Nova sport b99 lcd where are you now?!

[B99LCD]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum and as a retired Vauxhall guy, I am pleased that there is still so much enthusiasm for the Nova - if only the press had been as supportive at the time, usually making highly unfair comparisons with the Fiesta.

I had four new Novas in the 1980's but the best by far was the Sport and while I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, I would love to know if it has survived.

I have check the DVLA enquiry site and it was last recorded, in 1997 so it has not been declared scrap or written off, which is a start. A Vauxhall enthusiast recently told me he thought that it was in Northern Ireland which might mean that it has lost its UK number. I haven't a record of its VIN, so that might be a dead end if that's the case.

I believe I may have been one of the first to take delivery of a new Sports. I ordered it as soon as we were allowed and I remember that it was very late in coming. I was a Sales Manager at Evans Halshaw, Newhaven at the time so it was easy for me to track the progress during production and shipping. I think it arrived at Portbury Docks in Bristol, where the Novas arrived from Spain, in early February of 1985 and it should have been delivered within a couple of weeks. In the event, it took until April.

Of course, I knew that the Sport Pack was going to be added in the UK and after threatening to cancel, eventually I was told that it was the decals were delayed. As I wanted a 'Q' car anyway and was going to take them off, I asked them to deliver it without them. I have since read that there were delays with another key component but after much pressure was put upon the Vauxhall Area Manager, he reluctantly agreed to deliver mine (minus decals and hubcaps) in April.

I painted the rear silencer silver and thoroughly enjoyed the look of a Nova 1.0 and the performance of an Astra GTE, annoying all and sundry who tried to take it on. I thought it was the best handling Vauxhall ever and have regretted selling it a year later ever since. It was sold by our Horsham branch and I gave the decals and caps that had eventually arrived to the new owner to put on if he wished. I don't know where he lived and I guess the car has changed hands many times since....

Sorry to ramble on but if anyone knows the car today, I would appreciate knowing and if it were for sale, even better!

Thanks for reading,

John
.

[Novasport]

Hi John. According to the Nova Sport register, a member on here owns it. It is showing the owner as Novasport1985.

[B99LCD]

Hi John. According to the Nova Sport register, a member on here owns it. It is showing the owner as Novasport1985.

Thanks for the very quick response, it is good to know it hasn't suffered the fate of so many others. I have a picture or two of it from 1985 - I wish I'd taken more - a brochure and a few bits of paperwork if the owner is interested.

Best,

John

[A11VXL]

Fantastic bit of history there, I'm sure the current owner will be delighted to see this, I know I was when I made contact with the original owner of my Sport some years ago.

[EwanG]

Thanks for the very quick response, it is good to know it hasn't suffered the fate of so many others. I have a picture or two of it from 1985 - I wish I'd taken more - a brochure and a few bits of paperwork if the owner is interested.

Best,

John

Get some pics up!

[B99LCD]

I'll dig them out. It might take a day or so while I raid the cupboards!

[VALLEY]

What a refreshing post with a great bit of history to match, bet your pleased its still out there :thumb:

[tahir868]

Welcome to the site John, good to see you over here and as I said on the phone, there was sure to be someone who knew something about your old Sport :thumb:

[B99LCD]

Welcome to the site John, good to see you over here and as I said on the phone, there was sure to be someone who knew something about your old Sport :thumb:

Thanks Tahir, I really thought it had gone to the great Vauxhall scrappy in the sky. I am sure I did an HPI check about 10 years ago and saw some bad news but obviously not! Having sold new cars for over thirty years, it was always galling to think that 99 per cent of them would disappear before they were fifteen years old. That's why it is so easy to appreciate classic cars - they keeps at least some of the spirit of the age alive.

I was lucky enough to win a trip to the new Nova/Corsa plant in 1984 and it made me want to go out and buy one, they were so well made compared to Metros, Fiestas and 205's. I was always an avid Cooper 'S' fan and for me the Sport was the true successor - a nimble giant killer with competition credentials and the added bonus of reliability.

Cheers,

John

[B99LCD]

What a refreshing post with a great bit of history to match, bet your pleased its still out there :thumb:

Hi, yes I most certainly am. I often have occasion to remember it and always fondly. The handling, performance and sound were all great. At work, we drove Monza's, Manta's, GTE's but the Sport was the most fun. The only down side was other cars would pull out too closely in front of you, underestimating your speed......... it just didn't look quick or aggressive enough in their rear view mirrors!

I remember driving the Nova GTE at the launch and being so disappointed at the muted responses in comparison. A good everyday car and probably better now than remembered but sadly lacking in a memorable sporting character.

Great forum and thanks for the welcome!

[leefowler]

Hi John

Good news about the car I always enjoyed working on it and then the road test afterwards. Sorry I never got back in touch I lost your details.

Lee

[B99LCD]

Hi John

Good news about the car I always enjoyed working on it and then the road test afterwards. Sorry I never got back in touch I lost your details.

Lee
Hi Lee,

Good to hear from you again. They were good days and there weren't many techs in the dealership one wanted to trust with the twin 40's! I remember our Detroit Diesel TM breakdown wagon, minus governor almost as fondly. You could hear it coming from about two miles away.

What are you up to now?

Cheers,

John

[leefowler]

I remember when the boys in the truck shop managed to get the engine running backwards!! What a beast, turbo charged and supercharged. I currently run an IT Recycling company, bit of a change.

Lee

[sport]

Im sure there was a rebuild thread for this sport on another forum but that sites currently down.

[A11VXL]

Would be great to see some old pictures of it, great reg number too, I can remember back to my dealership days when you could pick your number of a sheet issued to the dealer by the local DVLA office, funny how the good numbers always ended up on the demo's.

Oh and welcome to the site too..

[B99LCD]

I'm surprised they were allowed to get away with it. One night shift, they were called out by the police to follow them at high speed to an incident on the M23, with the instruction to flash them when they were going too fast. The cops went faster and faster and of course, never got flashed! They just couldn't believe that monster, which was about as aerodynamic as a billboard, could easily exceed three figures and keep up with their Volvo 760 Turbo, barely a car length behind! Scary stuff.

Hope your business is doing well - sounds like a good bet for the future. Bet you miss the cars though.....

[B99LCD]

Thanks, good info. I'll keep googling and see what comes up.

[B99LCD]

Thanks. If only we realised that they were the good old days at the time! Having a good number always made your demo easier to sell. It must seem weird and extravagant to those not in the trade but when your demo hit about 3,000 miles, it just didn't seem new anymore and the pressure to sell it and get another one was quite intense! And it always used to amaze me how precious some sales people were about their demos too. Worse than if they had actually bought them!

[Novasport]

Right, I have some good news. I thought I had seen the car somewhere before.
It is alive and well and part way through being restored :). I am just trying to get the owners details from a friend, I will PM you his details later when I get them.
It is not too far from you either, it is in the London area.

[Novasport]

Thanks. If only we realised that they were the good old days at the time! Having a good number always made your demo easier to sell. It must seem weird and extravagant to those not in the trade but when your demo hit about 3,000 miles, it just didn't seem new anymore and the pressure to sell it and get another one was quite intense! And it always used to amaze me how precious some sales people were about their demos too. Worse than if they had actually bought them!


I have a new demo every few months or few thousand miles. There was only a couple I did not want to give back and both were BMW's.
One was a 320Cd M-Sport coupe with full leather and all the toys. The other was a 123d M-Sport, 200bhp twin turbo diesel with sooo much torque. It was an animal :)

[Novasport]

PM sent with current owners details:thumb:, its like Friend reunited for Sports lol

[NovaSport1985]

Hi John,

It was a bit of a surprise to get a message yesterday telling me about this thread. I do have your old car and whilst it is not in one piece, it will be completed and put back on the road when time permits.

From when they were launched (I remember reading a short article in Hot Car magazine) I always wanted a Sport but other cars always got in the way. My enthusiasm must have influenced one of my friends to buy one in the early 90's and I remember spending many evenings maintaining and improving his car.

Eventually, he had to sell it but once it was gone he always wanted another. One day he called me and asked me to come and look over another Sport he had seen on a car dealer's site just off the North Circular in Highams Park. I went to see the car, and whilst it was a bit scabby (usual places, doors, arches etc) it was basically ok. It was minus it's stripes but had some paperwork with it. My friend thought about it for too long, and the car disappeared. A couple of months later, I spotted the car in a dealer round the corner from me and went to have another look at it. It had been traded between dealers but now would not start.

I ended up buying the car, fitted a new set of plugs on the dealers forecourt and drove it home. It was fairly original, and had all the sport parts present except for the back box. It had Nova SR mirrors and had dealer fit rear speakers with a Phillips radio casette. There were no wheel covers, but it did have centre caps covering the wheel bolts. I repaired the doors and arches and cleaned up the sills and painted both sides of the car.

For a number of reasons, the car was taken off the road in Jan 1997 and was in storage until 2008 when I decided to try to restore in time for Billing that year. I made good progress, but due to family problems I did not get it finished in time. A little bit demotivated, I have not touched it since!

As it stands, the car has had new sills, one quarter, one arch repair (although I would be tempted to fit a driver's quarter if I could get one) and is in primer. I have loads of new genuine parts (shocks, bumpers, gutter trims, front valence trim, lights etc) and the interior is near perfect.

The car has 4 former keepers and is registered as a Nova SR (not a Base model as most are)

Here is a picture at Santa Pod (probably 1996 or maybe 1995 - I can't remember what show it was)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/IMAG3061.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/IMAG3061.jpg.html)

And here is some of the paperwork that came with the car. I could never understand how this came to be with the car as it looked like it was issued to Vauxhall Dealers only, but as it is has an Evans Halshaw Newhaven stamp on it I assume it was yours!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/IMAG3060.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/IMAG3060.jpg.html)

Maybe this is the motivation to start looking at the car again!!!

Tony

[NovaSport1985]

This the car as it was in 2008 (with the front valence removed.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Nova%20Sport%20Restoration/Picture438.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Nova%20Sport%20Restoration/Picture438.jpg.html)

Rusty sills

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture449.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture449.jpg.html)

With new sills

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture557.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture557.jpg.html)

Other side with quarter and sill removed

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture677-1.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture677-1.jpg.html)

Rear quarter join

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture743.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture743.jpg.html)

Waiting for primer

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture731.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture731.jpg.html)

Primed!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture745.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture745.jpg.html)

I used genuine Vauxhall sills removed from another car (most people think I am mad) and joined them at the bottom of the a post

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture541.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture541.jpg.html)

My intention is for it to be standard apart from Astra GTE 16v front brakes, and probably these wheels

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/Picture667.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/Picture667.jpg.html)

Not sure if I should have posted all of these photos here, but I hope they are of interest.

Does anybody think I should re create the restoration thread on here???

Tony

[bazzap8389]

Get a build thread up in the projects section mate :thumb:

[dgbnova#1]

Looks great get stuck in mate its a shame it sitting there collecting dust, I'm sure there is few other drivers quarter pannels around I've got one spair here if you need would be going to a good home there I think.

[tahir868]

That's fantastic to see that it's still around and being restored. I'm sure John will be ecstatic to see it again.

[_Jake]

Smart job on the repairs!!

[B99LCD]

Hi John,

It was a bit of a surprise to get a message yesterday telling me about this thread. I do have your old car and whilst it is not in one piece, it will be completed and put back on the road when time permits.

From when they were launched (I remember reading a short article in Hot Car magazine) I always wanted a Sport but other cars always got in the way. My enthusiasm must have influenced one of my friends to buy one in the early 90's and I remember spending many evenings maintaining and improving his car.

Eventually, he had to sell it but once it was gone he always wanted another. One day he called me and asked me to come and look over another Sport he had seen on a car dealer's site just off the North Circular in Highams Park. I went to see the car, and whilst it was a bit scabby (usual places, doors, arches etc) it was basically ok. It was minus it's stripes but had some paperwork with it. My friend thought about it for too long, and the car disappeared. A couple of months later, I spotted the car in a dealer round the corner from me and went to have another look at it. It had been traded between dealers but now would not start.

I ended up buying the car, fitted a new set of plugs on the dealers forecourt and drove it home. It was fairly original, and had all the sport parts present except for the back box. It had Nova SR mirrors and had dealer fit rear speakers with a Phillips radio casette. There were no wheel covers, but it did have centre caps covering the wheel bolts. I repaired the doors and arches and cleaned up the sills and painted both sides of the car.

For a number of reasons, the car was taken off the road in Jan 1997 and was in storage until 2008 when I decided to try to restore in time for Billing that year. I made good progress, but due to family problems I did not get it finished in time. A little bit demotivated, I have not touched it since!

As it stands, the car has had new sills, one quarter, one arch repair (although I would be tempted to fit a driver's quarter if I could get one) and is in primer. I have loads of new genuine parts (shocks, bumpers, gutter trims, front valence trim, lights etc) and the interior is near perfect.

The car has 4 former keepers and is registered as a Nova SR (not a Base model as most are)

Here is a picture at Santa Pod (probably 1996 or maybe 1995 - I can't remember what show it was)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/IMAG3061.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/IMAG3061.jpg.html)

And here is some of the paperwork that came with the car. I could never understand how this came to be with the car as it looked like it was issued to Vauxhall Dealers only, but as it is has an Evans Halshaw Newhaven stamp on it I assume it was yours!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/NovaSport1985/IMAG3060.jpg (http://s286.photobucket.com/user/NovaSport1985/media/IMAG3060.jpg.html)

Maybe this is the motivation to start looking at the car again!!!

Tony

Hi Tony,

Many thanks for making contact and I can't tell you how pleased I am that B99 has survived. I have restored many cars and I know all about motivation, setbacks and obstacles, but obviously you have made really good progress and should be proud of how far you have got. It certainly brings back many memories and I do remember saving all the Vauxhall paperwork in a file and passing them on to the new owner. How rewarding that all the owners kept it together and from experience, I know that very rarely happens. I usually keep cars for many years and if circumstances had have been different, I would certainly have kept the Sport indefinitely.

Did it ever get used for competition? There is a lot less rallying in the South and I suppose that as long as the car remained here there was a much better chance of survival as a road car and not being re-shelled. I found a couple of (not very good) pictures a few years ago but I have not yet had a chance to dig them out. They are not where they were and I must have put them in a proverbial 'safe place'. I will locate them and post them here as soon as I can.

I am surprised that the unused decals I passed on didn't get applied, nor the hubcaps, so it looks like it remained as when I had it for all its early life. I seem to recall that unusually, it was recorded as a Nova SR on the original V55 but when we took a Sport in part exchange the following year, we lost a sale because the prospective owner didn't want one which was listed as a Nova Base! It soon sold to someone else but you can't please everybody!

I have now been passed your phone number and look forward to having a chat, if that's ok.

Thanks again for taking care and doing such a splendid job so far - I'm off to search for those pictures now....

Best,

John

[B99LCD]

http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/uefog2scp0dspp4f1jxv_B99-LCD-a.jpg

http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/qf3cgop7orskh75a1qw_B99-LCD-b.jpg

Well, I did say that they weren't the greatest pictures! Obviously the car is not the main focus here but it's B99LCD taken in 1985 when it was about 6 months old, looking at the age of my daughter. I know I have another couple of images I still haven't found yet, one taken in an underground car park, so not clever, and another one so close you can see the tax disc. I usually take loads of decent pictures of my cars but I guess I bought the Sport for the driving experience and not the aesthetics, lovely though they are!

While looking for the above, I also found the images I took of the production line at Zaragoza, not long after it opened, all shiny floors and yellow robots - very different to the Luton plant which seemed to have changed little since the 1930's. If anyone is interested, I can post them. There are one or two pics of Nova shells moving down the line in various states of assembly and coming out of the paintshop etc.- all in living Kodacolor. More cars and definitely less babies ;)

[Novasport]

The Zaragoza plant pics sound interesting, get them posted on here.