Thursday, May 24, 2007

The Nova Runs...Sort Of


Ever since I have known Clif, he has wanted to purchase a Chevy Nova to restore. His first car was a 1975 Nova. I think it was brown or orange. It was his baby. He put in a new engine and it got him through college.

For years he has talked about finding another Nova. He went so far as to get out of the car one day to look at one for sale on the side of the road and declare that is smelled like his old Nova. Huh? "It's a guy thing", he said.

He finally found his Nova parked at a shop where he gets his car serviced. It belonged to Charles who rents part of the shop for detail work. After a couple of years lusting over this hunk of metal cool muscle car, Charles called and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. During a moment of pregnancy weakness, I caved and said, "If it's really what you want...."

Since that day it has been sitting at a shop about 10 miles away. His cousin Tom, who works at a Chevy dealer, is going to restore it for him. Tom's former boss let us park the car at his shop. Tom is ready to start working on the car and got it running last weekend. He asked that Clif transport it up to his house (25 miles away).

Clif decided that it was best to bring it home today and then take it up to his cousin's this weekend. Tom said that he needed to meet us there to show Clif how to start it without flooding it (he he). Oh, and "make sure you don't turn it off before you get home....'cause when the engine gets hot it won't start." Did I mention the phrase money pit?

I took him over at lunch time and followed him home. You should have seen him. He looked like a kid in his first car. He definitely re-lived the moment. The car ran like a champ all of the way home.

Fast forward a few hours....

Clif decided that he needed to wash it! Look at the picture again. Seriously? As he was washing it he noticed that we now have a huge oil spot in the driveway.

As we put Austin to bed, Clif told him to watch out the window because Daddy was going to test out the Nova in the neighborhood. We opened the window and watched and listened as the Nova wouldn't even start.

If you literally translate "no va" in Spanish, it means "no go". Hmm.

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No swimming update because the swim teacher had to go out of town due to a family illness. We won't go back until next Wednesday.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

cool car shame it wont work :(