History
When our Lexus started to get spooky, I wondered what we'd replace it with. My late wife Sarah was partial to a Mazda 6, but as it would be our primary drive car seven days per week, I wanted something that I would really enjoy as well.
The Lexus was a nifty bit of gear and only used a snifter of petrol for a 4.0 litre V8, but Sarah really did like that V8 oomph and she really didn't want to take a step back, luxury-wise. Before we even went looking for something, this black Holden Caprice dropped in our lap!
I was scrolling Facebook and came across a post from Iron Chef Imports; is anyone interested in this WM Caprice? It's in Singapore, was delivered new to the Australian consulate and is likely to go cheap as nobody knows what it is and it uses all the fuel.
We landed it in Australia, including Chef's brokerage fee, for $14,000 at a time when WMs with good k's were still going for $20k. This had only 89,000 on it, but the paint and interior had lived a hard life. The car had been served by a Chevy dealer and still had the Singapore plates on it! Kristian from Iron Chef wanted to keep the plates to hang up, but I said if he did that the deal would be off!
The car landed needing a full suspension rebuild, fairly dire paint, trim bits knocked around and a piece of window chrome missing (common issue; the other one fell off while we owned it).
It was a faithful, powerful steed. My wife Sarah loved wasting fools at the traffic lights!
My wife was getting progressively more ill with breast cancer and at the same time, the car started making a crazy noise. I was hoping it was the harmonic balancer, but it turned out to be something else; I can't remember what. But the lifter buckets were shagged, necessitating new lifters, new cam, new cam bearings and therefore an engine-out job.
It took about three weeks of exploratory surgery and repairs to get it back on the road. My mechanic suggested an upgrade cam, seeing as the car would need a tune anyway. He also put in heavy duty everything-else, as is his way; he doesn't like doing the same job twice!
The end result was an animal; only mild, of course, but when you tickle a 6.0, it really wakes up. By the time it was fixed, Sarah could no longer drive. I took her for a blast around the block. She had to hold her head in place to ensure it didn't jag backwards and cause her intense pain, but she did it and she approved of the upgrade.
That was in August 2018; on 22 October she had passed away.
I didn't love the car; it had cost us $8k in engine repairs alone, was untidy and just wasn't something I wanted to sink deeper into. I sold it in November 2018 and bought my Regal Peacock Calais V. I figured, if I'm going to the the sole, widowed parent driving my kids around, I'm going to drive exactly what I want to drive.
Modifications
Diplomatic immunity
x2 flexible stalk-mounted lights for reading important diplomatic papers
flag holder in passenger side guard (yes, really)
cam
ported heads
'bigger lifters' (in joke)
dyno tune
