When we first got our ’68 Nova, we took visual inventory of what needed to be done to get it presentable. Not perfect, mind you, just good enough for camera work. After all, a magazine project car can’t have bent bumpers and a snaggle tooth grille. At that point, we decided to crack open the Classic Industries catalog, and see what they offered. It turns out, they carry just about anything you could want for a ’68-72 Nova. Once we got started circling parts, we couldn’t stop. We figured we might as well get everything we needed all at once.
We decided to break up the refurbishing process in stages. Since the Nova will eventually get painted, we decided to hold off on most of the interior stuff until later. Our first objective would be to tackle the most glaring external cosmetic stuff. The previous owner had painted much of the trim black, and managed to ding most of it too. The biggest offenders were the bumpers, hood, the grille, headlight bezels and trim eyebrows, badges, and headlight adjusters.
Today, we got started installing all these cosmetics pieces, and got about halfway through. One interesting snafu was that we ordered a front bumper for a ’68—and got a front bumper for a ’68. Only the previous owner had swapped it for a ’71-72 bumper (with the big turn signal cutouts). We had it installed before we figured it out, so we ran over to Classic and got the necessary turn signal assemblies.
The retail store at Classic Industries in Huntington Beach, CA, is amazing. They have a great staff (thanks Ed!) that is intimately familiar with every year of Camaro, Firebird, and Nova. We were impressed—and they had what we needed in stock on short notice. That saved the day, because I had to drive that Nova home 60 miles in the dark tonight! We’ll have the full story for you in the July issue.
Source
Classic Industries
714-847-6887
www.classicindustries.com