“WE SETTLED ON A SERIES 200, LIMITED EDITION, ONLY 600 WERE MADE”
become more and more vague with the wife about the budget.
These cars were built manually during the 1980s and each car had subtle differences built in by the assembly line workers such as blackouts, paint line borders and trim finishes.
The paint shop wanted me to be specific in what was expected of them, so we decided to look around for a template for them to compare to: an unmolested standard VL model, with fuel injected six-cylinder Nissan motor, something collectible with a luxury trim level, built in the same Adelaide factory around the same time as the Calais.
I handballed this task to my son John and, after he’d done some research, we settled on what’s called a Series 200 limited edition model. Just 600 were released in 1988 for Australia’s bicentenary.
We put the feelers out and managed to find a completely original one that had been in storage for a number of years near Nowra in
“OUR NEW PROJECT WAS A BIT OF A DEATHTRAP”
NSW. It was running but as it had been sitting for over 10 years, fluids, hoses and tyres were all suspect so picking it up and driving it home was not going to happen. After arranging shipping to Devonport we trailered it to Hobart.
Even though we were told it was a runner it reeked of fuel and it wouldn’t go unless it had over three-quarters of a tank of juice. Further investigation showed all the fuel hosing, including the internal lines, were completely rotted out. Our new project was a bit of a death trap.
After repairing the fuel system and replacing a cracked windscreen, we took it to the paint shop to be used as a template for the completion of the Calais.
The Calais was returned to me in September 2019 for reassembly, I had spent 14 months cleaning and refurbishing the existing parts while sourcing any missing original parts to ensure the completed car matched the factory build sheet. The hardest bit to find was an original Cobra alarm module, which was showing on the build sheet.
John found one for me and bought it with two Cobra branded remotes for my birthday – that boy knows how to invest in an inheritance!
One rewarding detail item, that was especially interesting to research, was the original factory stickers that would have been applied as the components of the car listed on the build sheet were picked and installed as the car was assembled.