1974 Nova 9C1 COPO Brass Hat Police Car

[9C1Beater]

Jon, I knew I had seen your '67 Z before. I read about it recently in a muscle car magazine (MCR?) that it was the first '67 Z28 built, and that you basically found it by sheer luck. I'll have to dig through my stack of muscle car mags and find the article.

Just like you, I found my Nova through luck/fate, and like yours it is a very historic car. Unfortunately, it is a 4-door and gets hardly a second glance at shows. I believe it is probably the best documented Chevy police car in existence, and possibly the most historic. The 4th Gen Nova police cars are generally considered to be one of the 10 greatest police cars of all time, and this is the only 3rd Gen known to exist. Should I restore the beat-up body with its mismatched paint, or just drive/enjoy it like it is? A good paint job will probably run at least $7,500-$10k, and I'm not sure I would enjoy it any more. It has great patina, and I don't really care about accolades for it.

Is it best to leave it alone? I would appreciate your opinion.

[1967Z28]

I don't think I would go hog wild trying to restore it. There is some value in having it in kind of an untouched state. With that said, I do really like the dog dish hub caps and the Polyglas tires that you've put back on it. Have you had somebody attempt to buff it to bring more life to the paint? It might be nice to have the hood paint more closely match the rest of it but you'd have to know a pretty talented painter to get it to match the rest of the patina. It would not seem to make sense from an investment standpoint to pour a lot of money into the car. If you did a show-worthy restoration it would have to be because you felt a personal calling to do so. That's how I see it.

[9C1Beater]

Jon, thanks for the advice...much appreciated. The car obviously had the hood repainted (and poorly) at some point during its time with the LASD, and it's the biggest drawback to its appearance. I have the money for a paint job, but I think it wouldn't generate much more interest (and it might actually generate less...it's a flip of a coin).

The engine is badly in need of a rebuild as it smokes for 10 minutes upon startup, then most of the smoke goes away except under full throttle applications (it still easily turns the tires over, but I don't want to damage the engine, so those are few and far between). The compression runs from 110-85, and I know the rings are shot. The car was built with an L48 (shown on the build sheet), but somewhere along the way it picked up the Z28 heads, a lumpier cam that sounds just like an L82's, and the beefy harmonic balancer. Harry said that Rick Mahoney was well known among the Chevy higher-ups for doing mods to the Zone Office cars, and thinks he had a buddy (service manager Bill Johnson) at Arrow Chevrolet (the LA dealership that Rick liked to have his cars delivered to...this car was delivered there), do some mods to the car to make it quicker...adding Z28 engine parts would've accomplished that task. California was very sticky about changes to engines due to its strict air quality standards (even back then), and installing a Z28 engine at the factory would not have been allowed (that engine was not certified for use in a Nova, and it would've been cost-prohibitive for GM to do so). The '70 Z28's LT1 was installed in Novas to create the Yenko Nova through the COPO ordering process, but that was no longer allowed by 1974. I think Rick found a way around it by having the parts installed at a Chevy dealership and then keeping quiet about it. His number one goal was to get the LASD (and other Socal law enforcement agencies) to buy Nova cop cars instead of the Dodge Coronets, Plymouth Satellites, and AMC Matadors they were used to buying (all powered by 400-401 cubic-inch engines...4-door muscle cars), and knew he needed something that would generate some thrills with the cops going on demonstration drives...what better way to do that than with a high-rpm Z engine?

It's a shame that the car doesn't generate more interest, but it's really just emerging from its 31 year slumber, and I have only had it to a couple of shows. Phil Borris at the SCW tent at Carlisle said it would probably be welcomed at the MCACN, and I will try to get it to Chicago for the 2019 show next Nov. Most Nova people don't really understand the historical significance of the car and only make comments about the seemingly incorrect parts on it (like its air cleaner), not realizing that it's a COPO and that's why its odd parts are there. It has received very few comments on here, probably due to its 4-doors (just a guess).

Best regards,
Alex Manz

[YenkoYS-199Stinger]

That is such a cool car and an awesome find. Congrats!!

[big gear head]

You are not too far from KY. Get the engine rebuilt and bring it to Bowling Green KY. for the Super Car Reunion in July and have some fun with it. There will be people there who will appreciate it for what it is.

[Canuck]

Alex
welcome aboard here. I have followed your progress on StevesNovaSite. This is the best form for all things Muscle cars 9C1 Novas included. It would stand out at MCACN.
Paul (canuck78 at SNS)
Owner 1978 9C1

[Burd]

Cool story. Wait, I know you. Lol

[L78racer]

Originally Posted by 1967Z28

I do really like the dog dish hub caps and the Polyglas tires

didn't all '74 Chevies come with radial tires? i worked at a Chevy dealer through most of the 70's and i remember radials on all the '74 and later models.

[9C1Beater]

Hey Paul and Burd...good to see you on here. Bruce Hamilton sent me a copy of "Bone Stock and Modified" (an AWESOME Canadian magazine that I wish I could find here in the States) which had an article about your Bullitt '68 440 RT Charger...an incredible car! And Burd...it's always good to hear from you, even though you didn't call me back a few days ago as you said you would....shame!

In answer to the comment about radial tires on '74s...that's an interesting one, and I can answer it. My good friend Harry Hammond from the Nova 9C1 program and builder of the '74 Nova police car prototype, said that he wanted to put radials on that car, but there was an incident that halted that...the death of an Alabama Highway Trooper in late '73 (I don't know the exact date of the accident) that happened when one of the Firestone 500 steel-belted radials on his patrol car suffered a belt separation at a speed around 120 mph, which caused the car to crash into a steel bridge and killed him instantly. GM immediately put a halt to installing Firestone 500s on their cars for several months (I believe Harry said it was sometime around Jan or Feb '74), and Firestone issued a nationwide recall of the tires. The fallout from the trooper's death affected the sales of other Firestone tires, and GM put mostly Goodyear, Uniroyal, and General tires on the remaining '74s. My car came with Goodyear Polyglas E70-14 raised white letter tires (the build sheet shows option "QEB E70-14 LT" for lettered tires...see above photo near the start of this thread). Harry said the bias-ply tires didn't handle as well as the new radials, but he knew they could handle punishing abuse which causes heat (heat was the cause of the Firestone 500 steel belts separating). Firestone put a rush on developing the 125 Kevlar-belted radials, which were ready for installation on the 4th Gen Nova 9C1 police cars in the fall of 1975. The Kevlar-belted tires had no heat-related belt issues.

My car looks a little odd with the RWL tires, but it still has its original spare which matches the repop tires now on the car. It is probably the only '74 4-door Nova in existence which came originally with those tires.

And Big Gear Head, I think I just might drive down to Bowling Green for that show. My Nova isn't really worth a whole lot of money (it isn't a Yenko COPO), and I don't intend to throw a lot of money at it, so it would be fun to see what it could do on the strip.

[9C1Beater]

And for those of you who don't know this, Burd started a website called "UnitedFBody.com", which is an excellent site full of inappropriate jokes, innuendos, and a little bit of actual car-related stuff. He was originally going to call it the Firebirds United with Camaros Club, but realized that its abbreviation was somewhat questionable.