Update - for those who remember these Kadetts.
Sometime around July or August I got a text from Alex V. asking if I wanted to take stewardship of the Opile. I said yes, of course! Pretty much immediately. I wasn't expecting him to be ready to part with the car, but he's moved on to various other projects including motorcycles. I think he had basically accomplished everything he set out to do with the Opile except maybe for a transmission swap to something more modern / robust.
So I brought home the car in late September, after getting the full download from Alex on various possible clutch & trans upgrades that he was mentally marinating for a while. Anyway he is still "on the team" and a member of our workshop, and he will of course be first on the list of invited drivers next time we race this thing.
Alex awkens the Opile from its slumber in his Glendale driveway:
Proud new owner poses with the steed:
Back home in Torrance, meeting up with my wife's 2002
But before bringing home another vehicle I had to make some room for it... in space, time, and wallet. So I awoke my '66 Beetle from its 2-year slumber and sold it to family friends to become their oldest daughter's first car, and a father/daughter project. This was my first car, I'd had it for over 20 years and had resisted selling it for a long time for sentimental reasons. The reality was it was sad to see it sit while I was occupied with other activities. So I refreshed the whole fuel system, gave it a thorough tune-up, spruced up the interior with new rubber mats and some OG '66 door cards, and then moved it along to a happy new home.
Two years of crustiness...
After cleaning & tune-up. It ran just as well as ever with only a modest amount of work.
Fresh rubbers:
Inside the doors of a 56-year-old CA car after some cleaning and WD-40:
The "finished" interior...
Bye, little Beetle!
Next on the chopping block was the '93 Miata that my wife and I had been using as a street legal trackday car for the past 5 or 6 years. We had lots of great experiences & memories with this car at Laguna Seca and Buttonwillow, but the Opile has 2 seats and a full cage, and now can turn pretty much identical laptimes to the average NA Miata on the same tires. So having the Miata became kind of redundant. This was a great car with the bone-stock 1.6 and stock suspension, Blackbird Fabworx rollbar, Sparco seats / steering wheel, and harnesses. We ran Falken Azenis 615Ks on this just like the Lemons cars. I did some paint correction and a few maintenance jobs, then sold it on Cars & Bids to a father & son who were super stoked about it and flew out from SLC to LA the very next day to pick it up and drive it home.
The Little Red Kadett as seen in this thread will also be moving along eventually, as will the Kadett Rallye parts car (which became mine when I bought the Opile). I'll have more updates on the LRK as I start giving it attention again and get it ready for whoever the next owner will be.
In the meantime, the Opile has done duty as a hit Halloween decoration in our front yard, and a great Cars & Coffee conveyance.
Obligatory & inevitable Magnus Walker shot: