Years ago I drug my Yenko out to southern Indiana for the Nova Nationals and then stayed out there for a week so I could reunite the car with original owner, and then the second owner a day later. I asked the original owner a few questions:
- Given all of the choices in musclecars, why did you pick a Nova - and specifically a Yenko (or SS L78) Nova? (He like the understated body style, and the unusual color/stripes)
- How did you find out about this specific car, ie; what media outlet; newspaper, magazine, radio, etc.... (it was an ad in National Dragster)
- What was the first modification he did to the Yenko? (he said he bought an open element air cleaner at a speed shop on the way home from the dealership, and tossed the dual snorkel into a dumpster!)
- What did his parents think of the car? (they didn't much care, he lived in an area of lonely gravel roads and they didn't think he'd get into trouble with it)
- What did he do with all that performance, drag race and / or street race? (he ran a few guys on the street, did well once he put headers (still kept the resonators and cross flow muffler) and traction bars on it)
- To what extent was the selling still involved after the purchase, ie; was the sale a dump-n-run to get it off the lot or was the dealer following up to make sure the customer was happy? (he didn't remember, and since he lived 1-2 hours away from the dealer he didn't really plan to take it back there anyway)
- What was the reaction to the car when he took it places, like a drive-in movie theater? (I showed him a ticket stub from an Indiana drive-in that I found under the back seat, he chuckled in front of his 2nd wife and stated that it wasn't his!!)
- Muscle car guys typically hang together, what other guys/cars were in the area that created a sense of car community? (he pretty much stayed to himself in rural southern Indiana, just drove the car to work every day for 9-10 years racking up 96k miles and chipped the rockers bare on those gravel roads)
- What made him sell it?
- What was his police record with it?
- What was his best ET?
- How did the muscle car scene change after the gas crisis in the early '70's?
- What was his next car?
- What is his current car?
- Would he allow his kid to buy a modern muscle car, why/why not?
- What does he think about turn key modern muscle cars with 800HP?
I could go on, but I forget half the stuff I asked him - he was such a quiet guy that I needed to keep coming up with questions! His wife was sitting on the front lawn snapping beans....it was a bit surreal, the exact opposite of the meeting with the 2nd owner!
