3 Cars and a Trailer

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If you had to choose between a day at the track and  day at the drag strip, I’m assuming most of you would pick the former. Just as well then, that the choice was made for us during what was meant to be a weekend of motorsport.

We had planned to take 2 cars to Crail Raceway… Scotland’s ‘premier’ drag strip (read: only drag strip). Well, at least it’s the only official drag strip, barring such oddities as the Barmac Mile and other spots known only to locals of hooning intent. Since the Astra was promoted to all round ‘track weapon’ it now meant that taking two cars to such an event automatically involved  in to 3 cars and a trailer.

“What could possibly go wrong…”

The Rig is the affectionate term for an Omega pulling an enormous car trailer with an Astra on top. This view bearing down on you in your rear view mirror is enough to make you pull swiftly aside on the fast lane of the A90 as much out of confusion as horror. The mighty V6 grunt of the Omega does a good enough job of lugging that enormous weight around even if it doesn’t do such a good job of stopping it. A swift servicing of the trailers brakes is likely in order though they’re probably a good deal more freed off than they were before they were thrashed around Fife’s back roads over a 2 day road trip.

An earlier chat with a friend suggested that there was a track day with open pit lane and strict rules occurring at Knockhill, Scotland’s ‘premier’ race track, that very weekend (read: only race track). Well, at least it’s the only official race track…

A weekend of motorsport was born.

A suitably located Premier Inn was sought in the upstanding Scottish town of Glenrothes, which happily also provided a car park big enough to accept the illustrious HMS Vauxhall. Well, the pub next door did anyway, and thanks to our last minute preparations and with no foresight whatsoever we arrived late enough to find the pub shut and the car park empty.

Knockhill was a brand new day with near perfect track day conditions. The sun was shining, the track was recently resurfaced and though not fully worn in, the slippery conditions of earlier in the year had given way to smooth trouble free tarmac. It was a dry day, the likes of which Scotland hadn’t seen for approximately 4 months. Truly perfect conditions during which to make the most of a 4 hour open pit session. What could possibly go wrong.

The Astra had been taken off the road last year to get around that pesky annual MOT requirement and also because the modifications in place were already making it an unruly daily driver. The carbon clutch purchased a number of years ago had long since deceased after only a year, mainly thanks to the stress of the launch required to successfully clear the Haudagain roundabout. This meant that the fateful morning on which it had been delivered, whereby I had been summoned by a UPS delivery man flapping a £140 import duty charge in my face on my doorstep, had totally been worth it… Ah yes, sarcasm. I’d been stood in my pyjamas looking bewildered as the full enormity of why my husband hadn’t wanted to disclose the full amount spent on his ‘overnight parts from the US’ became clear. The replacement Spax Viggen clutch was holding up nicely however and we’d since forgiven the LSD for it’s grunting and grinding in super market car parks when it had proven its worth many times over around the Nurburgring. That is, we had forgiven it… until today.

The 5th run around what is an undeniably short track, the Astra started to judder hideously under power. It soon became apparent that all was not well, though the source was not immediately identifiable. We limped forlornly back to the paddock, grateful that the car could, for now at least, still move under it’s own steam.

 Upon checking the time, we had used approximately 1hr15 minutes of a 4 hour track session and we were now stood in front of a newly deceased Vauxhall Astra. It was clear by this point that the problem was too big to effect a miraculous resuscitation here in the paddock and very little remained to be done but get it back on the trailer.

It was at this point, whilst lamenting over the downfall of the most exciting 1/3 of the HMS Vauxhall that we suddenly became aware of the 3rd car in this sorry saga. Our heads turned in slow unison towards the unsuspecting Mini Cooper S parked alongside. Any queries around scrutineering were quashed when the team simply replied ‘just move the blue sticker’ upon enquiring about a last minute, breakdown induced vehicle swap for the day. We were back in the game and with 2hr30 left of the session, there was plenty of time to make up.

The mini is stock. Stock brakes, stock power, stock suspension. It was a revelation. The only change from factory was a set of 15″ Rota slipstreams which are naturally a very light wheel, but made even more so by the loss of 2″ of diameter from the factory 17″ bullet wheels which come with the car. The tyres were an old set of toyo proxes from back in the day when Eddie was running his 1.4 litre Vauxhall Corsa. Despite the propensity for rubber to go off, a quick look over these suggested that they’d ‘probably last the day’ which was as far in to the future as we were willing to look at this stage. With the shattered diff in the Astra, Crail was now much less important than eeking a few more glorious hours out of Knockhill in a stock Cooper S.

Eddie took her out first and almost went off the track at the first corner. Wait… what!? I thought you said it was decent? The turn in on the Mini was so much more aggressive than on the Astra that he turned too soon, grass beckoned. A quick recalibration from the driver meant that we were soon on our way with a greater appreciation for the Mini’s go-kart reputation. From that corner forward, much fun was had. The 300+bhp of the Astra is hard to handle on a short track. The benefit of the 170bhp Mini was that you could rev the tit’s off it and never be going too fast. The car was tight and chuckable, perfect for my code zero skill level. The tyres and brakes were the limiting factor, both holding out for 4 laps max. A new hobby was birthed that weekend with me resolving to upgrade the brake fluid and change the rear pads as a start, given that the front’s had only recently been done for the MOT. She also came with with pair of R56 17″ Crown alloys which are due to be sold to make way for something sporty and lightweight with a set of R888’s or something similar.

In short – can’t wait to get it back out on the track and next time we’ll be booking on two cars instead of one… though given the state of the diff on the Astra and the fact that he can’t even make eye contact with it right now it’ll be more likely to be the VX220 joining me next time.

The Fleet: Vauxhall VX220 Turbo

In many respects it was a miracle that this car made it to the production line at all. GM Europe was suffering financially and GM North America was operating at a loss.

A lot of people know that the VX220 was designed in tandem with the Lotus Elise S2 but they might not realise that it was Lotus who approached GM on the project in order to gather sufficient funding to move forward with a new Elise design. Lotus manufactured the VX220 in their plant granting 1/3 of the production space to the Vauxhall model. Initially Vauxhall released a 2.2 litre N/A version which at 147 hp was more powerful than the S2 Elise. They then followed it up with a 2.0 litre Z20LET turbo model which made 200 hp.

All told there were just shy of 5,300 2.2 VX220’s manufactured and just under 2,000 turbo models manufactured. Vauxhall actually produced 65 off track orientated VX220’s badged as the VXR220 producing 220 hp equipped with bigger brakes and performance style seats, available only in Calypso Red.

Many VX220s were supplied to the European market in LHD (having been manufactured exclusively in the UK) and marketed as the Opel Speedster. This means that there are just over 500 2.2 models on the road in the UK and just over 400 turbo examples left.

Again this is another car that was on the bucket list along with the Opel GT. Interestingly, Opel indulged in a 34 year hiatus, between 1973 and 2006, when manufacturing the new Opel GT (hideous and not a patch on the original), which means that the VX220 was the first 2 seater sports car to be made by Vauxhall/Opel since the 1968-73 production run of the GT.

Owning this car had long been a dream but prices were starting the head in the upwards direction, E having watched them for years, and it became clear that if we didn’t act now, we would always be chasing them. The dilemma had raged for a long time about whether to buy a 2.2 N/A as the cheaper option and look to supercharge it in the future, or whether to fork out for the turbo.

Mean price for VX220s (price includes both 2.2 and 2.0 Turbo models)

Colour was also important. Neither of us are fans of yellow, Vauxhall’s attempts at the colour red are a laughing stock across the market with ‘Flame Red’ having a tendency to descend to ‘Flame Pink’ within a matter of years. Silver remains a dull choice, blue seemed like a good option along with black.

We drove to Wakefield to check this one out over a New Year… an excellent time to choose to buy a vehicle, garages are open every day, no one is working reduced hours, truly an excellent decision.

As you would expect, this one isn’t perfect and it was one of the lowest priced turbo options for sale at the time. But we don’t do perfect; perfect comes with guilt over adding miles, stone chips, and generally causing wear and tear. This is a car for driving.

If you’re interested in the full and comprehensive history of the VX220, you can find it here.

This car will have a project build page which will be updated as its evolution gets under way.

 

The Fleet: Vauxhall Omega V6

According to my husband and I, this is the greatest car Vauxhall have ever made. We call it ‘The Drift Lounge’. An absolute battleship of velour and rear wheel drive contradictions.

You can pick up an Omega for next to nothing these days and truly I believe every single one will have been scrapped before people realise the beauty of these vehicles. The Omega is a donor vehicle of choice for many projects due to it’s front engine, rear wheel drive set up making the gearbox a sought after item.

We are not above suspicion where this is concerned having bought this car in order for it to donate its engine to our Ford powered Opel GT. The V6 should add a lovely note to the GT and help to keep everything ‘in the family’ once again.

“We ran in to a little problem… we fell in love”

One of the reasons you buy a whole car for an engine conversion is because you can a) prove that the engine works and b) you are in receipt of the entire engine loom as oppose to relying upon a guy called Nigel in a shed in a Nottinghamshire backwater having definitely handed you all of the required wiring. It must be said, however, as can be seen from most Motorsport forums, guys called Nigel are particularly diligent when it comes to these sorts of activities.

Referring back to point a)… if buying a car for it’s engine, try and pick a lowish mileage example with a sound engine. Try and avoid, if at all possible, picking one with a chronic oil leak. Sounds obviously really, but we bought this Omega from Dumfries for the bargain price of £250 because of just that. It had an MOT until February and the plan was to yank the engine out after that ready for it’s transplant in to the Opel in the 2018/19 winter. However, we ran in to a little problem… we fell in love.

My husband sorted the leak from the rocker cover with the engine in-situ, losing the skin on most of his knuckles in the process, and when February rocked around (pun intended, see I told you I can’t resist them), we decided to see if this £250 bargain would pass its MOT.

It didn’t… The biggest surprise however was that it only failed on two snapped rear springs. We picked up two second hand springs for £40 and put it back in to the station, unfortunately outside of the two week window.

It failed again. By this time though we were committed, and a braking imbalance seemed like a small issue. Having cleaned up the calipers to free them off, it finally passed and we get another year out of this beauty before we decide whether we simply love it too much and have to find a Vectra V6 to butcher in its place.

Inside, it is extremely roomy. It carried a set of 4 wheels with aplomb and it tows pretty much anything with relative ease.

Heated sets, climate control, air conditioning and a walnut dash make this car a wonderful, if slightly damp, place to be. We’ve even been able to stop reducing the fan settings right down in standing traffic to avoid the cabin filling up with smoke after sorting the oil leak. All this luxury for £250 and it’s on less than 100,000 miles.

The long wheel base nature of it makes it the perfect cheap drift car in which to learn. It gently releases the back end with typically geriatric sluggishness, in that way that it’s so slow to react the moment has passed before the car even noticed what was going on, and so you go about your day, to Tesco Express to buy your weekend paper, or whatever Omega drivers do. You can keep your old BMWs, Vauxhall Omega’s are where it’s at for true drift luxury.

The Fleet: Mini R52 Cooper S

I think the entire planet is in agreement that the BMW/Mini collaboration was an enormous success when designing and producing the 2nd generation Mini. The original Mini was produced from 1959 – 2000 with the 2nd generation making its entrance to the market in early 2001.

The original Mini was, and continues to be, a 60s icon and even if you’re not a Mini fan, sighting an original Mini is sure to bring a smile to your face. BMW obviously considered this ‘challenge accepted’ when they brought out the R50-R53 models with a distinctly 60s feel. Yes it was bigger, yes it was heavier, yes it was safer, but it held all of that British retro charm that seemed so important to the Mini brand.

This particular Mini Adventure started with an R52 (code for the soft top) Mini Cooper in Cool Blue making 115 hp from an agricultural 1.6 litre petrol engine. I loved the colour, I loved the convertible, I loved the looks. I loved everything about it except the speed. It was time to look at the Cooper S.

After much umming and ahhing, a tidy Mini Cooper S convertible was found on 42,000 miles in Cleveland. Ignoring the occasional lumpy idle, the steering wheel lurching aggressively to the right under acceleration and the hurricane-like wind noise coming from the roof above 50mph, we handed over the cash and drove on our way south having transferred all of our possessions from the diesel Astra we had travelled down in.

The intercooler sits on top of the engine on supercharged models giving the need for the immediately recognisable bonnet scoop of all Cooper S models. With later turbo charged models the intercooler sits lower at the front so the bonnet scoop remains only for looks. Another reason to prefer the R53.

The first generation of the modern Mini bolted a supercharger to their 1.6 petrol engine to create the Cooper S. This was the first and last generation to supercharge the engine as after this BMW decided to turbocharge later models with varying degrees of success and reliability.

There are both benefits and pitfalls to superchargers; the former being the predictability of the power available it having a N/A style continuous delivery without the wave of torque delivered by a turbocharger and a relatively small power band as a result. The pitfalls are mainly the perceived lack of ‘oomph’ compared to a turbocharger and that it is a less efficient method of forced induction as it drains more power from the engine to drive the belt than the more economical method of using waste exhaust gases to drive a turbine and compressor as with a turbocharger. However, both of these aside, you’re hard pushed to beat the shear joy of supercharger whine as you give it the beans.

The Cooper S is as exciting around town as it is on an A road. Go-kart-like handling is complemented by over-fuelling on overrun creating a symphony of burbles, pops and bangs almost on command. This is the kind of thing you need a re-map and an exhaust system to achieve, along with a healthy dose of ‘fingers crossed’.

There are many that believe that the R50-R53 Mini’s are well on their way to becoming a modern classic. I have the opportunity to keep this Cooper S Convertible mainly off the road (apart from the odd weekend run in the sun) at 56,000 miles on the clock for a 13 year old car. Cooper S’s peaked on the road at 34,000 between 2007 and 2009 though it’s hard to pin down how many Cooper S Convertibles were sold in the UK. Cabrio’s have a tendency to retain their value more than their hardtop counterparts, likely due to reduced supply thanks to the lunatics who originally went out and spent more £££’s on something with a shorter shelf life.

 

This one has developed a bad leak on the passenger side turning the passenger footwell in to an aquarium depending on the wind direction and incline on which it is parked should the heavens open overnight.

The lumpy idle remains an intermittent niggle and with few other symptoms, there is no way of pinning this down until it gets worse.

The violent apparent torque steer turned out to be a severely worn lower suspension arm bush which have now been replaced by poly bushes, and when I say severely worn, I mean sheared…

A garage application is in with Aberdeen City Council to see if I can secure some dry storage for this beauty to try and keep her tip-top for years to come. Nothing puts a smile on my face like this British/German love child. The Mini is dead. Long live the Mini.

The Fleet: 1969 Opel GT

GT’s never made it to UK shores. Manufactured in left hand drive only, they have a huge European and US following, but according to How Many Left there are only 32 licensed on the road in the UK and 29 are SORN.

You can read more about our reasons for buying this car here, including all of the mishaps when we bought it sight unseen and drove it 400 miles north to Aberdeen.

The GT was manufactured by Opel between 1968-73. Designed by Erhard Schnell, a German automotive designer based in Detroit at the start of his career with Opel, many links have been drawn between this and the C3 Corvette. The Opel GT concept was released in 1965 and the C3 concept was released in 1968. The GT has become known as the Baby Corvette in the US but the argument continues to rage about which came first, the ‘Baby’ or the ‘Vette’.

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Our little Opel was imported from Europe to Wiltshire (date currently unknown). It is presumed the shell had a certain amount of rust as the shell has been widened significantly at the rear and had a Motorsport style front splitter added to the bumper.

Opel GT’s were originally supplied with a 1.1 litre petrol engine producing 67hp but most new owners preferred to select the optional 1.9 litre engine which produced 102hp. This Opel was registered as a 1.9 but has undergone a modern engine conversion during its stay in the UK to a 2.0 litre Ford Zetec engine with Jenvey throttle bodies that can be seen poking out of the engine bay.

The car has a Webasto sunroof and it is unclear whether this was fitted after import to the UK or it was a European modification as all Opel’s were manufactured as hard tops as standard. The body shape is known as a ‘fastback’ it having no rear access. All luggage space has to be accessed through the front cabin.

Since buying the car we have performed a number of modifications which we consider to be upgrades though it could still be very much up for discussion depending on your purist persuasion.

Removal of the eBay special bucket seats in favour of Astra Coupe turbo heated leather seats (this was mainly for practicality as the heating in the vehicle was non-existent). Addition of sound deadening where as previously there was… ummm… none. The sound deadening has had the useful side effect of masking a number of leaks in to the cabin but we are almost certain that it has not stopped them altogether. Therefore we can only assume that a neat little puddle is forming in the engine bay somewhere every time it is rained on.

The car currently shows mileage at 0 given that the aftermarket Smiths speedometer is not connected up meaning that you have to guess your speed relative to other traffic at any given moment. The general rule of thumb is to match your speed to a nearby Honda Jazz as you can guarantee that you’ll be travelling at at least 10% below the legal speed limit.

The Opel GT has distinctive ‘pop up’ headlights, they being of a rotational design and activated by a hand lever in the centre console of the cabin. Of course, as you would expect with our car, the lever is broken and if you want to access the main headlights you must pull over to the side of the road before that ambiguous time of ‘dusk’ and manually flip them over by pushing on one side of the headlight.

Photo courtesy of @Opel_GT_71 on Instagram

The GT’s deviations from its standard design continue with a frankly grotesque fibreglass bonnet sporting an enormous hump in the middle. This has presumably been selected to clear the modern Mondeo engine and the trumpets of the throttle bodies, however we are both in agreement that it ruins the aesthetically pleasing clean lines of the standard GT and we intend to revert to a standard GT bonnet as soon as is practicably possible.

The standard GT bonnet sports a 60s style bubble on the passenger side and a pair of delicately stylish vents on either side. Much better than the American style monstrosity which sits front and centre today. A standard GT bonnet was purchased from Germany but is an unfortunately garish yellow colour and requires a respray to match a non-standard paint job and where we have no record of the colour of paint used.

Classic car ownership is usually a question of interior space. You are restricted by your dry storage options as cars like these must be well looked after and dry stored (read lovingly rinsed and dried before after driving before being stored in a weather tight, we hope, garage) to prevent them from suffering rot and corrosion. It is always a delicate balance between protection and driving enjoyment. Restricting oneself to only driving in dry conditions between the months of April-September whilst living in the North of Scotland can be a tricky balance to manage.

The Fleet: Audi B5 S4

The best example of our poor automotive choices. There are certain courses of action that you should avoid when it comes to buying cars. Here we’ll deal only with the considerations when it comes to bodywork:

1. Don’t buy them when wet
2. Don’t buy them in the dark
3. Definitely don’t do both of these things together

This car remains standard… for now. This is partly due to trying to sell it a couple of years ago as the cheapest model on eBay… and no one taking us up on the offer, and also due to a lack of time/interest/funds.

Resigned to our ownership and E’s repeated claims that this is on the cusp of becoming an ‘appreciating classic’, interest is increasing in this static museum exhibit on our drive way.

The tired cream leather interior has been replaced with a black leather interior including Recaro front seats. The B5 came with 17″ wheels as standard but the later B6 model came with 18’s and as such are the perfect (fairly) cheap way to improve the stance. These also reside gathering dust in a shed some 25 miles north of our garage.

Plans are afoot to make this the daily driver this year. Once on the road, minor tuning can commence, along with the removal of the absolutely dreadful spoiler.

The Audi A4 followed the Audi 80 and commenced with this model, the B5 (thereafter followed by B6, B7, B8, you get the picture). In this particular iteration, there was no ‘RS’ version making the B5 S4 the top of the available range. Due to it not having the RS badge, it doesn’t come with the RS price tag but remains an extremely tuneable 4WD saloon and you can guarantee you won’t have someone pull alongside you in ‘the better one’. No wide arches, no lairy chrome wing mirrors, the B5 S4 can go relatively unnoticed until you storm past someone on an A road courtesy of tuneable V6 twin turbo power.

M.

The Fleet: Vauxhall Astra Coupe Turbo

A longer, sleeker body shell designed by Italian design house Bertone, the Astra Coupe turbo is the smart man’s choice. The same 2.0 engine as came in the Astra SRI but for much less money, and some would say better looks.

This particular car has undergone an evolution from its factory set-up but its slow evolution in to a track car seems to be well underway.

The pedigree of this vehicle as a track car is seen in the BTC-Touring version that was unveiled in 2001 by Triple 8 Racing. The car dominated throughout the season winning 25 out of 26 races and should silence the front wheel drive critics that like to get their adenoids out when discussing torque steer. This car was so dominant during the season that the lowest placed Astra driver finished 4th in the Driver’s Championship, and yet was 58 points clear of the next driver.

There are limitations to the Z20LET engine that came in the Astra G, mainly that if you want much more than 300HP then you need to look at forging the internals. The cheaper alternative, and if there is a cheaper alternative, E will find it, is to drop a Saab B204 engine straight in to the engine bay. The 100% GM buyout of Saab in 2000 meant that cars shared commonality among a number of parts, such as bolt patterns from engines to gearboxes including the F23 which comes in the Astra G coupe turbo.

 

The Fleet: 1976 Vauxhall Viva HC E Coupe

Project cars. Creatures of hope, disappointment, frustration, lethargy.

The curse of the classic Vauxhall appears to be a general lack of interest by the general public. Vauxhalls are scrapped without consideration as their values plummet to the point where you couldn’t even give them away. This problem doesn’t seem to befall Ford’s in quite the same way and this cruel treatment is reserved only for the basest of base model Focus’s and Mondeo’s.

It seems that old Vauxhall’s slip from our consciousness until it is too late. Someone mentions their 70’s Vauxhall Viva casually over dinner and suddenly everyone realises, after glacing quickly at How Many Left that there are not many left at all.

However, after a brief period of lamentation, everyone goes back to their roast chicken dinner. This seemed to be the case when I was told about a Viva HB automatic, having previously been sold as a project, which was now scrapped leaving the remaining number of these cars in the country at… errr… 2.

The values of classic Vauxhall’s simply can’t match those of their Ford counterparts, likely because of the requirement for 2 factors in setting the value of anything: Supply and Demand.

As we have discussed, supply appears to be dwindling, but demand never catches up. This means two things:

1. If you buy a classix Vauxhall as a project car thinking that you can turn a decent profit you’re even more deluded than first thought on account of purchasing a project car in the first place
2. If you want a meaningful project car for the love of project cars but your purse strings are strangled by family holidays, MPVs and new school uniforms, the classic Vauxhall is probably a great place to start.

 

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As with all project cars, the outcome of this one remains a  mystery. Currently in long term storage; the engine selection is yet to be decided, the quality of finish is up for discussion, and all of the above will be affected by the new MOT regulations coming out in May 2018.

This post, much like this car, will remain an ongoing project. Progress updates expected in 2020.

M.

Wedding Car – Part 1: Selection

Stress free wedding – a ‘how to’ guide:

1. Don’t hire a vintage motor simply for your wedding day and photographs. Instead buy a 1960s 2-seater sports car.
2. Choose a left hand drive euro-import so parts are really hard to come by in the UK.
3. Drive it the length of the country (say from Aberdeen to London) for said wedding.
4. Plan an additional 500 miles of rural French roads for the honeymoon – pay £200 for European breakdown cover.
5. For maximum thrill, plan for winter months, between November and February.

This story could be said to have started over 20 years ago when a father bought a son a Vauxhall Viva HB coupe as a project. Over subsequent years, the Nairn branch of the Highland Viva Collection grew and shrunk, but this particular project was transported to Aberdeen when garage space became available, and there it languished for a number of years.

Plans were made that this car would be ‘recommissioned’ as the wedding car and several guises were suggested as options to fill the currently vacant engine bay. Would it become a V8 monster, a hybrid of 70s British suburban sobriety and unwieldy V8 muscle. Would it receive a fuel efficient diesel engine and long range fuel tank making long distance European road trips possible without selling a kidney. Would it mature in to the thinking man’s rear wheel drive engine conversion and accept an MX-5 engine.

One Saturday evening, a young couple, merely 6 months away from their wedding day, were poking larger and larger holes in to the corroded sills when the delicate symphony of scattering rust was interrupted by the suggestion to peruse eBay for a more realistic option to act as their wedding vehicle.

“What’s that Opel thing you like?” exclaimed I.

A quick search produced the only 3 Opel GT’s for sale in the UK and a swift offer of £6,000 was made for what looked like a clean example (also the cheapest by some margin) which was later discovered to be phatter-than-your-average on account of a wide arch kit, no doubt as a replacement for arches as rusted as those we had been poking holes in merely minutes before. A counter-offer, some bartering and messaging later, the listed price of £7000 was reduced to £6600 and we were looking at a trip to just outside Bedford to buy a 1969 Opel GT sight unseen with the plan of driving it back up the country over a number of days to the frozen north.

Such was our optimism that we completed the transaction for the necessary insurance in a service station car park some 50 miles north of our destination. This was a dream car, and with only a few for sale, and minimal time to find a good example, we were almost more committed to it than we were to each other.

The history of the car was mottled. The car had a modern, depending on your decade of birth, 2.0 zetec engine from a Ford Mondeo – sacrilege as far as we were concerned and probably as troubling for both Ford & Opel/Vauxhall fans alike. A Euro import, it appeared that a Lenk body kit had been added likely as a solution to chronic rust but the finish was excellent. We considered ourselves lucky to have found one with wide arches as that was the look we much preferred despite the fact that it’s a purists nightmare. The Ford engine had apparently been bought for a kit car project by the previous owner but he (I presume it was a he) had abandoned both and performed an amalgamation in order to sell the Opel on.

The interior had been completed with similar care. eBay special bucket seats graced the interior. The fan heater which had been installed didn’t work. Metal kick-board made up the rear of the car for luggage. The only ‘original’ dial handed over with the car turned out not to be an original after all and the speedo was soon exposed as merely decorative. The wing mirrors sat below the door line which meant the passenger side was completely out of view; this is not helpful in a left hand drive car… It was love at first sight.

We had quite the car collection by this point, but it was nothing to rival the collection of the current owner, totalling 25 classic cars across a number of locations. He claimed to be a farrier but I still don’t believe that this wasn’t a code word for something else.

Just two of the Ferrari’s stored at his home

Driving the Opel home fell to my husband. Rain set in one hour south of the Peak District for our first overnight stop and it soon became apparent that this thing let in more water than the Costa Concordia. You may have suspected the Webasto sunroof as the culprit, as would any sane individual, but the situation was much more grave than this. Water was pouring in from behind the dash in to both passenger and driver footwells. Helpfully it was worse on the passenger side, right around the area of the fuse box. When we arrived at the hotel in rain of El Niño proportions, all that could be done was to leave it in the car park and hope that we didn’t come back to rock pool formations in the footwells, or, given that we were within hooning distance of Sheffield, that it didn’t get nicked. Both seriously doubting the sanity of the other at agreeing to this ludicrous plan in the first place, we headed off inside to catch some well earned rest and hopefully allow my husband to stave off the onset of tinnitus.

“Buy a classic car,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

The next day we planned to stop in at Halfords to buy a very necessary car cover, partly for security reasons, but mostly to prevent being drowned upon entering following heavy rain. As you can imagine, this was not without mishap. Apparently the fuel gauge required calibration, and quarter of a tank was not a quarter of a tank. In fact a quarter of a tank on an incline was actually empty, and the car coughed and spluttered itself to a standstill on a lonely back road in the Peak District. Hitchhiking seemed unlikely in this situation and my husband decided to head down the hill to a handily placed petrol station a couple of miles away. I decided this was as good a time as any for a photoshoot. “Buy a classic car,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

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The next overnight location was the Lake District for the pre-planned leg of the ‘holiday’ during which we were set to check out proposed honeymoon locations. This was accomplished in the Opel, and we drove down the tiny country lanes becoming accustomed to the car’s many quirks and emotionally preparing ourselves for the onset of more. An overwhelming stench of fuel in the cabin meant we couldn’t remain stationary with the engine running for too long for fear of becoming high, though this might have staved off the stress induced depression of having bought a complete heap on the spur of the moment. When we were not stationary, the ratio-ception (in-joke) of both the diff and gear box ratios meant that you could hit 40mph before you needed to change out of first. This made for lively gear selection at the 30-50mph max that you can achieve in this area of the country, making one extremely glad to be changing gear with your right, and therefore stronger, arm. Driving the car with two people present made the journey slightly less stressful as the passenger was able to yell, over the din of the engine, exhaust and overworked fuel pump, what on earth was happening in the offside wing mirror and exactly how much extra space was available before crossing the white lines in the middle of the road, this being typically measured in inches rather than feet. Truly a relaxing experience.

However, there were small mercy’s and the long ratio proved handy for the motorway leg of our journey home. This proved to be the only upside. Wind whistled through the cabin at speeds over 50mph stripping any warmth from the atmosphere. My husband arrived at every rest break a cold and broken man. It was always held in the back of our minds that we would be replicating this very journey in only 6 months time in order to head south for our wedding and we had chosen the end of October as our date. In order not to arrive utterly miserable, deaf and hoarse, it was clear that some minor improvements were required…

So there lies Chapter 1 of this epic tale

… to be continued

M