The Nova was created by Automotive Design and Development (ADD), with styling by Richard Oakes and engineering by Phil Sayers. It put a futuristic glass-fibre two-seater body on a Volkswagen Beetle chassis and mechanicals, and in place of doors had a dramatic canopy that combined the roof and doors in one piece, lifting forward to let the occupants climb in.
ADD built the Nova in Southampton from 1971 to 1973 and then at Accrington in Lancashire until 1975, when it failed. Nova Cars of Mirfield, West Yorkshire, bought the rights in 1978 and built the car until 1990, and a small run was later made by Nova Developments in Cornwall before the company was sold to India-based Aerotec Nova around 1996.
The design travelled the world. Licensed versions were built in Austria, Australia, France, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, the United States, where it was sold as the Sterling, and Zimbabwe, and there were many unlicensed copies, some with pop-up headlamps or gull-wing doors.
