14 CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE I I OCTOBER 2019

RETRO

It started as a hot rod and it’s still a hot rod

TEXT & PHOTOS: Jason Lubken

◆It’s August 16, 1977, and a longhaired 16-year-old kid in

sunny Southern California brings home his first hot rod: a dark-

green 1972 Chevy Nova. Imagine that moment of freedom every

heavy-footed teenager dreams about. On his drive home, over the

roar of his new small-block, he hears the AM radio newscaster

announce, “42-year-old Elvis Presley was announced dead today.”

A day Dennis Taylor remembers like it was yesterday.

RIDES

RELIVES ITS

DAYS OF GLORY

You don’t forget your first car.

It’s a rite of passage, the first taste of

freedom. If you’re lucky enough, or

smart enough like Dennis, you hold on

to it. But the Retro Nova took a lifetime

of transformations and 32 years of

lying dormant under a cover before it

became the 7-second, 3,000-some-odd-

horsepower car it is today.

He bought it with his $900 in

savings, and his dad, being the

gentleman that he was, matched him. It

even came with a set of Hooker headers

and turbo mufflers. You remember

the trendsetters, the “outlaws,” that

subculture of misfits you so desperately

wanted to be a part of. You’d watch

them get handcuffed in the high school