My recent trip to the continent!!

[willie]

April last, myself and a mate drove to Holland via the UK and then travelled on to Germany.
In Holland, we attended the 'Big Opel Meet' in Dronten. I met a few members on here at it....





There were some stunning Opel coupes there aswell including this pair of Commadore Coupe's..

[willie]

After the show we travelled on towards Frankfurt where we paid a visit to Opel HQ...




While there we got a tour of the Opel Classics Workshop. Here's a few Calibra related photo's...
Cliff Calibra DTM

One of the Calibra Cabrio prototypes

This Calibra 4x4 is owned by the Opel family who have a vast collection of cars under the workshop....

We also got a peep at the new 'Calibra' concept which is well on the way to production. It will be using a stretched Astra floor pan as opposed to the Insignia based concept seen here.....

[garyb]

Fantastic post!

What route did you take?
What model Calibra do you have?
Who where the other members from here you met?
What was the reason for the trip - to see the Opel hq?
Did you have to advance book to get the Workshop tour or just turned up on spec?

Interesting info about the next Calibra. Friends of friends in Russelheim factory management say they're already tooling up for 2013...

[willie]

Amongst other things, we spent 3 nights at the Nurburgring. I'd happily spend 3 weeks there!
The place was crazy!! The Cally took a few runs around the track and performed very well apart from the brakes not being up to scratch.
There was only one other Calibra out on the track over the weekend (that I saw anyway) and that was this matt green track prepared 8v...

Here's a few pics of my own bus...




At the hotel, the Cally met its German cousin. This Keke Rossberg Edition was parked beside it one morning....



So that's it in a nutshell. Apologies for the quality of some of the pictures. We had a sh1te camera!

[willie]

Fantastic post!

What route did you take?
What model Calibra do you have?
Who where the other members from here you met?
What was the reason for the trip - to see the Opel hq?
Did you have to advance book to get the Workshop tour or just turned up on spec?

Interesting info about the next Calibra. Friends of friends in Russelheim factory management say they're already tooling up for 2013...

Cheers Gary! I have a DTM turbo which was 4x4 up to the week before we left.
We travelled from Dublin to Holyhead and then got the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland. We had to travell 2hrs up to Dronten before heading to Russelsheim so I reckon you could make Russelsheim in around 3 hrs from the Hook of Holland direct. One of the guys I met from here was a dutch chap who builds Angeleye lights. 'Illusion' or something like that was his user name.
My mate in the Insignia had made contact with a guy in Opel PR department expressing an interest in getting a tour of the Classic Workshop and he just said give him a date when we wanted to do it and he would meet us to give the tour. Anyone can contact them and they are very nice people. There was only myself and my wife and my mate and his wife so you don't have to have a large group to get in. I think there is a max limit of 9 allowed in at any one time actually.
We were very lucky that the PR Manager came down and introduced himself to us and asked us if we would like to take one of the cars out for a drive!! So we got to drive a 1971 Kadett B coupe rallycar and Walter Rohls 1977 Kadett C coupe rallycar around the factory grounds which is vast!
The entire plant covers an area the size of Monaco!!!
Our main reason for the trip was the visit to the Classic Workshop but we said we'd cram as much in as we could while we were over. We also visited Irmschers factory and showroom and the Porsche Museum aswell as a bit of normal touristy sightseeing to keep the girls happy.

[Fraz]

very nice trip and loving the workshop pictures...so how much did all that cost then

[v6 steve]

now thats what i call a road trip great pics

[RobbieV]

Great pics and excellent write up, thanks

[Callyman]

Thanks for sharing your journey with us. Great pics.

[leelee]

i always fancied going to the nurburgring.did you see any accidents mate.great pics by the way

[D-Man]

Perfect trip!

[lammy]

Spot on and your car looks great...

[Mark1]

Nice trip.

[MadOnVaux!]

Fantastic pics and some awesome cars there.....that calibra project looks stunning, i do hope they release it over here

[vec 160]

Looks like it was a great trip. Some very nice looking cars in the museum