Back in the early 70s I had a '69 Nova SS396, L78 375hp, M21 4 speed Muncie, and I loved that car. But after getting married and with a baby on the way, I had to get something a little more economical, so I sold it and bought a '69 Chevelle Malibu with a 350 and an automatic transmission.
I have always wanted another Nova, so a few years ago I found a '70 Nova SS nearly identical except for the 350 - 300hp engine, even the same color, but with a vinyl top.
I drove it for three years and decided to address some rust issues in the rear quarters and floorboards.
Well.....it ended up a full restoration project and ended up replacing the entire floor, firewall, toe boards, both rear quarters, tail light panel, and the filler panel between the truck lid and the rear window. A couple of other places had some rust issues too, but those were able to be repaired be cutting out some small areas and replacing them with some new metal.
I'm not a body man, so I had a well recommended metal man do all the work. I made the fatal comment, that it wasn't a big rush, since I had a lot of work to do on the engine, transmission, seats and other items. So, three years later I finally got it back. It was worth the wait though, his work was excellent and it looks great.
I hope to get the body painted and start reassembling it this spring, but we'll see how it goes.
So here are a couple pictures of my old '69 and the '70.
