One Bad Nova

With big racing numbers on the doors, Torq-Thrusts at each corner, and Bill Thomas’s name lettered on the front fenders, this 1962 Chevy II isn’t exactly a sleeper. But there’s little about the compact Chevy that indicates how much Corvette Thomas stuffed inside its squarish body.

- Drew Hardin

Thomas built the car to go road racing, and he took aim at the fancy European sports cars he’d be dicing with by installing a fuel-injected Corvette engine under hood and the ’63 Vette’s independent rearend out back.

Hot Rod magazine’s Don Francisco took an in-depth look at this “new, hot version of the Deuce” in the July 1963 issue, providing so much detail that you could almost build a replica using his thorough descriptions.

Among the highlights: Thomas turned the 327 fuelie mill into a 380-inch, 412hp race engine. A Moldex forged-steel crank stroked to 3.750 inches mounted Buick rods with Forged true pistons sized to fit the engine’s new 4.030-inch bore. Thomas used the fuelie cylinder heads but enlarged the ports, reshaped the combustion chambers, and paired the stock intake valves with modified 409 exhaust valves with 1 5/8-inch heads. The Rochester fuel-injection was left pretty much alone, other than having the air-bleed openings in its nozzles enlarged. Cold air fed the system via a fat flexible hose that opened at the radiator support.