1974 Nova 9C1 COPO Brass Hat Police Car

[Igosplut]

I know I have them, but I just have to look. When the local Chevy dealer building was sold here (it closed in 1982) I got to go through what was left. One thing I found in a filing cabinet was trade in pictures of my towns police cars, which two were Novas. I remember the cops at the time all fought over who was going to drive them because they all raved about them...

[9C1Beater]

Igo...I would like to see the photos of the 9C1 Novas. I have posted a ton of stuff about them over on Steves Nova Site (SNS) in the Registry I created for them.

I bought a '77 Nova 9C1 for $400 five years ago after spotting it on CL-Phoenix, and flew out from Columbus 3 days later to buy it from a young Hispanic guy who had been given the car by an older guy he did landscaping for. Its beat-up condition is how I got my nickname "9C1 Beater". I found the build sheet for it above the gas tank and posted a lot of info on that car (and many other real 9C1 Novas). There was very little info on Nova 9C1s on the Internet prior to the Registry, and much of it was flat-out wrong. Plus, no one really knew how many were left, so I decided the best way to figure that out was listing every single one known to exist. I found Harry Hammond in Fenton, MI through an Internet search and got a lot of info from him...a great guy. There are now 21 4th Gen 9C1 Novas, and one 3rd Gen in the Registry...it is the best resource on the Internet for info on these rare and special cars. They are considered by most police car aficionados to be the greatest Chevy police car ever built.

It was because of the Registry that Woody Smith's daughter Nancy notified me about the existence of her dad's gold '74 Nova police car. It is the earliest Nova police car known to exist...the only 3rd Gen survivor out of 17 built. I plan to list all of its special engine and suspension parts in here. It seems to generate more interest on here than on SNS.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by L78 racer

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.

Originally Posted by 9C1Beater

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 '74 Chevelle has the police package, and came with HR70-15 Goodyear "Blue Dot" pursuit tires (RPO QQZ) mounted on 8" wide Corvette rally wheels. They had a thin white stripe sidewall.

K

[9C1Beater]

Keith...that sounds like an awesome car! Any Chevy cop car from 1974 is rare. Most were Belaires, and I think I've only seen one photo of a Chevelle cop car. You can hijack this thread and post pics and info on here. What engine and options does it have, where was it used, and what condition is it in? Does it still have its original Blue Dot spare? Those tires would be impossible to find now, I'm sure.

Harry Hammond said that he and Jim Ingle were under the gun time-wise to build the Nova police car prototype. They were given the job around the middle of Jan '74, and the LASD wanted any cars that were going to enter the '74 police car tests to be ready by the end of Feb (I don't know why that was a stipulation, but it was). The ban on radial tires for police use was a hit on the car's performance, but not a big one, as it still was able to generate .8 Gs on the skid pad at the GM Proving Grounds. After the Feb deadline passed, they had another 2 months to play around with the suspension and dial it in as best they could. The photo from the beginning of this post shows the Prototype at the skid pad at Black Lake and the car is relatively flat on a high speed turn. Harry said the car handled like a Z28...it was essentially a 4-door Z28.

My car still has all of its F41 stuff underneath, and it's all in good shape. It also has some factory paper stickers from the assembly line in place (the result of being from sunny LA). The rubber bushings are shot and will be replaced this winter. The bushings are identical to a Z28's, but I think the rear sway bar is slightly different.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by 9C1Beater

Keith...that sounds like an awesome car! Any Chevy cop car from 1974 is rare. Most were Belaires, and I think I've only seen one photo of a Chevelle cop car. You can hijack this thread and post pics and info on here. What engine and options does it have, where was it used, and what condition is it in? Does it still have its original Blue Dot spare? Those tires would be impossible to find now, I'm sure.

My dad ordered it for my Mom to drive. He found out the police package was available on the base Malibu so he checked all the boxes.

They didn't want to build a two door at first, so the order got rejected. He called Central Office and reminded them that it showed as available in their literature and he thought they should build it as ordered. They relented and put the order back in the system.

He ordered it with the same interior as our '73 Monte Carlo: black and grey herringbone weave with swivel buckets and the rally dash. They bounced it again because of the interior. He called 'em back and showed them in the engineering summary that all of those options were available. So they relented and put it back in the queue.

After another delay they called to tell him which week the car was going to be built. Somehow he knew during that timeframe that they were only building hardtops with the small opera window and he wanted the large window. When he called to complain they finally said "Fine. Here's the guy's name in Oshawa. Just call him and tell him what you want."

So he did.

It was built in late September of 1973. It's a 454/TH400, 3.42 posi. Came with HD alternator and front and rear swaybars, and the aforementioned 8" wide Corvette rallys. PS/PB, non AC, manual windows and locks.

Mom drove it four years and I got it after that. I don't have any photos from the beginning but pictures of the car started cropping up around 1978 when I started driving it.

As of 2018 I have been racing this same car for 40 years.

http://www.superchevy.com/features/s...hevy-chevelle/

Originally Posted by 9C1Beater

Harry Hammond said that he and Jim Ingle were under the gun time-wise to build the Nova police car prototype.

I don't know Harry but I have worked with Jim Ingle.

He was a famous Corvette development engineer at the time; I don't know how I weaseled it but somehow I was on a Corvette ride trip and did a rotation or two with him in the passenger seat.

The thing about Corvettes is, since they only seat two, you can have some really good intimate conversations for 1/2 hour or 45 minutes at a crack.

He said to me "...you know, I'm actually kinda jealous of you truck guys..."

Here he is, a GM development engineer on the CORVETTE programs, so I said "Jim, why would you say that?"

He replied "People NEED trucks; people don't really need Corvettes.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Couple more recent photos:

[Igosplut]

I'm still looking for those pictures, there were two Novas, and one Chevelle.

[9C1Beater]

Keith...wow, what a car and what history! I am reading between the lines here, so I assume your dad was a GM employee...possibly at the Tech Center in Warren? And then did you go to work for GM?...that's how I figure you got to go for a ride-along with Jim Ingle (even though you were driving). Glad to see you were smart enough to hang on to such a rare and cool car with family history. If your dad was connected high up at GM, then he could pretty much get whatever he wanted.

I have some questions about my Nova's engine, but Harry says he can't answer them. I know from the build sheet that it was ordered with a 350 L48, which is the same engine that the '74 Nova police car prototype had when the LASD police car test were done in May '74. My car still has the numbers matching engine, but it has Z28 heads that have the part number 330545., and it doesn't have a stock, smooth L48 cam. I know that The LA Sheriff Dept and the first civilian owner, Hollywood film editor Woody Smith didn't do changes to the motor, so that leaves Rick Mahoney, the LA Zone Office's Fleet Sales Manager. Was it common for Chevy execs to skirt the GM rules and build engines that weren't within corporate guidelines? Harry Hammond said he didn't think the engine would've been built by Flint, and he said he was unaware of the mods. I'm in the process of pulling the engine out and will post photos on here of what I find. I know this is a very strange car, and it is an important part of Chevy's police car history. Also, before I forget, Harry said Jim was no slouch in the driving department...he did a lot of the driving of the Nova police car prototype at the Proving Grounds.

Thanks for posting the photos...much appreciated!

PS...Igo, no big deal, but I'd like to see them if you find them. Thanks

[Burd]

Good reading here. Beater, you gotta come up and see the Gold Nova at the Heritage center. Of all the cars in there, I fell in love with it. It has a 4 speed, and I’m a dog dish guy. It has them.
Of all the cars, I had to get in it, I asked Greg and he let me get in it. I have a pic somewhere, but I’m having issues posting pics here :/

[Fast67VelleN2O]

Great Nova! Any interior photos?