In search of....

First off.. hello everyone. I'm new to this forum and you could say in new to rally racing as I've never raced a rally (yet.. ) just started my own business and money's short but hoping buy end of the summer I'll have enough to buy a car and get started then build one down the road. Anyway enough off the topic imy looking for an old rally car and have been searching for the damn thing for years. My luck it's probably in a scrap yard some where but I'll keep looking. It is or was a blue 1970s opel manta A ( Or 1900) that ran in the scca back in the 70s and 80s. Last I knew where it was was parked behind noise park in Idaho falls in the mid 90s but the guys at that track haven't seen it so I don't know where it went to from there. I'll try to post some pictures of it when I dig them up but if anyone has heard of this car I'd really like to find it... thanks

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Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon....... no matter how good you are. The bird is gonna shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Whoever is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid.... you're fired.

Doubtless that car was my old friend Richard Furhman. he dropped in here at The Ford Asylum back in '06, he was riding around the PNW on his motorcycle and just POOOF! knocked on the door.. It was good seeing him and he brought me a present too! 30 years late i finally got a set of the results of OhLimpWrist WRC where he and I had some fun battles ( till he flipped about 50 yards in front of us--at about 60 mph)..

He said he'd been manageing and living at the roundy round place but it had been sold and the gig was up..
I fear the cars are gone...

Ya know before I began pushing Xratties and 240 Volvos I had about 5 Opel guys here in the PNW I kept supplied with goodies like quick racks, and carbie kits and close ratio gearsets and suspension and built a few pretty damn good engines--this coming week I assemble a motor I first did way back in 1987 for The Original Old Dave Clark...(just got from a secret source in the wilds of rural Cornyeticult a 2,2 head...way better port positioning)

Dave and I have been lamenting the near total disappearance of Mantas and Ascona A shells..There's easily 20 of those silly toy Oldpile Gee Tea things for every sedan...

Personally despite a real soft spot and lots of happy memories I would not consider a Manta or Ascona for a rally car unless you found 2 and some extra junk...

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

This particular car was my dads (John Morton.. and not the one most people think about).. he built it back in the 70s in Glendale CA. He ran it in such races as the 1977 rim of the world..1976 Mojave 24 rally...among others... last race he drove it was in 1986 the year before I was born... then it spent the next 10 years in our driveway under a tarp.. he sold it to a guy that worked in his garage before we moved east when I was young... my father past away in 2005 and I've been searching for the car since then for sentimental reasons hoping it got stuck in someone's barn and not in the junk yard... hard for me to track it down being on the other side of the country and the time gap and not knowing what the guy who bought the car did to it or even his name..I remember my dads nick name for him was scrotum but not his real name... anywho... like I said I'll try to post some pics of it that I have when I get a chance to dig them out in the next day or so.....

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Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon....... no matter how good you are. The bird is gonna shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Whoever is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid.... you're fired.

Well good luck.. I lost my Mom on my birfdee 6 months ago and my Dad 10 years ago...They live on in my heart and in my pea-brain and now in my wife and kids hearts--not that they knew them, but because the stories of their love and patience and insights and jokes that I told them about my Mom and my dad...I've even managed to teach my wife what a DC-3 is on sight (we just saw one in a great Preston Stuges film from 1941 last night.. 1.5 second clip of a DC-3 and i shout out "what kind of plane is that?" "DC-3!!" because my dad let me sit at the controls of a Navy one in 1957 going from Naples, Italy to Rome... They all know the story because I told them what my dad did..Not what he owned for a while)

You can look for the car but your car is and was not your dad. And really, that car was his trip. not yours.. honor the memory of your dad by carrying on the spirit he had in building and pounding on his car by finding your own car and building that...Cherish memories. Not stuff.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

You are completely right.. your story made me choke up a little... I lost my mom 2 years after my dad when I was 17 and unfortunately my girlfriend will never know them other than the stories I share about them... I know it's just a car ( one that when I asked him where he thought it was before he died he said "what the bloody hell do you want that hunk of crap for... I flogged the he'll out of that thing you don't want it... we will build you a better rally car when you turn 18"... unfortunately that never happend) but I've always thought it would be cool to find it. And every once in a wile I put some feelers out even though it's probably recycled into a refrigerator long ago. I've worked a long time to build my shop to the point I could afford rally myself and with any luck at the end of the summer I'll be able to pick up someones unwanted rally car to throw through the woods and get me started wile I build my own and hopefully pick your guys brains for tips and suggestions, and maybe see you guys out there and try to give you a run for your money.

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Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon....... no matter how good you are. The bird is gonna shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Whoever is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid.... you're fired.

There are a few old-timers who have recently surfaced on some of the Opel forums and Facebook whose roots date back to when the cars were new. Some did Showroom Stock Racing, some autocross, some IMSA, but a few did rally.

If you have pics of the car I could forward them perhaps. Might luck out and find out the end result of the car in question.

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/

Quote
Darkhorse
You are completely right.. your story made me choke up a little... I lost my mom 2 years after my dad when I was 17 and unfortunately my girlfriend will never know them other than the stories I share about them... I know it's just a car ( one that when I asked him where he thought it was before he died he said "what the bloody hell do you want that hunk of crap for... I flogged the he'll out of that thing you don't want it... we will build you a better rally car when you turn 18"... unfortunately that never happend) but I've always thought it would be cool to find it. And every once in a wile I put some feelers out even though it's probably recycled into a refrigerator long ago. I've worked a long time to build my shop to the point I could afford rally myself and with any luck at the end of the summer I'll be able to pick up someones unwanted rally car to throw through the woods and get me started wile I build my own and hopefully pick your guys brains for tips and suggestions, and maybe see you guys out there and try to give you a run for your money.

Be happy you can choke up. So many can't or are afraid to feel anything. Or are too hip.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Personally I think that if you think your to tough or "hip" to feel emotions, get choked up.. your either full of crap or a chicken shit. Someone tells a story about there parents that makes you miss your or is touching you get choked up do sent matter how cool you think you are... but.. on the other hand. If you in the garage and smash the he'll out of your hand you rub some dirt and grease in the wound, wrap it in electrical tape and pick your tools back up and go to work.. you can cry about it later when your alone and the job is done..

As far as the pictures we moved awhile ago and I don't remember what box they are in... I looked last night and found a stack of old slides of the car but they are kinda hard to get on the Internet, I'll look around some more but if I can't find the actual pictures I'll find my way into town and see if anyone still knows how to turn a slide into a picture and throw them up here.

---

Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon....... no matter how good you are. The bird is gonna shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Whoever is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid.... you're fired.

Quote
Darkhorse
Personally I think that if you think your to tough or "hip" to feel emotions, get choked up.. your either full of crap or a chicken shit. .

Or both

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Well I'll see if this works.. I couldn't find any of my good pics of it so I guess I put them in a safe place and forgot what box that is.. Forgive the poor quality 2 of them are really bad pictures and the rest are actually old slides that I held up to the light and took a picture of..

---

Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon....... no matter how good you are. The bird is gonna shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Whoever is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid.... you're fired.