Maybe it was blessed by a priest. Or maybe it has a secret compartment of fairy dust hidden somewhere in the dash. Or maybe there’s a four leaf clover ghosted into the clearcoat. We aren’t sure, but whatever it is, Mick Bodigon’s low-slung retina-searing red Nova is just rolling along in a charmed life. Some guys have all the luck.
“I decided back in 2004 that I wanted to build a tube chassis car,” recalled Bodigon, a maintenance manager from Fort Wayne, IN. “I started looking through some local trader papers and ended up finding a project car about five miles from my house,” he said.
So let us get this straight, Mick. You decide you want to build a tube chassis car and you find one after searching for about two weeks. Five miles from your house. With a solid body and the floorpans cut out ready for building. From a guy who lost interest in the project and decided to sell it for a song. Sound about right?
“So I bought the car and took it to a shop I had used before on another project. They got it in right away and after about five or six weeks, I picked it up,” Bodigon said.
That shop was Advanced Chassis in Antwerp, OH. The crew there wasted no time fabbing up a lightweight but rock-solid chrome moly round tube chassis with a custom 4-link rear, funny car cage, and custom extra-long wheelie bars. Suspension pieces from Art Morrison were selected for the strut front, while rear coilover shocks control the bumps aft. Tinwork from the skilled hands of Jeff Porter helps finish the already flawless install.
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