[The Scifi Guy]

I just bought the black with purplish tint gullwing GT from Todd Martin at OU shown in these 2 pics:

 

[The Scifi Guy]

Here are pics of the only other gull wing GT's in the world:

The 3 blue ones are the same car and are owned by Klaus Priewe. Todd Martin has the grey primer one and I think it now has a crazy body kit on it. It is presently unfinished. The the best of my knowledge there are only 5-6 gull wing GT's in the world. The red/white ones may be the same car.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

Rrossjr:
I've never seen one in person, but obviously this mod has been executed successfully more than once.
They actually look pretty good here but you will need some extremely long arms to close them while sitting in the cockpit.
I also wonder if they are a problem with structural integrity in such a small uni-body car? I'd like to see a picture of the roof line (doors closed) to see how well they integrate
from a cosmetic standpoint. I have heard the DeLorean guys complaining about leaking, but that may only be an issue for that make.
I think having a motorized door would be even cooler, but introduces a bunch more engineering issues.

Me:
If you look at the door sill on all of them you'll notice that it's higher than a normal GT. You have to reinforce the frame just like you have to do with a targa or convertible mod.

They all apparently have to use a door latch mounted at the bottom of the door and can't use the oem latch near the door handle. I don't quite understand why this is. It would seem to me that the oem door latch could just be angled a little upwards pointing for it to work. But now look at the doors on the black one in the first pic, notice that the window frame is still the same thinness as an oem door. No way would a stock door window frame be able to support the lower part of the door over the long term. I think some radical reinforcement was done to the door and window frames and the part of the roof that hinges. That may be why the oem door latches couldn't be used. I'll bet there's a massive, thick, bar of metal inside the door that goes all the way from the bottom of the door to the door hinge on the roof. Don't forget, Germans made these. You can bet that they made those doors solid as a rock. Probably way more work involved than to make a targa. I heard that one guy paid a shop $10,000 25 years ago to do the mod. The cars pictured are all of the gullwing GT's that exist.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

Okay, the financial matters have gone through, so now the truth can be told.

I have bought the black, maybe also a little purplish, gullwing GT in the first and last pics above. I'm pretty sure the last pic is the same car, but I don't know for sure. I bought it from Todd Martin at Opels Unlimited. He has had the car for almost 20 years. This gullwing was never finished. The gullwing mod, chassis reinforcement, bodywork, and paint were completed at least 20 years ago, but the engine, interior, and all the other fix up stuff was never completed. A guy in Germany paid a shop $10K to do the mods, bodywork, and paint, but ended up in a dispute over payment. The car got sold to another guy who then sold it to Klaus Priewe, the owner of the gullwing pictured above that says "Radnor" on it. He then sold it, along with another gullwing with a crazy body kit, to Todd Martin. Todd sold it to a guy, who was on a long term payment plan, who at some point disappeared for 4 years, then reappeared. This played out over 8 years and the guy never took possession of the car. The deal eventually fell through. Todd kept it as his showroom car all these past 18-20 years and it sometimes sat outside in his lot. He fixed it up a little with a dash and some suspension fix ups and upgrades, plus some nice wheels and bumpers, but I don't think it has had an engine in it for 20+ years. Our deal deleted a few of his fix up items to bring the price down.

It will be a few months before it arrives at my house, as things sort themselves out.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

Maybe I'll install electric windows on a remote, then I can climb through the window.

Actually, I don't think they swing out that far at car level.

If you look at the pics of the other cars, you'll notice that a variety of different strut locations and types were used and the lift height of the doors differs quite a bit. Mine seem to lift the highest. That's good. Lambo doors and gull wing doors that don't lift very high clunk you in the head or jab out your eyes. The doors on mine appear to be well above my 6' height. As far as closing them while seated in the car, I could install a hanging pull strap. I could even install linear actuators to electrically open and close them. I'm told that the door latching at the bottom of the door could use some work. That's one of the things I'll have to resolve before I send it to the body shop for fix up. Right now, I'm thinking of having an all cream-colored interior and dash, like I had in my Red Baron car. I still have my cream, leather, Mazda Miata seats from that car. I don't plan to do any body kit stuff, but I do plan on installing the big Lenk wing and the Lenk hood that I had on the Baron. That should do it for exterior mods.

As far as the dash and mods to that, well, that depends on if what it presently has is functional and stuff.

As far as an engine, I'll probably get something from Charlie. I still have my chromed SSD set up, configured for a 2.4, so that's the logical choice. Charlie is sitting on my previous 2.5 engine, which needs to have it's head/block flatness resolved and the pistons need to be cleaned up and dished to reduce compression. That's all up in the air and an engine probably won't get installed for a year or more. I'll want to have an automatic in it.

I have no desire to totally trick it all out as a major car show contender. Yeah, it'll get some chromy stuff that I have laying around. I'm also not planning on doing marathon work on it, like I did with my GTX. I'll probably only dive into it every day during the 6 months bracketing Winter time when there's no car shows or high heat.

 

[terrylewisac]

I have no desire to totally trick it all out as a major car show contender. Yeah, it'll get some chromy stuff that I have laying around. I'm also not planning on doing marathon work on it, like I did with my GTX. I'll probably only dive into it every day during the 6 months bracketing Winter time when there's no car shows or high heat.

I'm not buying that bs once you start it will run throooouuughghgh yyyooouuu like wild fire all over again.
I can't wait to see some picks when you get it. awesome awesome awesome. IF YOU EVER DECIDE TO SELL HIT ME UP PLEASE

 

[The Scifi Guy]

I asked Klaus Priewe if he could give me some history about these cars:

Me:
Can you give me any history about the development of these gull wing GT's? When and who made each of them? Were there ever any design plans available? It looks to me that the doors must be heavily reinforced with bars of metal inside.

Klaus:
Sure, the roof, the doors, the whole body is reinforced. Your Gullwing is made by Zander, all the others are made by Lumma-Tuning. The latest Lumma Gullwings have fiberglass doors, all the others metal doors. The first one was built in the early 1990's, don't know the exact year. Lumma sold all his GT stuff to me but there were no plans or anything for the gullwing. Only the molds for the doors, guess all the conversion was made by try and error...


So, I have a unique gullwing made by a modification shop, all the other gullwings were made by Lumma, some with fiberglass doors. How did they do mine? Apparently, no one knows. It will be VERY interesting to discover how mine was made. Did the shop maybe acquire the lighter fiberglass doors from LUMMA? Or are they a crappy hack job? Don't know. Mine seems to have doors that go up higher than all the others.

A very interesting project for sure.....

 

[V6Opel]

Congrats Gordo! I mean this is super cool! I remember seeing this car at Todd's shop many times when I used to go down there from Edwards AFB back in the late 90s. I'm super glad it is finally getting a great home and will be brought back to life. Now chrome the **** out of that car!

 

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

I'm really pumped for this thread. I'm going to learn so much. What an exciting project.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

I got an interesting phone call yesterday. During the cars and coffee gathering I went to last weekend, a local long time owner of GT's who runs a classic car repair shop dropped by. He needed a hood for a guy he sold a GT to. He took down my contact info to give to the guy. So the guy calls me and we start talking about hoods. I tell him that perfect ones that don't need any bodywork are unobtanium and we start discussing the fiberglass hood option and ways he salvage what he's got. It turns out that he had already talked with Gil and so on. It turns out that he works at or runs a body shop and his car was almost done, except for the hood. We start talking about my new car and how I'll probably drop it off at my long time Maaco shop for freshening up. Well, it turns out that the guy now runs that shop!

So, that's good news! I'll have a body shop guy with some Opel restore experience, appreciation, and who even owns one he just fixed up. My ability to get him parts might bring the price down, too.

SO, DOES ANYONE LOCAL TO ME HAVE A DECENT GT THEY COULD PART WITH?

 

[The Scifi Guy]

On the subject of paint...........hmmmmm...........I'm really starting to think that maybe getting a wrap done to it might be a cool idea. Of course, my natural inclination to go maximum extreme dictates that I consider getting a chrome wrap of the whole car. Another possibility that just occured to me as I'm typing this is to have a wrap done to honor my local football team: The Philadelphia Eagles. Think about it. Gull wing = Eagles. Holy Schitt! OMG, that car would get soooooo many photographs taken of it and I'd surely get invited to parades, special events, and maybe even be asked to have it make appearances at games with the Eagles mascot standing up in it and us driving around! Definitely something to seriously consider!

I did a search of Eagles-themed car paint jobs and found these:

 

[jayhawkjesse33]

On the subject of paint...........hmmmmm...........I'm really starting to think that maybe getting a wrap done to it might be a cool idea. Of course, my natural inclination to go maximum extreme dictates that I consider getting a chrome wrap of the whole car. Another possibility that just occured to me as I'm typing this is to have a wrap done to honor my local football team: The Philadelphia Eagles. Think about it. Gull wing = Eagles. Holy Schitt! OMG, that car would get soooooo many photographs taken of it and I'd surely get invited to parades, special events, and maybe even be asked to have it make appearances at games with the Eagles mascot standing up in it and us driving around! Definitely something to seriously consider!

I did a search of Eagles-themed car paint jobs and found these:

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Please, NO.

You’ll have a very rare model of GT, don’t go painting it like the cars above. Keep this one classic.

You’re going to do what you want and it’s just my opinion, but think about it long-term and realistically. FYI, fans aren’t happening for the NFL this year, heck, the NFL may not happen this year.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

Well, it's not a classic, nor is it a very rare model, it's a radically modified GT. Look at the pictures of the other gull wings, they're all modified with kits and paint jobs. Mine would be the plainest of them all if I did no body kit stuff to it. I'm going to put my Lenk hood and wing on it, but I have no plans to do any other body modifications to it. It's just a wrap, wraps can be removed.......somewhat......and the basic car is still there underneath. The only people who would value and insist that it stay looking stock oem would be die hard oem'ers. But it will never look oem because it has higher rockers due to frame reinforcement and, of course, the gull wing door mod. I wouldn't want an Eagles paint job, that would be hard to remove, but a wrap would be much more reversible. Plus, I'm getting old, in 10 years I'll be drinking beer from a sippy cup. This car sat unfinished for 20 years, it will be 2 years before it will be drivable. I don't drive for pleasure in my GT's, after having them for 40 years they're just platforms for me to do projects to.

 

[rrossjr]

As a lifelong Eagles fan I only have 3 words: "Fly Gordo Fly"

 

[opelgtboy70]

Cool car. Good luck with it.

I hope you are out of alligator material and have a 1.9L with a weber sitting around.

Also, good hoods arent hard to find.

Karl

 

[jayhawkjesse33]

Cool car. Good luck with it.

I hope you are out of alligator material and have a 1.9L with a weber sitting around.

Also, good hoods arent hard to find.

Karl

I belly laughed when I read that line!

 

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

The thing about a sports job is that the 5% of people local to that team may care slightly more about it, 95% of people will like it less.

I think a complicated wrap like that would obscure the lines and features of the GT. I would at most go with a single or two colors, racing stripe or something in the silver. Then it still looks good on its own regardless, and anyone that appreciates the team colors will notice too. If you want it to be a bit more sports themed, then get magnet decals you could slap on before events.

 

[Will I. Finish]

Congratulations on your recent purchase Gordon. Will be watching to see what kind of magic you work on that car. Good Luck.

 

[terrylewisac]

football team: The Philadelphia Eagles. Think about it. Gull wing = Eagles. Holy Schitt! OMG, that car would get soooooo many photographs taken of it and I'd surely get invited to parades, special events, and maybe even be asked to have it make appearances at games with the Eagles mascot standing up in it and us driving around! Definitely something to seriously consider!

And so it begins HAHAHAHA

 

[terrylewisac]

Please, NO.

You’ll have a very rare model of GT, don’t go painting it like the cars above. Keep this one classic.

You’re going to do what you want and it’s just my opinion, but think about it long-term and realistically. FYI, fans aren’t happening for the NFL this year, heck, the NFL may not happen this year.

If he wraps instead of paint it will be easy to remove/restore to previous version no harm no foul