Couple of the days ago(7 months ago, I'm just lazy and I copied my old post from introduce yourself section to projects section) I become a proud new owner of a Opel speedster 2.2.
I've wanted one of these lightweight Hethel machines since the first time they appeared on the pages of performance car magazine. It really didn't matter to me if it was Lotus/Opel/Vauxhall.
In my country there is one lotus s1, one s2, a red speedster 2.2 NA and two speedster turbos. The s1 was crashed a couple of times and is probably in some garage waiting for a new body, the s2 isn't for sale and has suffered a side impact from an SUV, the NA speedster has a small front crash, one speedster turbo was being rebodied in to a custom classic shape and the other turbo is painted ivory pearl, has 19" chrome turbine wheels and has not yet been trough customs.
Importing a car would be to costly since I would need to pay another 30 to 40% on top of the buying price considering we're not in the EU. The only reasonable option was to wait for the NA speedster that was in a better shape that the rest to be put for sale. After two and a half years that finally happened. I didn't think twice about buying it, the next day after I saw it in the classifieds I had arranged to see it and bought it on the spot after a compete checkup.
The speedster has led a difficult life, I'm still not sure where it was first bought but it ended up Maribor Slovenia before being bought by its last owner in 2009. It wasn't really abused as a track car, bit it has suffered a lot of small indignities. This is how it looked at that time.
It had an Rs badge instead of the Opel lightning logo, the calipers were painted blue and had small chrome light bulbs on the tires and a cracked front clamshell.
In the past 3 years it has been painted matte black, badly, and then wrapped in carbon fiber. It was in a light front end collision with a parked car. It windshield was and still is cracked, the suspension has been swapped for hard core stiff gaz coilovers and the last time the geometry has been check was probably in 2006. The left rear wishbone has been cracked and welded and the right one in barely connected to the chassis. There a lot of of others problems, but I won't bore you with them.
In the next couple of days I'll start with the restoration of the speedster. First I'll try to setup the gaz coilovers, if that doesn't work im going back to the original Bilsteins. The carbon wrap is going to the thrash can first, after that the body panels will be taken of the car and prepped for painting. I'm still not decided on the paint, but it probably going to be petrol blue, although frozen gray is still a possibility. While the body is being painted the chassis will be checked and the drivetrain dismantled and reconditioned if needed. The wiring will probably need attention and the carbon wrap has to be removed from the dashboard.
I plan to order an LSD, windshield and an hardtop first and enjoy it as soon as I can finish with the restoration.
I'll keep you posted on all the work that will go in the Speedster.
I'm not sure if I'll upgrade the engine soon, if I can steer it with the throttle with the horsepower it's got I'll leave it standard.
