Running across this ad the other day, it immediately reminded me of my Fort Dodge radio days. This was my friend Nancy’s high school car. Actually, it was a shared vehicle for Nancy and her sister Denise who attended college at Iowa State University (occasionally referred to as “MOO U” by some people 😉
I loved to give Nancy a hard time on-the-air about her car. “Who in the world would drive an ORANGE Nova with a PLAID interior?” It became a running joke. In fairness, this generation of Chevy Nova was a pretty decent, reliable car. In my hometown of Apple Valley, Minnesota, the cops used them for squad cars. Of course, these had the police package with modified 350 4-barrel V8 engines. But even the 6-cylinder and 305 Novas were good vehicles. In the spring of 1979, GM retired the Nova in favor of the Chevy Citation. What were they thinking? Don’t even get me started on the 1980s X-Car fiasco!
I’m not sure whatever happened to Nancy and Denise’s orange Nova with the plaid interior. But if you saw it on the streets of Fort Dodge in the mid-1980s, you knew exactly who’s car it was. “Hey, it’s that girl with the orange car that the Maniac always talks about.” Good times!