Good Afternoon One and All,

I would be extremely grateful for any advice from fellow Calibra owners regarding the fate of my own venerable ‘old lady’, an early Calibra Turbo 4x4.

For many years, I was the proud driver of this wonderful beast, having owned the car since new.  As it was a second car, I only managed to clock up about 65,000 miles and had endless plans for touring around both the UK and Europe.

Just after the turn of the Millennium, fate took a hand in my life and I faced, what seemed like, an endless string of challenges in my personal and work life that meant that the Calibra was relegated to standing on my Parent’s drive.  Even that wasn’t as straightforward as it could have been, as I ended up caring for my parents up until their death last year and the car has not moved for nearly ten years.

I now find myself free to do something with the car and with a few extra pounds in my pocket and the questions are:

Can it be restored to its former glory or has it gone too far?

What needs to be done to get it back on the road and how technically competent do I need to be to do it?

I am painfully aware of my own technical/mechanical limitations and was hoping to find a friendly garage (do such things exist) to give an initial overview of what needs to be done and (hopefully) get the car back into a driveable condition.  Once the car is mobile, I can then concentrate on restoring the bodywork and any upgrades that I might want to carry out (I work on the principle that if something needs to be replaced, I might as well replace it with something better than the original).

Are there any fellow Calibra Owners out there who can off me any advice or point me in the direction of a friendly restorer who would offer a realistic diagnosis and recommendation as to what to do with this car; which I would still love to hurtle through the Swiss Alps or the Spanish Plains.

 Apologies for letting such a great car get into such a sorry state, but any help with putting things right would be gratefully received.

Barry

Sounds like a plan........Rust is a major issue....It can be done...but it would be a huge cost for a company to do it....but a basic tool kit and time and space to do it would be better....some parts are hard to get...some parts are used on other vauxhalls of this era...a few pics of underneath will tell you loads......


before

 

after



So its up to you.....time and money........this is my SE6 project

I agree, the early turbos are getting very rare now and will definitely not be going down in value. As for getting it ready for the road rust will be the main enemy. I have a project V6 that was stood for around 7 years and started first time. All brakes fuel lines etc will need checking though.

Those are just regular things that go wrong with these things so learning to do a bit yourself will save some cash and headache down the road, some things will need constant attention.