Chevy Nova station wagon snowmobile - photos

[suther51]

Had the same thought about the skis knuckeling under. Compared to mattracks for example the proportions of the skis may only be a bit taller, the problem is adderses by using torsion bars on the track carriages. How that would work on a ski that only sees drag and no pull I could only guess at.
Eric

[PJs]

Is that a Volkswagen engine powering that nova or a Corvair

Don't think it's either based on the lower hose coming out of the water pump and low mounted power steering pump and the Pan looks Chevy not VW or Corvair. Not sure...looks like a Chevy motor to me and if it is a 68 it could be a 396 based on the water pump...might be confusing the massive leaf springs as opposed cylinder/heads.

396 water pump...



Got to be quick around here...Guess it's a 70, small block 400...¿

[suther51]

My guess is that there is a married transfercase driving the rear most axle with the rear out put of the t case. That may explain why only 45 mph if it is in low gear in the t case. There would have to be a chain case down to the pinion in put, but not unheard of.
Eric

Late here too.
Just noticed the skis up front in motor pic.
Had it backwards.
To use t case front output with the drive axle facing forwards might work, but that would mean that the front axle of the 3 is driving, not a good situation I would think. Pulling track over the top. Yet the rear axle looks to have had the diff removed? Seems to have been overly complicated putting the motor backwards, like trying to reinvent the wheel with squares.
Some how I just don't want this to be a total clunker. Wouldn't be the first.
Eric

[KustomsbyKent]

Yeah, I've seen this pop up in a few other areas as well. At first glance, it looks good, but upon closer inspection, there's issues.
As many others have mentioned, the front skiis are the first major problem. Any bit of friction, and those things are going rotate around and flip over. Doesn't look like any torsion bars to prevent this from happening either.

Inspecting the track drivetrain, the front axle is just an idler tube, I'm assuming the middle axle is also and idler, and the pumpkin is in the rear. Others have already commented about how the pumpkin might be arranged for this to work. Engine is claimed to be a 400 V8, which would be plenty of power... if the power train holds together.
Maybe the speedometer indicated 45 mph, and it was actually going 10? Even 10mph seems like it would be fast. Additionally, tracks kick up a lot of debris from the back, and any bodywork near that area gets blasted. Even at slow speeds its a lot, at 45mph it would be tremendous! Anyone who's driven a snowmobile can attest to that.

Based on my experience with tracked vehicles, (All Terrain Track Chair & my snow dozer & my Oliver HG crawler) I highly doubt this vehicle has ever gone through 10 feet of snow at 45mph.

I think it is an attention grabber that someone is trying offload after it didn't work. They did do a nice job on the body from a distance. Cameras tend to make stuff look better when taken at a distance, so who knows what it actually looks like up close. Fabrication looks fairly good... engineering not so much.

Has anyone seen this vehicle up close recently? Maybe we could get some updated pictures with more details. A video of it actually driving would be great!

[Rattlerjake]

Doesn`t look like VW..probably Corvair

You guys must see something I don', cuz it looks like a sbc 350/400 to me.

[Frank S]

You guys must see something I don', cuz it looks like a sbc 350/400 to me.

I started the confusion because on the small monitor I had at the time the water pump and lower radiator hose was not definitive and for some reason it looked like there were cylinder heads horizontally opposed to each other.

[Wildwilly]

Just this....👎