Deja Vu

[First opel 1981]

Today, while looking for parts for my relapse into Opelitis, I was scrounging through a couple GTs in a local wrecking yard.
I have made it no secret that I worked on a lot of GTs in the 80s and often wondered the status of the cars.

Well, I was trying to decide which car would lose its engine today when it suddenly dawned on me that the very car I was pulling the plugs on was the subject of one of my most told Opel GT stories.

Back in 1988 I was driving along the freeway in my GT. Mine was nothing special, just a daily driver. Well, at the side of the road was a Burgundy Opel GT broken down. Making the story short, the driver was a 60ish woman who hadn't a clue why her car had suddenly imploded. She had spun a rod bearing.

Back then I was a backyard mechanic. She told me that she wouldn't take the car to the shop if the repairs were severe. I explained that the engine would need a total rebuild and that it would be somewhat expensive because the parts weren't all that easy to come by (remember, no internet back then).

When she told me she would probably just junk the car, I told her I would rebuild the engine for $100. Yes, it was a charity price but the car was amazing at the time. It was an auto with a custom paint job and the hood had been modified with a mini L-88 scoop. That car was a little dream.

The part of the story that is relevant was that, even with adding my own crankshaft for free, she still complained about her tranny leaking as if it was my fault. So I told her to get lost.

Well, today, the thing dawned on me. Sure it was a burgundy GT. Sure the car had an auto tranny. Those two "could" be a coincidence but the kicker was that someone had taken the hood. I'm suspecting the hood was taken because of the mini L-88 scoop. I did a little further investigating and there was one other thing that assures me that this was the same GT. The burgundy was painted over blue. I remembered that the one from '88 was blue because, of course, mine was blue.

Now, this car came to the wrecking yard through someone liquidating their collection of parts. Between the two GTs in the yard, there are more parts than the two cars would be.

I just thought that it was interesting to come back 20 years later to face my nemesis in a wrecking yard. I wonder if my crank is still in there?

[oldopelguy]

I ran across my very first car, a '74 Manta, 10 years later in the middle of 4 car stack. I saved the grille, but not much else was savable...

[P.J. Romano]

Nice story. I often wonder what happened with the cars that I owned and sold. Sometimes I see the similar car and I am looking for small dents and signs that only I know of (holes under the bumpers where I unsuccessfully tried to install foglights).
We bought Ford Tempo back in 1984 when we moved to Canada from Europe and drove it for 11 years while paying off the mortgage and putting kids through the school. We drove it some 200.000 miles, my both daughters learned to drive on that car and poor old brown Tempo was like a family pet.
Few years ago I approached the woman on the street as I thought that it was our Tempo she was driving. The woman called some big guy probably convinced that I was a sexual maniac.

On the same subject, here is a short excerpt from Peter Egan's story Sand Through The Hourglass:

Years ago, when I was just out of college, I restored a green 1959 Bugeye Sprite, in order to make huge money in my spare time, and sold it to a man in Milwaukee. He paid me for the car and drove it to a party that evening to show his friends. Right after the party, somebody stole the Sprite from the alley behind his house and he never saw it again.
When I heard the news, I was almost (but probably not quite) as indignant as the buyer. I'd spent a full year restoring the Bugeye, and the idea that someone could just hop in this car and take it away was infuriating.
A few months later, Barb and I were driving our VW Beetle down the Interstate near Milwaukee and I saw a red Sprite go by in the other direction. I did a howling illegal U-turn in the median and took off in pursuit.
"What on earth are you doing?" Barb asked, grabbing her door handle.
"I want to see if that's the stolen Bugeye." I replied.
"That one is red."
"I know, but they could have repainted it."
I eventually caught the car and cruised up alongside.
"False alarm," I said. "It's not my old one."
"How can you tell, if it's been repainted?"
"I can just tell," I said. "My car had better hubcaps, and one faded taillight lens. Also, the left rocker panel that I replaced had a different curve in the front. Different rear muffler hanger, too..."
It looks as different to you as your own Black Lab looks from your neighbor's. It gives off an aura of familiarity that can be felt as well as seen. You stand next to the dog (or car) and just know.
This is why imposter-plot stories, whether in Shakespeare or the movies, don't work very well for me. I never really believe that a petite young woman can successfully pose as her fiancé's oafish best friend to test his loyalty, or that a soldier can come back from the Civil War and pass himself off as the long-lost husband of a woman he's never met.
Before we drove away, I looked at the Sprite for a few moments.
A phrase from an old Country song suddenly wafted through my head. It was, "Hey mister, that's me up on the jukebox."
Sometimes cars are just like that song, where the musician sits at a bar and hears his own voice coming back to haunt him. Hey mister, that's me up on those four old Dunlops. One of which is mounted on a wheel with a nick in the rim where my wrench slipped 33 years ago.
Still got the scar.

[opelnut10]

In 1974 I bought a white/red interior (very rare) 70 GT with a bad motor. Car had 31,000 miles and had been ran out of oil, spun #4 rod bearing, it also has a set of factory chrome ralley wheels (also very rare) and a dealer added red Opel GT stripe just above the rocker panels. We built our first stroker motor, a 1900 with 1/4" longer stroke and flat top pistons made by cutting .125 off the tops of a set of dish pistons. Had a 268 Hyd. cam and a 350cfm Holley on an adaptor to the stock intake, it was really quick for 1974. A young man pestered me for 6 months to buy the car and to get him to leave me alone I gave him a high number ($6500) and he called my bluff and bought the car. Six months after he had bought it it had been painted burgandy (looked like it was sanded with a brick and painted with a mop) the engine was knocking, the interior had nine hole cut for speakers and the dash had major surgery to put this giant radio in it. Made me sick to see the poor thing in that condition and I refused to work on it any more (this guy could tear up a cast iron outhouse with a rubber hammer) I seen it off and on for about 2 years after he got rid of it and lost track of where it went to, but that car hooked me on GT's and I have had at least one ever since.