Whenever you sell a car that hasn’t been a complete, barn-burning disaster to own, you kind of wish it to have a good life after you hand over the keys. It’s a given: you’ve provided the car with at least basic maintenance for some time, and it would be at least expected that the next owner give it due care in his time of ownership. Some time ago, I wrote about a Ford Scorpio a former owner bought back to save it, and he drives to this day. But the googly-eyed blob Scorpio is an acquired taste, and it deserved to be cherished – if that’s what floats your boat.
This 1997 Opel Vectra, in comparison, is probably one of the closest things to an appliance-like European automobile. Conceived in the time when General Motors Europe wasn’t known for the sharp styling it features on current Opels, nor the sturdy straight attractiveness of olden Opels, this B-series Vectra is a four-door swoop of committee product planning finished in non-metallic red and featuring only the basic 1.6-litre 16-valve engine.
However, this Vectra used to belong to a friend of mine, Robert. He traded it in for a turbo Octavia a couple of years ago, and the day these photos were taken marked the first time he had seen the Opel in the metal again. It wasn’t a happy get-together.
For whatever reason, the Opel had been towed into the spot where it sat in Central Helsinki. It looked abandoned, with the red paint faded and dusty, featuring dents and hits that weren’t there the last time around. But even if the car looked reasonably straight outside, and on my photos it appears bearable, it was the interior that raised some questions.
The entirety of the cabin was filled to the brim with garbage. Not just your regular run-of-the-mill ersatz stuff that floats on your seats or footwell, but literal garbage. Old newspapers, plastic bags, weird hoarding stuff that belongs to the dump and not inside anyone’s vehicle – let alone anyone left with a smidgen of sanity. The rear arches the dealership had repaired after classic Opel rust had appeared had been let to deteriorate again, and the tow bar bore a tell-tale blue rope. On the dusty dashboard, there were remnants of fluids, the origin of which I don’t even want to guess. It’s like the only logical place for this junk had appeared to be this Vectra. I don’t want to know what it smells like inside the car on a hot July day – we get those here even if it seems unlikely.
The car still wore the ENZO wheels Robert bought for it, with the rubber on them driven to the ground. He had serviced the car at least diligently, and endured a costly engine repair at one point when the engine decided to munch on some valves. The weird thing is, he traded it in on the other side of the country, and somehow it had followed him back to the capital region. I MMS’d him a photo after spotting the car, and we had the following conversation: “This your old car?” “Yeah, WTF” “It’s back in Helsinki. Full of random crap.” He biked to see it himself, took a quick look at it and left it near-immediately. “Couldn’t face it like that, beaten and messed up. But you’re some Sherlock.”
To any random observer, the Vectra looks like a homeless person’s sleeping ground. But it used to belong to someone who cleaned it, filled the tank, had the service book stamped, made sure it passed inspection. At some point it was factory fresh, straight off the transport from Rüsselsheim. I almost feel bad I let the former owner see it – it gives out the air of being on its last legs after some catastrophic engine damage, not far from being collected to being delivered to a Helsinki city yard full of abandoned vehicles sharing its fate, then hauled to be scrapped. It’s not the aftermath of destruction the derelict LeBaron was, but the direction is the same.
Have you ever reconnected with a car you wish you hadn’t seen the way you saw it again?
[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]
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