OPELS EVERYWHERE
“There’s a fine line between a hobby and mental illness,” Rob Cassidy jokes of his very large Opel collection. Check out his wheels,
Some people collect Hello Kitty memorabilia. Taphophiles like to visit cemeteries and make gravestone rubbings. Extreme ironing has its devotees.
There’s a man in south London, England, whose hobby it is to appear in the background of TV news reports filmed in public spaces.
Then there’s Rob Cassidy. He likes Opel cars. A lot. His rambling Scarborough home may be the quintessential bachelor pad: there’s a killer stereo in the living room, pictures of cars and airplanes on every wall surface and multiple microwave ovens in the kitchen.
Auto parts fill every nook and cranny. Walk downstairs and the steps lead seamlessly into the garage under the house, where Cassidy’s passion is on full display.
A brilliant yellow-green Opel Manta coupe graces the prime spot, with a second one shrouded in dust and omnipresent car parts. He picks up a suspension component to illustrate the depth of his ardour.
“I’ve got a guy in Connecticut who remanufactures suspension pieces that are much better than original,” he says, pointing out the fine weld line on a wishbone that’s been fully boxed in heavy steel and powder-coated.
Viewed from the international space station, Cassidy’s house is surrounded by a phalanx of cars tightly arranged on two driveways: one of the benefits of having a corner lot. His little slice of heaven resembles the Don Valley Parkway on a weekday afternoon.
How many cars, exactly, Cassidy prefers not to say. Remarkably, he’s won over the neighbours who tacitly approve of his hobby, but it comes with inherent costs. He throws a street party annually and knows the local bylaw officer by name.
“Every car you see here is fully insured and plated. I just spent $1,200 at the licence bureau the other day,” he winces.
Cassidy is the first to admit he’s an Opelholic, but is at a loss to explain why it has afflicted him so greatly.
He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, into a family that unravelled a few short years later. His divorced mother moved to Canada, and young Robert would make the crossing often to visit her. He grew to love the country, but it wasn’t until he joined the Royal Air Force that he elected to make Canada his home after the RAF dispatched him to Goose Bay, N.L.
There were a few diversions along the way, including a six-year stint working in Saudi Arabia, but he eventually settled in Toronto in 1999.
Having worked as an RAF crew chief looking after Tornado interceptors, it was relatively easy finding work as an aviation technician.
His trade may well offer a clue as to his all-consuming obsession: executive jets and Opels both require a fastidious mind and skilled hands to keep running.
His first brush with Opel was his grandfather’s 1974 Manta 1.9 RXB, a limited-edition model sold in the U.K.
“This was the first Opel I really fell in love with. I have great memories of travelling the length and breadth of Scotland in that car with my grandfather.” The car was passed along to Cassidy’s father, who suffered a collision with it, then left the wreck for young Rob to restore.
Cassidy eventually found another RXB, but having been posted overseas, both the Lancia and the Manta were put into storage. While the Manta survived well, the Lancia rotted from within, terminating his Italian love af- fair. He turned his attention to the Holy Grail of Mantas: the Broadspeed Turbo, a black beauty he found and squirrelled away in storage when he emigrated to Canada.
Two years later and firmly established in Toronto, he returned to the U.K. to retrace 3,000 kilometres in a Ford Transit van and collect a huge assortment of Opel parts that filled a 40-foot shipping container along with the two Mantas.
Cassidy brought his “Opelitis” to a new land.
Wholly owned by General Motors, Opel is a household name in Europe, known for its bestselling Kadett and Astra hatchbacks (Volkswagen Golf rivals), Omega luxury sedan and Antara crossover.
“The thing with Opels is, you buy one, then you have to buy a parts car. Then you find a much nicer one, and then you set about restoring the first one — then they breed,” he offers by way of explanation.
“As the madness takes hold, I started to diversify, finding the ‘grey’ imports: an Ascona A 1.6 from Alberta, an Ascona B 2.0e from Montreal, a Manta i200 from Florida, a Senator B 24V from New Mexico, a Diplomat V8 in Onta- rio, and a Kadett C Aero from New Brunswick.”
The Kadette C is a targa-topped “convertible” that was never sold in North America, one of only two that made the crossing, likely with a returning soldier. Naturally, Cassidy snapped up the second one, too.
His outrageous Opel GT Conrero tribute car — a former calendar pin-up — came from the U.S. West Coast. The
owner heard Cassidy had been making inquiries about it, so he called him up. The two agreed to meet in Montana with Cassidy making the 5,700-kilometre round trip in six days with his Dodge Dakota and trailer in tow to bring his prize home.
Numerous forays like that is how he’s come to fill an entire barn in rural Ontario and cram his Scarborough home with more Opels than one can shake a stick at.
“People think I buy these cars, fix them up and sell them for a profit,” he says. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The cheapest part of owning an Opel is buying the car. Maybe you’ll get it for $500. But you can spend $5,000 in parts and another $5,000 in body repairs and paint. If you turn around and sell it, you’re never going to get anything close to the sum you’ve put into it.”
When Magna chairman Frank Stronach made overtures about buying Opel, Cassidy wrote to him to volunteer his Opel collection as the backdrop at the anticipated media conference. The offer still stands, Frank.