Considering selling up.....

[craig green]

It just goes to show that speccing or building a car for the track but making it too showey (sp) only means its suitable uses or days when you might want to use it will be limited.

For me I get nearly as much fulfilment from building & fettling the car as I do from driving it. Much of the experience is ownership not just driving it.

Seeing as you work in the bodyshop trade I would say you are in as good a position as anyone to keep the car in tip-top shape should you ever feel the need to spruce it up after a couple years of spirited road use etc. Why not keep it & make it a more practical car to use, ditch the carbs for SFI injection & lose the bucket seats for some more comfortable std Nova recliners & make the car a better place to spend some time rather than it feeling like you are in a single seater race car that isnt particularly inviting.

I hope you come to the right decision Nick.

[RJM25R]

Different circumstances, but essentially the reasoning I had about selling VHD. I miss it in some ways, but IMHO a car should be driven more than 400 miles a year!

My advice is to do one of 2 things:

Sell it and buy an E36 M3/Scoob/Evo/Civic TypeR/other performance car for 4-6grand and use it as your main car whenever you want and worry not (and no second car required to insure/mot/tax) and you could still paint it up to a high standard. The double-whammy is that someone else can enjoy the Nova then.

OR

Use the Nova more. . . . And accept that it's gonna need work in the future.

At the end of the day, the Nova is NOT the money pit to you (as a bodywork specialist) that it is to others, but as you get older (I'm 35) you realise that you don't have the time anymore to do everything you want! Especially with a house and a missus and (Hopefully) children later on!

[Ash]

uummm... get off the forum and go for a drive

That will put your head straight

[Geordie-Chris]

uummm... get off the forum and go for a drive

That will put your head straight

For an hour or so - then you'll start feeling the same!! I've been going thru the exact same thing as Nick, changed my interior to try and keep me interested again, took it for a mad blast along some awesome counrty roads at the weekend and loved it, but I'd still be happy to sell it!! Aaaaggghhh, bloody Novas, take your time mate and see what happens!!

[Graeme]

Don't sell it Nick, just start using it more and re-finish it before the show season, its one of my favorite novas of all time and I would hate to see it fall into the wrong hands and either deterioration or be stripped for parts

[Nick J]

Wow! One hell of a response..... Thanks for the comments guys I appreciate it the suggestions and It gives me plenty to think about etc. I have a few things going on with the car at the moment/parts already paid for so Im going to finish what Ive started and then see how I feel but It wont be a decision I will be making in a hurry I will say that. thanks again, Nick.

[Benn]

If you start driving it more you'll love it more and wanna use it all the time.
And if you chip it who cares, do like i do and repaint it.

[Rick Draper]

Dude, your coming round to my way of thinking now!! Only I hit this slump a month or two ago, after Billing really!! I'm really in two minds about selling mine, but like yours I feel its too 'pretty' to destroy round tracks for the rest of its life, and am very close to selling it and getting a cheaper, more abusable car for my fun. Me and Shell have had our house for over a year now, and there's still loads of things that keeps me from being able to use my car, and the 6 months its not used over winter is a total waste. The way I see it I'll probably sell mine and use the 6 months or so to build something new, I get bored looking at it and not actually doing things to it! There is a point when you've got to stop throwing money at it, and I think your realising, like me, you've reached it!!

Its a sad time, but you may be right!!

Which is exactly where i was at. I cannot thrash my nova round a track, i have 2 much respect and time in it to do that. Bought a cheap corsa b shell and i am gonna make a track car out of it, no bodyshops for this shell.

[Dec16v]

Keep hold of it mate, when I sold my old red one I soon realised it was a mistake. A few years later I ended up buying another Nova anyway, and with decent Nova shells being so thin on the ground, you may not get another chance!!!!

Yours is one of my all time favs, it's sad to see the classics disappearing from the show scene...

Dec

[garethcolley]

I would be thinking the same thing really, i would love my car to be as clean as yours but then i simply wouldnt want to blemish it. I would clean it and keep it in a heated garage all its life. I was planning on going down that route but ive made myself realise my car needs to be driven (when its running again). Im about to get a full re spray on mine but im still planning on driving hard. Ive been having more problems with my engine when i drive it like a girl, when i thrash the LET it seems to enjoy it....keep the car but maybe overcome the fear of damaging it, they were built to drive.