AROC Magazine Article - Part 1

Post Reply
User avatar
Spacenut
Posts: 1205
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:43 pm
Location: Hampshire

AROC Magazine Article - Part 1

Post by Spacenut »

Hi everyone - some of you have expressed an interest in reading the article I submitted for publication in the AROC magazine earlier this year, and as I retain the original file, and am not aware of any copyright issues, I don't see why I can't reproduce it in its entirety here. So grab a bottle of your favourite Italian tipple, sit back, and prepare to be bored to tears :D

Image
At the Goodwood Lancia track day 2021

NOVA T33/1.5 - An Alfa at Heart

“You can’t come in here, that’s a kit car with a Volkswagen engine!”

This was the furious reaction of the gate marshal at Auto Italia in 2006. It was a fairly common reaction. After all, why would anyone want to re-clothe the mechanicals of an Alfa Romeo with the body of an old kit car? I mean, just look at it!

Here then is the story of a car that doesn’t look like an Alfa on the outside, but is an Alfa where it counts – at its heart.

An Unhealthy Obsession

It’s 1979, and I am poring over a newspaper spread instead of paying attention in class. It’s a Nova, recently re-launched after a 3 year hiatus and under new management. To a 14 year old, brought up on UFO and Space: 1999 and living through the dystopian reality of the late 1970s, the profile of the car was exquisite, the lifting canopy something of wonder. I could have forgiven it anything. Even having a VW Beetle floorpan and running gear…

So what was this amazing, exotic car I hear you ask? Designed in 1971 by Richard Oakes, financed by John Willment (owner of a successful Ford dealership and one half of international racing team JW Automotive) and manufactured by skilled fibreglass laminators at JW’s boatyard in Southampton, the Nova became one of the best known kit car “exotics” in the 1970s, and in subsequent decades would be endlessly imitated, with varying degrees of success, all over the world. Yet in spite of its incredible appearance, the Nova was designed to be bolted to nothing more exotic than a virtually unmodified VW Beetle floorpan, using identical principles to those used to build a beach buggy.

This made the Nova a car best suited to posing on the King’s Road, rather than as a serious performance machine, and following its official launch in 1972 it set about cementing this reputation by making a number of high profile appearances at the British Grand Prix (not on the track, obviously), Earls’ Court Motor Show (where Motor magazine described it as “the best looking car in the world”) and even the front cover of Road & Track in the US.

Anyway, back to the story. Time passed – I left school and learned to drive a car. A couple of unremarkable cheap runabouts got me started on the basic fundamentals of car ownership – fibreglass repair kits for the rust holes, a failed engine mount here, a blown head gasket there, followed by broken piston rings, a dropped valve and a couple of engine swaps. I studied electrical and electronic engineering and got a job in aerospace, which in the UK is not as sexy as it sounds. By 1990 I felt that I had amassed sufficient knowledge and funds to finally look for my dream drive, so the search for a Nova began, culminating a few months later in the purchase of the car you see here, at the time attached to a VW 1500 floorpan with a 1700cc “suitcase” engine out of a VW 411.

Image
My 1979 Nova, as purchased in 1990

The Dream Becomes a Reality – and is Shattered!

The car was a typical build from the time – circa 1979. The wiring was a rat’s nest, the instruments – including a non-functioning water temperature gauge (for an air-cooled engine!) and a Smiths digital clock – were set into a wooden dashboard covered in brown velour and dotted with circular burn marks where the driver had tried to replace the cigarette lighter – and missed. Headroom was non-existent, the hydraulics (taken from a Cadillac Eldorado convertible) could barely lift the canopy and would not hold it open and legroom in the drivers footwell was so constrained that only a tiny 12” diameter steering wheel could be used. But in spite of all these glaring faults, I was still besotted with those looks...

Unfortunately the car as purchased was pretty much undriveable, something I quickly proved by crashing it almost as soon as it was roadworthy. The combination of rear weight bias, not helped by the relocation of the fuel tank and seats, together with the antiquated and hopelessly flawed VW suspension meant the results were inevitable. I repaired the damage, and got the car back on the road, but suddenly the low mileage and 6 previous owners all made sense. I considered selling the car on, but what would replace it? In spite of its many faults, I couldn’t imagine wanting to drive anything else.

I therefore took the rash decision to redesign the car from the ground up, leaving only the original shape intact. Naturally such an exotic shape could not remain rear engined – the engine had to be within the wheelbase, like it’s inspiration, the Lamborghini Miura and the Ford GT40. I began to doodle designs on scraps of paper, but I lacked the knowledge and experience to tackle such an enormous challenge. I needed some help to make this new dream a reality.

To be continued...

Post Reply