Tremor, meet Opel, yet another rusty, dead car I'm planning – for real this time! – to resurrect from the grave

I’ve dragged a lot of dead cars to my house. Always with the outward intent to nurse them back to health, get them running again, and return them to the road. For me, it used to be such a fun novelty. “Hey, look at me, neighborhood! I’m bringing a forgotten piece of our mechanical history back to the roads! I am an individual living outside the defined bounds of normalcy!” Every dilapidated turd of a classic car that I winched into my yard or garage was another badge of honor. “I am not like you non-playable video game characters in your Corollas,” I thought smugly. Well, the other weekend I dragged home another rusty turd of a classic car to my home. But this one is different, and it may be my last one.

The allure of a cheap project car is similar to seeing an advertised $72 flight to Mexico. There’s no telling how sketchy the flight will be, or what hidden costs will spring up, but for $72? Heck, roll the dice and try it out! People would always tell me, “Buy the best car you can afford or you will pay it later.” And I always thought it was a load of crap. I had a successive fleet of classic cars, none of which were purchased for more than $3,000. Of course I wasn’t doing math on the thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours I put into them either. You wouldn’t budget-track your margarita costs after getting to the aerupuerto for $72, would you?

It was with similar lack of lateral thought that I responded enthusiastically when an acquaintance of mine hooked me up with a 1971 Opel GT for a mere $300. The car he’d found me was literally on its way to the dump to be crushed into a cube and, honestly, this car probably deserved it. It had extensive structural rust throughout the car, it hadn’t been on the road since 1983, and the inside of it was piled high with trash. I’d always wanted an Opel GT. I had inquired about at least three of them I had found by the roadside in my various travels, and all were north of $7,000. But here was one for just $300! Off to Mexico we go!

This Opel opportunity was unique for two reasons. First, the kind acquaintance, who later became my friend, offered to store the car on his property for free while I worked on it. He also volunteered to teach me how to weld and fabricate, and offered up his fully equipped shop that contained every tool I would need for the job. I later learned that the Opel came with a second complete-but-terminally-rusty parts car that I could use to scavenge parts for my “good” Opel. This car, I thought, had a chance to live more than any of the others I had attempted.

So in the late fall of 2019 I started my quest to turn two very rusty 1971 Opel GTs into one driveable unit. I stripped it to a rolling shell, I learned how to use angle grinders and Sawzalls, and I became adept at the art of MIG welding. I robbed donor parts from the surplus Opel and bartered for spares among the very helpful Opel community. The pandemic lockdown came and went, and all the while I toiled away, driving one hour, each way, from my house to the farm property to work on it, pretty much every single weekend.

As the floors were welded into existence along with the rocker panels and lower structure of the car, my mindset began to shift. I had never before applied so much prolonged effort into reviving a car. I had been tinkering with the little yellow sports car for upwards of two years at this point. I had also sold off my classic Corvette and Suburban and purchased a sensible new hatchback to get around. I was becoming the mindless drone in a boring car that I had made fun of years earlier. And ya know? The mindless drones were on to something.

My friends went to car shows. I welded. My friends went to car cruises. I welded. People took camping trips with their partners. I welded. My project car was a second job that didn’t pay very well. But it was also centering and relaxing, in a way I imagine yoga or knitting would be. It was calming to be out there on the farm, subjected to Canada’s four seasons and to work with a forgotten little car that had no chance. And though progress was slow, it was progress.

Life progressed around me as well. In the time since 2019 when I started working on the car, an entire suburban neighborhood had formed surrounding the historic 1902 farmhouse. And with the suburbanites came suburban expectations. I soon ran afoul of the bylaw baddies and the residents who scrunched their noses at my rusty cars and the weekly din of the angle grinder as I chopped and welded the Opel into shape.

Having sold my own tow rig recently, I reached out to Ford to secure something more up to the task than my hatchback. Soon, I was driving an Atlas Blue Metallic Ford F-150 Tremor towards the familiar farm to drag home another dead car.

Compared to the sagging and worn interior of my old Suburban, the F-150 was as luxurious as a vacation home and quiet as a library. And I had a lot to ponder. With both turbos of the 3.5L EcoBoost V6 tugging me up the Niagara Escarpment, I watched as the dainty little Opel bumped over expansion joints in the rearview mirror. “Here I go dragging another dead car home,” I thought to myself. As dead as all the others that came before it. And though the nice new truck gave my project an unearned air of legitimacy to others on Highway 401 that day, I knew it would be up to me to make this car turn out different than the others.

The off-road tires of the Tremor grumbled against the pavement. This truck was built as a halfway point between the standard 4×4 and the all-conquering Ford Raptor. It tolerated towing, but I wouldn’t say it was a fan of it. Sure, it has the necessary oomph, with 400 hp and 500 lb-ft, but the suspension seems caught in an uneasy compromise between being soft enough to articulate on trails and firm enough to control a wagging trailer. It seemed that compromise lent more to the off-roading than the towing. Loaded or unloaded, the mileage wasn’t spectacular, and again, I think the Tremor package is partly to blame. The slight lift and big tires increase frontal area and rolling resistance. Unloaded, my best effort was 11.8 L/100 km; and while towing 5,000 pounds, I got middle 13s. Recommended fuel for towing with the EcoBoost is 91 octane, and with today’s fuel prices, that can be quite expensive.

What was also surprisingly expensive was the surmounting cost of bringing back a dead car. For the very first time I was tabling it up in an Excel sheet. The running total so far including the $300 car is $1,072. My selective accounting does not include gas to and from the farm, or tools I have purchased to support the car. Even with a $72 ticket, you’ll still have other expenses.

Once again, I have a dead car in my garage, but this time I am working to make sure the ending is different. I’m more focused on the single task of reviving this car by having a single project car instead of three. I’m more aware of the costs surrounding the project and have budgeted for what they will eventually be. And most importantly, I am determined to make this one count.

I have invested over 100 weekends of work on this car and I just can’t let this one go away without driving it. I have a long road left to go with my little Opel. But this one will not be another dead car. This one will live.

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