The Nova was not much of a head-turner when Chevrolet introduced it in the early 1960s: a fairly plain and, by US standards, compact sedan – a typical plain vanilla car. Maybe that was exactly what attracted tuner Donald Yenko: Based on a 1968 coupe from the second Nova series, he shoehorned in a new gearbox, beefed up the suspension, and installed a powerful V8 engine – creating one of the strongest Muscle cars ever – the "Nova Deuce".

Fans build their own "Yenko Tributes"
Yenko's creations are relatively unknown outside the US. Few of them are left: There are no more than ten Nova Deuces in existence. What else can a true fan do then, but build their own Nova Muscle car? That's what Björn Morhin did. The 35-year-old fell in love with US Muscle cars when he was a teenager. "I saw them in movies and TV shows," he says, "and I was amazed." In 2014, he fulfilled his dream: In the Netherlands, he bought a nearly 45-year-old Nova that originally came from California. He stripped it down and made his personal tribute to Don Yenko from it.

Kitten or wild cat?

Compared with other US sports cars, the Nova looks quite unassuming; it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. This also applies to Morhin's Nova – but only to a certain extent: Because nobody really buys the sheep. With its massive 255 rear tyres, it looks more like a wild cat poised to pounce. And as soon as the completely rebuilt big-block 8.2 litre V8 begins to rumble, one would have to be very naïve to think of it as just a tame "ice-cream parlour cruiser".