New to Site but not to Opels!

[chuckspeed]

This is a really cool site - glad to have found it!

I've had Opels since the late 70's. My first was a red '73 GT; my current is a '98 Catera (Omega). I'm posting on the Ascona forum on account of my longest-lived Opel is a '72 Ascona purchased in 1992 off the estate of the original owner. It's a Glacier Blue Acrylic 2 door with automatic and air conditioning.

I bought it with 42K miles on the clock and drove the crap outta it for two years in So Cal. Used it to run to Vegas and Phoenix regularly. It would wind out to 110 MPH no prob (never took it higher than that) and I managed to put about 30K miles on it at 4000-4500 RPM before spinning #2 rod bearing.

Since the Ascona (she goes by the name of Maggie the Opel) was Opel #8, I've managed to 'acquire' a few opel-ish skills along the way. When the bearing went, the car was towed home and the rebuild only took a few hours (after getting the crank and rods back from the machine shop).

She ran fine after the rebuild. Took her back to home in Michigan, where she went into deep storage for eight years. Pulled her out this past weekend - she lit off with nothing more than a battery swap. She needs a few misc bits, but overall is about as perfect as a 30 year-old original car can be - no rust, no dents, no tears.

I look forward to chatting with y'all some more!