A great many of us coddle our special cars; that’s a fact. After all, they are exalted and quite likely become members of the immediate family. Some cultures hold that by any estimation nature as a whole brings a certain spirituality to things that might, or might not, have souls. Like our loving pets, we name them, give them identity, and give them permanence. There’s a lot of that consideration in the Nova of Rich and Kim Taylor.

The idea of putting locomotive-like torque in a drag race car is one thing; in a street machine it’s quite another thing. This caused Taylor and the troops to ponder the eventual outcome as well as the immediate effect. They’d have no choice but to build a wall to counter the massive grunt. Although aftermarket chassis makers could supply the new Maginot Line, these independent thinkers decided against that. They would build onto the existing GM subframe and extend the construction into a full perimeter chassis that would yield more than enough rigidity to balance the mountain motor and the emotion it inevitably creates.

“Many of our family and friends are very hands-on, fabricators willing to lend a hand,” Rich imparted. “A few of my friends built their own chassis to handle over 4,000 horsepower.” Rich’s Nova would only have half as much grief to deal with, so that’s just what he and his gang did when they got together and whittled down that stack of chrome-moly tubing to combat the inevitable twisting and bending. Ultimately, the Nova would hunker on RideTech air springs.

To install the Ford-like Chris Alston’s Chassisworks FAB9 housing, they set the back-end up with a custom four-link arrangement and located the mass with a Panhard rod. They grew the front suspension from Stainless Steel Brake Company spindles, put RideTech bags between the Heidts tubular control arms and then the fabricators checked chassis movement with a custom-made antisway bar. There was no thought of assuming the extra weight of an unnecessary rollcage.

One of Rich’s special pals is Dean Mattoni, a man from Toledo who’s apparently hell on sheetmetal and paint. “Candy Man” Mattoni (mostly) and Rich addressed the trim and styling cues germane to such car builds, to wipe away the obvious flashing and let the original form shine through. To that end, they removed the driprails; tightened up the gaps; chopped, shaved, and tweaked the bumpers; fashioned a spoiler for the decklid; and smoothed out the firewall, cowl, and new hood.