What do you think of this 1969 Chevy Nova – Stella Nero??
The pro golfer Hunter Mahan always rolls in black, apart from his signature orange spikes and also an SUV that shortly wore the same color. Starting from his Bentley to his 1972 Chevy C10 to his latest project – a Mike Dusold-designed 1969 Chevy Nova, the dangerous hue graces all of his vehicles. It is little a contrast to the affection of the old guard presently ruling the golfing world, but we are not surprised. Hunter Mahan is part of a revolution of young strikers taking over the sport, and they are as serious about the cars as they are about the clubs.
The Chevy Nova is the latest cooperation between Dusold Designs and the Texas-based Hunter. Hunter bought the Chevy Nova at a GoodGuys event held at the Texas Motor Speedway and took it to another shop with a vision of it puting the rocker panels on the floor and tucking lots of aluminum and rubber. The shop modified the suspension and chassis, cut out the floors, and never finished the project. Very soon it ended up behind Dusold’s closed doors where an autopsy considered it inappropriate even for a caddy to drive. The shop, not happy with the foundations, scrapped the stock chassis of the car and changed it with an Art Morrison piece suspended with flexible airbags. To accomplish the ultimate stance, the body of the Nova was lowered over the frame rails and reconnected once the rockers were even with the ground of the rails. Together with the new rear wheel tubs, there was built a flat floor structure that allows the vehicle to roll without air in the bags and the tires of the car at a safe distance from the sheet metal. Well, that was the easy part.
Dusold planted a dangerous idea in the head of Hunter – twin hair dryers. The issue was that the big 20 x 10 and 22 x 12 wheels ate up every inch of the room next to the frame rails at the both ends of the car, so there was not much space left under the Nova’s hood. Packaging an intercooled turbo system needed custom everything. Charge pipes, tuning, the headers, ACCEL DFI installation, brackets, and fab work were all completed in-house, and the system is serviceable and clean. The only agreement here is the long-block, an untouched GMPP HT383 with small ring gaps and hypereurectic pistons that won’t live under the big boost.
For the moment, the boost knob is set at 8 psi, and Hunter is really happy to cruise the car slightly that abuse it. The world of golf is a hectic, so apart from burning tires to the local Cars ‘n’ Coffee cruise when he is in the city, the miles haven’t been clocking very quickly. He returned to the same GoodGuys event where he bought the Chevy Nova, and the new Chevy was an immediate hit thanks to the shaved trim, the 2 inch chopped top, custom bumpers, laid-back windshield, and satin-black finish.
Source: http://www.hotrod.com/
