Jeremy Clarkson “At Full Throttle” – Nova Sport
Probably the most famous Nova outside of motor sport is the Nova Sport that was featured on Jeremy Clarkson’s “At Full Throttle” video in 2000.
The VHS Cover
Here is the full story of how it all happened written by Jon Shields @ Courtenay Sport.
“1986, I had just passed my driving test and I was working for the local Vauxhall Opel Dealer Courtenays Ltd. One morning standing in the service manager office a car fired up in the workshop making the most gorgeous burbling barking noise, I rushed into the work shop only to find the source of this rude noise was a white Vauxhall Nova with some Dealer Sport style stripes complete with a bright red tail box! Enter the Nova Sport and I was in love! Unfortunately being 18 with zero no claims my insurance company saw this differently!
1999 A16VTB had been sold a few years before and PNG founder Matt Searle comes for a weekend in Norfolk. He arrives for a meal at my house in his Nova Sport, a few bottles of wine later he leaves in a taxi for his hotel, entrusting me with the keys to the Sport to drive back the next day. Fantastic! I think I made that 4 mile journey last about 40 minutes! Let the search for a Sport begin.
Fast forward a couple of months to September and Trax, my luck was in, Mark Watts & Matt Searle were approached by the boy friend of a girl from Luton who had a Nova Sport sitting in her Dad’s garage. The Sport had been stolen and chased by the Luton Police, much to the Police’s surprise the Sport managed to outrun the area Omega, the culprits had been eye balled and were well known to the local police who promptly dispatched another car to their address. On arrival they found them in the process of a number plate swap! I understand the Police were a little relieved when they lifted the Sports bonnet and saw the Irmscher goodies sitting there it certainly explained its pace, but were not initially convinced that it was all properly insured. Unfortunately (but fortunately for me) spooked by the theft and the amount of time the car was in the police compound, the girl did not want the car anymore so there it sat in her Dad’s garage for quite some time.
A few days after Trax Ian Archer myself and Matt Searle travelled down to Luton, there sat C318 YRW a deal was done and I was driving back to Norfolk on trade plates in a Nova Sport complete with appalling brakes, misfire, non existent idle and makeshift polythene quarter light….I loved it.
Back home with make shift quarter light glass
Police case number on mirror!
Ignition lock smashed / by passed!
Ignition lock smashed / by passed!
Front end photo
Engine bay shot showing off the twin 40’s
Solid rear seat, parcel shelf gone.
For its first role the car was called into service to be used as the pattern for the Nova roll cage we used to sell, so the interior was stripped out bar the driver’s seat. With the idle and misfire sorted it was driven down to Cambridge. A week later the drive back was great the shell being noticeably stiffer and I even managed to out run Ian’s Cavalier 16V ecotec off a few round abouts. After this the car was covered up awaiting a proper strip down for a full restoration, or so I thought.
In late spring 2000 out of the blue we received a call from Jeremy Clarkson’s production company. They want to do an ironic type of feature about buying a couple of old cars and modifying them. They were very up front about the whole feature in that there would be some races and the Nova driven by Vicky Butler Henderson would lose to Jeremy in a powerful but ultimately un cool Rover.
The original brief was to find a cheap Nova GTE so that we could turbo charger it. Unfortunately having looked at a few dealer trade in’s etc it soon become apparent that we just could not buy a car and do all the work to within the budget. So we suggested that we use our Nova Sport and some bits we had, then blag as much as we could using Jeremy’s name and they put their budget to just cover the bodywork, this way they saved a load of money and we got the body work sorted. The one proviso that it was kept Polar White but they could do what they wanted in vinyl, this would come back to haunt me when Vicky came up with her plan!
The one thing with this whole project was that we only had 6 weeks to do this including all the filming which was all scheduled and booked and therefore could not be moved Omg. This meant that on a couple of occasions we could not carry out work until certain parts had been filmed. We also end up doing something’s twice. For example we had to fit the engine to make sure it all ran okay due to lack of time only to take it out for some filming of it being fitted, all good fun!
Vicki & Jeremy pre restoration
This first bit of filming took place in London in a Taxi firm’s garage behind Piccadilly station. They only change to the car was The PNG’s (Matt Searle’s) lone wheels! They had previously been on C888 HEV Matt’s Nova Sport and also on Walshies Red Twin 40 Nova. This just before Vicky announced her “vision of pink”
After this the car was straight back to the workshop for all the bodywork to be undertaken before being painted.
Loading up
When I was looking at this picture recently I couldn’t understand why we had left the stickers and mirror on the RH door, but in the pictures further down you can see this door leaning against the wall in the background, so we did fit a new door back in 2000, bonus!
Loading up
Loading up
In the body shop
In the body shop
You can see the old door in the background, wish I have kept that door now though I still have the mirror with the case number on it!
To be fair due to the very tight time scale of the project, this was not in any way a proper restoration, however on the cars return from the body shop I spent a several evenings going through the shell cavity’s and under body with a waxoyl gun which is probably why despite its quick refresh it has lasted quite well.
Now it was a case of fitting the car out.
Glass in no cage yet!
Some filming in the workshop “This is how you fit a wheel”
Filming the stickers going on the roof
Filming some interior bits
With this done the car was up and running on a base file, then straight down to Webcon in Sunbury for it to be properly mapped.
In the dyno cell at Webcon.
After this it was back to North Walsham for the remainder of the stickers
Last of the stickers fitted then final finishing touch’s ready for the next part of the filming where the Nova and the Rover would meet and do battle.”
The main filming day
“This was due to be undertaken at Castle Combe which was where we turned up at 6.00 on a damp Monday morning, however when the Rover was unloaded it was quickly discovered that it was far to noisy for Combe’s db limit, Jeremy did go a bit “Clarkson” about this and left a few of the Marshall’s quivering! So we had a quick relocate to Kemble airfield an old Top Gear favorite for Tiffs big power slides.
As you can see in the following pictures it was a very wet day, which meant due to the cars colour myself and Ian spent what seemed like most of the day washing the car. This was done for continuity as many of the shots were filmed out of sequence.”
Vicki unveils the Nova
Vicki after Vicki unveiling
Camera mounted to roll cage
Vicki…….
Vicki awaiting more instructions
This was the sequence after the drag race when Jeremy is sitting on the wing reading his book
A bit of Racing and the Rover trying hard to keep up
“Filming over for the day, Jeremy asked if he could have a go in the Nova! He did a few laps of the handling circuit one way, did a handbrake turn then did a few laps the other way.
When he came back he said “take that bloody car to Vauxhall and tell them what you’ve done to make it handle and ask them from me why they couldn’t have done it!” He them said it would be perfect if we could tame the torque steer a bit, I remember thinking bloody hell you would want to drive a C20LET turbo one!”
Jeremy & Vicki with C318YRW
Jeremy about to test drive
“The final bit of filming was the bit when Jeremy gets his trophy for winning. The cars needed to be filmed driving in front of a crowd, so this was done in the arena at Max Power Live. In this picture Jeremy was warming the crowd up with a few donuts in fact at one point he got so carried away that Vicky had to reverse the Nova out of the way as it looked like he was going to hit it, you can see the smoke lingering.”
Max Power Live Arena
Jeremy and his trophy!
Further information on the car.
Billing 2000. Filming was finished the night before!
Belgium 2001
Total Vauxhall Magazine Feature
The stickers had been removed and the 2.0 engine was about to come out ready to be put back to a Sport.
Total Vauxhall Feature
Total Vauxhall Feature
Total Vauxhall Feature
Total Vauxhall – Ultimate XE Engine Guide Feature
C318 YRW used for Total Vauxhall “Ultimate XE engine guide”
In 2002 Jon sold the car to Simon Kingsbury. Simon was originally only going to purchase the engine, to be fitted into his own Nova, however it was found that Simons Nova was just too far gone to take this or any engine and was scrapped. Over the next couple of months Simon made many calls to Jon requesting to buy C318 as a whole car, which Jon kept turning down (wanting to restore the car as he had originally planned), until Simon eventually made Jon an offer he could not refuse! And so Simon purchased the whole car, however before taking delivery he requested that the stickers where re instated, but this time in a blue version of the Vicki Butler Henderson stickers.
Simon owned the car for 10 years covering 4000 miles in that time.
Current Status of C318 YRW : In 2012 Jon bought the car back and is currently restoring the car to its original factory condition.
We will keep you updated with any progress on the car.
We would like to thank Jon Shield for all his time and permission to publish this information.
If you would like any further information on Courtenay Sport please visit the link below.
