IT WAS “A HAPPY LITTLE ACCIDENT”
Just as painter Bob Ross, would say about any mistake he made while painting, Barb & Dick Moore’s acquisition of this 1970 Opel was indeed a "happy little accident". You see, Barb always wanted an Opel GT. “I dated a guy that had one. Couldn’t care less about the guy all these years later, but still loved that car.”
So, six years ago, her husband, Dick, scoured the internet and came up with one in Johnstown, NY. They drove up there and stopped at a UHAUL store to reserve a trailer, then carried on to go look at the car. While they liked the car, it was stuck inside a basement. The owner then hemmed and hawed over having to look for the title and figuring out how to get it out the basement. The whole affair screamed to them, “RUN!”
They stopped at the U-Haul store on the way home to cancel their reservation and the clerk asked, “Didn’t like that black car, huh?” Wait, the car Barb and Dick saw wasn’t black. Here, there was another 1970 Opel GT for sale just a few miles from the U-Haul center. What a happy little accident! They contacted that owner and arranged to see the car. That one was the winner, though it had been sitting for some time. “As we towed it away you could see mice jumping out of it on to the road,” Barb exclaimed.
The Moores did a bit of work to the car. Dick repainted it to a shade of yellow that was as close as he could get to the original color. It was riding on Cragar mags which he replaced with 15” wheels and 60 series radials. But it’s still powered by its original 1.9L 4-cylinder backed by the original 4-speed transmission. Oh, and check out those rotating hide-away headlights! I never knew they popped up like that! Barb and Dick have been enjoying the Opel for the past 7 years and drawing a crowd where every they go with it. As I walked away, I could here other spectators approach the same way I did, “Is that an Opel GT? I haven’t seen one of them in years!”
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