The popular Chevy Nova compact wound down in 1979 after 18 years. The successful rear-wheel-drive car was scheduled to be replaced in 1980 by the front-wheel-drive Citation (which turned out not to be a huge step forward). The seller has a rusty hatchback from 1979 that comes with a limited story and less-than-helpful photos. Located in Appleton, Wisconsin, this “Chevy II” is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $4,000 OBO.
Nova production was down to less than 98,000 copies in 1979, but demand wasn’t the issue. Few, if any, Novas were built after the end of the 1978 calendar year. The most noticeable difference in the cars was that they now had rectangular headlights as opposed to round ones. And because it was the 1970s, people were worried about gas prices, so nearly 80% of the Novas sold in the Swan Song year had a 250 cubic inch inline-six. That’s said to be the case here in one of less than 5,000 hatchbacks sold.
Details are few with this Chevy, such as a statement of the number of miles traveled. A new exhaust has been installed, and that’s as far as the seller takes things. The right rear quarter panel looks to have been infected by the rust bug, and we don’t know how habitable the passenger compartment is. Given the few knowns, is this a project you would consider undertaking?
About a third of that hooptie is missing due to rust. Swan-song is appropriate for this turkey. When the first Citations (X-cars) came out, it wasn’t a step forward. It was a step upside down. Those things were subject to numerous recalls, due mainly to rushed development. Once the bugs were sorted in the mid 80s, they were then the Citation II, and then GM discontinued it.
In the days of the Citation I was with Buick. We had two parts bins with axle parts for the things. Between the axles and the ignition those cars were just about worthless.
As for the Nova, we had the Skylarks. In 1977 the V6 Skylarks would leave you sitting in the middle of the road after the engine would quit when you tried to pull out in traffic. Buick had a “carb fix” which didn’t fix squat. We did fix the problem by replacing the 77 card with a 78 carb. Buick didn’t like that but we proved to them it was the only way to fix that problem.
GM historically leaned on Oldsmobile as the “Experimental Division” to spare high-end Cadillac buyers from teething troubles. In this case they should’ve launched the FWD Olds Omega for a year alongside the RWD Nova to spare their reputation from millions of half-baked first year Citations, and got the accountants to accept that per unit profit just wouldn’t be as juicy until the new engineering was amortized, because on paper the car was a winner.
The X-body was a great design let down by rushed, careless engineering and indifferent assembly quality. I had a Citation X-11 back in the day. It had more room inside than my Dad’s Grand Prix, a bigger trunk (with the seat up), got better gas mileage, was quicker off the line, handled far better, and could easily tackle a snowy hill in Pittsburgh. However, the reliability issues were many. I forget how many voltage regulators it ate up.
When my Dad traded the Grand Prix for a 6000 STE, it was clear GM had learned a few things. Even though the A-body 6000 was heavily based on the X-body, to the extent that they shared a wheelbase, it was far better built and more reliable. As flawed as the initial cars were, the X-body chassis lived through 1996 under the Olds Ciera and Buick Century.
GM should have received a citation for rushing it to production when it wasn’t safe to do so. Lessons learned… hopefully.
They never learned.
Never liked the plopping in of square headlights back in the 70’s on cars designed with round headlights(i have round headlight bias!!) Especially on the colonades and the last gen of real Nova’s like this.That personal rant out of the way..dood thinks he has the Chevy Nova Mopar Edition,that’s about 3500 bucks too high an ask for this tentanus shot.
At least they’re singles and not stacked quads.
Anything that rusty shouldn’t be more than
$500
It’s a shame rust got this one. My wife had almost the same car years ago but with a 305. It was a great car she really loved. I have 4 or 5 of them again sitting out back hoping to hot rod one when I get a chance, and NO they are not rusting away, not here in Montana. If not for the rust, it would probably be a fair price from what I see people asking for cars these days.
“Song, sung blue, everybody knows one…”
GM should’ve kept the Nova instead of giving it the axe for the Citation.
The Nova was a much better car in every way over the Citation.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, from personal experience, that the Citation was actually a really good car.
We had an ’82 4 door with the 2.8 V6, auto, air, PS/PB, an an AM radio. And I don’t remember any issues with the car, until the very end, when it blew a head gasket. And IIRC, that was never the issue with the X cars. So I can only attribute that to bad luck.
I can tell you that for the era, it was reasonably quick, definitely roomy, and with the rear seat down, you could get a LOT in that rear area.
It was a car that was a little on the cheap side, but it wasn’t meant to compete with an Olds 88. It wasn’t a “near luxury” car. It was supposed to be reasonable transportation, and at least ours worked very well…
Citation was great packaging with poor execution. That they sold over 800k units in 1980 (albeit 1.5 model years) shows the former. That sales were 62k in the last year shows the latter, LOL! But people tend to forget that the very successful and long lived A-bodies (Century, Celebrity, Cierra, and 6000) were essentially elongated X-cars, so it really wasn’t a complete failure for GM, though it sullied GM’s reputation considerably.
The facelift ruined it.
I paid 80 bucks for a ’79 Omega that had less rust than this back in the early ’90s, LOL!