3k: Low Mile Supernova: 1988 Chevrolet Nova
I know what you’re thinking. A 5th generation Chevy Nova. Really? That is the best you guys can find? Can’t you feature another Volvo or some modified BMW… Keep the pitchforks in the barn for a few minutes while we talk you through the logic on this one. Suppose you have a friend…we’ll call him Bob…and Bob tells you he has $3k to spend on a daily driver. Do you suggest a 250k mile used 1st generation Prius? Any of the scores of ragged/bagged/tagged Honda’s littering craigslist — NO! You tell him he is going to get a low mile sedan built in Silicon Valley filled with technology and that will save him massive amounts of money on fuel. Bob will say “you found me a $3k Tesla Model S?” “No Bob,” you tell him, “I’ve found you a 1988 Toyota sedan that had a little mistake in the spelling of on the badge.” Find this 1988 Chevrolet Nova for sale in Manteca, CA for $2,800.
Hey DT – you put the wrong pics in this ad…supposed to be a Toyota. A quick history lesson for you; in 1984 a manufacturing plant re-opened in Fremont, CA as a joint venture between Toyota and GM, called NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc). The NUMMI plant operated as a Toyota/GM plant from 1984 to 2010 and is now the site of Tesla’s assault on the definition of a luxury automobile (side note: we can’t wait to feature a used/depreciated Tesla in a few months time). The first car to be produced at the NUMMI plant was a 5th generation Chevy Nova, but the Nova was mostly a Japanese design with Chevy badges — a quick restyle of the AE82 Toyota Corolla/Sprinter.
This particular Chevy Nova is equipped with the Toyota 4A-C inline-4 that made 74 horsepower from 1.6 liters and has only been driven 29k miles since new. Like the child who never left home, this Nova is only about 1 hr away from its birthplace and has been driven just a bit over 3 miles per day by one owner since new. This is the ultimate little old lady driven appliance offered for cheap on craigslist and will probably fetch twice as much money with 50 good photos from a dealer on ebay in a few weeks time.
Toyota Chevy also built a twin-cam version of the Nova in the 1988 model year only powered by the same 4A-GE found in the Corolla FX-16 –only available with black exterior and red pinstripes–but we couldn’t find a version for sale…anywhere. Bottom line, if you want a nice, inexpensive, low mile Toyota sedan, buy a Chevy Nova. See a Nova Twin-Cam for sale? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com
If only it were a manual. I don't even want to image how slow this thing is with an automatic.
Back in highschool my friend had one of these in a manual. We beat the living piss out of it. 20mph reverse rolls into a 1st gear clutch drop, traysliding and ran the bases at a local high school. Those were the days.
Anon, those activities should be a mandatory part of high school for every kid. Not in the curriculum, more as a rite of passage. If you didn't goof around with cars like that in high school you missed out on some of the most unadulterated joy punctuated with the slight fear of getting caught. And you learned car control as a bonus.
The harsh truth is that manual transmissions are for morons, and if you MUST put one in a vehicle, then I would suggest that you use a similar system that the new Cadillac CT5V Blackwing (which, by the way, is a very good muscle/luxury car that is, dare I say it, BETTER than the old CTS-V) has installed in their vehicles, as well as its relatives in the CT4V Blackwing and the CT6V Blackwing. Basically, what Cadillac made in their new manual transmission powered vehicles (which also has an even more crazy powerful 10 speed automatic version, though the manual version is no slouch, either) is that they combined a traditional manual system with, of all things, a video game concept known as a Quick Time Events System, and they essentially made a very simple solution to fixing the biggest issue regarding manual transmission vehicles, namely, being unable to properly time the shifting between gears of the manual transmission, which will wreck many a manual transmission and manual gear box under the old style version of a manual transmission powered vehicle. Now the concept of the Quick Time Events System is that there are certain cued responses that a person has to input a certain command, which can range from a simple button press to button mashing, to wiggling around a joystick/thumb stick a certain way. The way that Cadillac chose to do it in their vehicles is that the gauge display windows indicate not only when to shift into the next gear, but that they also show the driver the exact path that they need to go on the manual transmission gear shifter, and it works flawlessly, without lag, sluggishness, or any flaws on its part. (I think that this option is also available on the C8 Corvette as well, and that a similar system also was possibly on the C7 Corvette.) Honestly, it might seem to be a cheap, trendy, and gimmicky system to old-school manual transmission elitists, but, in reality, it is the system that the manual transmission has needed for years and it is a truly genius, as well as, no pun intended, game changing, idea.
Good luck finding a depreciated Tesla Model S… Every used one I've seen (granted my search has been far from exhaustive) on the 2nd hand market has inexplicably been at or even above new retail. A 2 (model) year old Model S 85 with 10,000+ miles on it goes for around $89,000. A brand new 2014 Model S with the same options is $91,000 before EV credit.
The roadster is where it's at depreciation-wise. 4 year old Tesla Roadster 2.0? $80k+ 6 year old Roadster 1.5: $73k (both were over $100k new).
There are two spelling errors. The writeup says "Silicon Valley." That would technically be Fremont, which could be spelled O-A-K-L-A-N-D.
My mom had the Corolla version with the 5-speed – pretty much the same car under the skin. Despite a pretty good long-term effort on my part to abuse it, it just wouldn't die. The 5-speed certainly amplified the fun factor, but that's like saying it was a much more exciting shade of beige. (Actually, it was a much more exciting shade of beige – Toyota called it "champagne.") So, not unexpectedly, the autotragic in this example won't bring a smile to anyone's face unless they're calculating the number of efficient and trouble-free miles they'll get for their sub-$3K investment. I suspect, the car will last much longer than the buyer's desire to own it.
@Larry – Re: "The car will last much longer than the buyer's desire to own it." That's some wisdom right there. Recalls my favorite Jorge Luis Borges epigram: The body lasts as long as the mind needs it to.