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When Ehva Hansen and her Dad Bryan got the 1969 Chevy Nova, they realized all of the work they were going to have to do.
“The car looked really sad,” Ehva Hansen said. “There had been rats living in it, the floors were rusted through, and it would have been a lot of work.”
The car she has now is a 1972 gold Chevy Nova. They used the old ‘69 for parts and refer to it as the “parts” car. Her parents went to California to pick up the ‘72 after seeing it on Facebook. The original plan was to surprise Ehva with it for her birthday, but when Ehva kept asking to work on the ‘69 her mom had the idea of giving the ‘72 to her then and letting it count as a birthday and Christmas gift.
“The original thing was to go pick it up and surprise her with it for her birthday,” Ehvas’ mom Kaylen Hansen said. “Once we got it, being excited and wanting to work on it and wanting her to have the opportunity to work on it with [her dad, Bryan], I had the idea of having Bryan pull up to school to pick Ehva up in it.”
The ‘72 Nova was in good condition when they picked it up from California and drove it home.
“It was super clean,” Ehva said. “It’s paint isn’t the greatest, but it’s not rusted through the body and it has good in- tegrity.”
Because of the decent condition of the car, the only thing they’ve had to work on is the mechanical part, a couple oil leaks fixed, system fuel updates, and a little bit of updating on the pulley system.
There are things Ehva wants to change whether it’s adding something or just touch- ing a few things up.
“I would like AC,” Ehva said. “That would be pretty nice…I want to get a paint job even- tually. I do like the paint it has now but I do want it nicer, it’s just old.”
Even now with Ehva driving the car, it still isn’t completely
“Restoring cars is kind of an ongoing thing until basically you wouldn’t want to drive it anymore because it’s too nice,” Ehva said.
There have been a couple of moments where driving the car has been uncomfortable for Ehva.
“At Terrell’s there was this guy outside of his car videoing me which was awkward,” Ehva said. “But every other time you feel pretty nice driving it.”
They started working on the ‘72 Nova a couple weeks before Christmas.
The parts for the car came from multiple places to find the right parts they needed.
“Old cars are a little bit different [for getting parts],” Ehvas’ dad Bryan Hansen said. “Newer cars you can just call up a local store but with old cars you have to find a company that specializes in classics, so there are a lot of online bases where we order and have it shipped here.”
Certain companies they went to were the Classic Industries, and 396.
Besides chasing down parts, the two put in a lot of time together to get the car fixed up and running well.
“It probably took somewhere around 18-20 hours,” Bryan said. “It was fun doing it, I got to spend time with my daughter and show her how vehicles function.”
Both Bryan and Ehva agree that it would be fun to do all over again.
“It’s fun to see something come back to life, especially with the old cars,” Ehva said. “You don’t really see that anymore.”
