was going to cost more in gas money to drive the QEIII—a '76 Lincoln Towncar I owned at the time—to Virginia than the car was worth, so I sold it. The very next day I got a call from my high school buddy's Dad saying he wanted to sell the '75 Nova and he wanted to know if I'd be interested. "Whoa! Is this cosmic or what?!?" I thought to myself. With brand new top-of-the-line Sears tires on it and a $250 price tag, the original 1975 title quickly changed hands and I had myself a Nova with an awesome 350 in it. Every mechanic that heard it run (when I got the car inspected and had new leaf springs put in it) said that it was probably the tightest chevy small block that they had ever heard. I owned it for 2 years and it started every day (even in 2 feet of snow and 10° F temperatures) and not once did it ever break, let alone leave me stranded.

1975 Chevrolet Nova The original owner drove the car only a few miles a day [to the train station and back] and so even though it was 18 years old, it had only 115,000 miles. When I moved to Virginia, I decided that it didn't look "mean" enough; I wanted this thing to look like it just came off of the Road Warriors movie set, so I painted racing stripes on it, yanked off the cheesy hubcaps and painted the wheels black. Enter, stage right, the "Deathmobile," which I painted backwords on the engine hood so people could read it in their rearview mirrors. The license plate said "SHETBOX" for 6 weeks, which is when I got a letter from the DMV that said, "the license plate was issued by mistake. Due to the suggestive vulgar content, it is being revoked and your first alternative license plate is being issued." So for the rest of it's tenure with me, the license plate said "ROADKYL." Go figure.

Unfortunately, despite the Deathmobile's surprising speed and agility, not to mention amazing reliability, it was due for an inspection and it had a cracked windshield (someone in my condominium complex really didn't like that car—something about property values?) and it was in dire need of a lot of front end suspension parts. So once again, financial reasoning reared it's ugly head and forced me to sell the Deathmobile. I was upfront about everything; I told the new owner everything I knew about the car's history and exactly what it needed mechanically, so I sold it with a clean conscious.

I still miss this car more than any other I've owned, especially the way the front of the car would lift like 4" every time I romped on the gas at any speed. I would love to find a '67 Nova SS that I could afford. (I know, so would everyone else.) I just keep telling myself "someday."

Copyright © 1995, 1996 Aren Cambre.