The Opel Manta was a sporty coupe produced in Europe and sold through Buick dealers from 1970 to 1975. While the company built half a million copies overall, the number that hit U.S. shores was only a small portion of the total. As Buick got into building smaller cars of their own, demand for the Opel in the States trickled way off. This 1973 Manta, a Rallye edition, is a running project located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $1,600. Thanks for the cool tip, “Happy Howard A”!
Opel was part of General Motors’ global footprint for many years. Several Opel models were offered at one time or another by Buick dealers, including the Kadett and this car, the Manta. The German vehicle was based on the Ascona, a family car, and employed conventional engineering, such as rear-wheel drive. Only one body style was offered, the coupe like we see here. The only engine choice in the U.S. was a 1.9-liter inline-4, and – typically – a 4-speed manual transmission was included.
U.S. Mantas were initially marketed as 1900 Sport Coupés. In 1973, the Rallye model (like the seller’s car) was also offered, but was really just an appearance and gauge package. We’re told this 53-year-old Opel runs, drives, and stops, but has issues. The tires are worn out, and the engine may have a leak in the back. But some brake work has been done. The body is far from perfect, with rust in the “usual” areas (I guess Open fans would know where they are).
The interior is pretty much toast, and the driver’s bucket seat is down to the springs. One piece of glass is missing, along with a door panel. The seller is an Opel guy, but this one has more rust on the floors than he wishes to fool with. The asking price is simply an attempt to recoup costs and the seller would entertain a trade for another Opel, either a Kadett or GT.
Nice to see one of these still around. I worked on many of these back in the day. You just don’t see them anymore. This obviously needs work, but would make a good conversation piece at the local cars and coffee.
Pretty much the same drive train as the early 70s Kadett, of which I had one. I drove it for a few years and I liked it.
Had a Manta Luxus in dark blue with 4 speed. Factory new tires were horrible. Michelin radials one size larger transformed the car into a great car. It really needed the european 5 speed transmission version. Huge trunk, great seats. Good for 29 mpg on open road. Much better car than the Ford Capri with the 2000 cc engine. Upstate New York salt ate mine in 5 years.
Had the exact same one and the tires were the worst. They held on until they didn’t and had the only accident in my life. Replace them with the original TA radials, the ones without the cross treads, and was one of the best road cars I ever had. Raced a 240 Z in the twisties and the only time he could make any ground was in the straightaways. Love that car!
This is pretty much a Kadett with a snazzier body. They were more than decent cars of the day. GM even toyed with the idea of rebadging them as Buick Manta. I’m surprised they didn’t as it may have helped sales.
I remember these when they were new. My late god-father sold them at his Pontiac-Buick dealership. They did not sell well, and GM forced dealers to accept them as a percentage of total inventory…… If you wanted to get your allotment of hot GTOs, Firebirds, and Buicks, you Had to take some Opels. The dealership mechanics did not have Opel experience or much training, and generally tried to avoid working on them. As the mechanics were paid “flat rate”, they made way more money working on cars they knew well, and could fix quickly. Good dealership mechanics working an 8 hr day, could easily be paid for 10-12+ hrs. Dealerships often didn’t have Opel parts on hand, and that added to the problem. I still remember my godfather saying he was going to have a contest with a new Opel as first prize….Second prize was 2 Opels.
My Mom carpooled to work with one of the Mechanical Engineers she worked with. He called Opels “Hitler’s revenge”, LOL!
“Happy Howard A”? Clearly a typo, and no, I haven’t started taking “Ignoritall” either, yet, after the terlet post, and a few tips, a renewed interest, of sorts, not to mention the characters that follow the site. I’m sure the BFs “filter” will need a cleaning after that one.
When a member to FB, and browsing the MarketPlace, it “remembers” what you looked at, and features that kind of stuff next visit, okay, except the toilet, I don’t spend my time looking at “loos”,,,yet, but this came up, and a great find. Cheyenne isn’t that far, I’d love to have one again,,EXCEPT,,as expected, the stick is the deal breaker for me.
I had a couple Opels, a ’67 Kadett wagon( that my brother said was my old mans, but no way), a ’68 Kadett Rallye, that was a fun car. Scotty wrote one up on May 7, 2021, that blew me away and a marooooon ( in my Bugs Bunny voice) Manta. Had friends with them, relatives, and co-workers, Opels, in general were pretty popular, except at the dealer. The Rallye was not really a popular car, and had a few features the Manta didn’t, like blackout hood( now faded), the 4 speed, extra gauges, stripes and a different rear axle ratio. Again, your results may differ, but I read a ’73 Rallye cost just over $3grand,( $3011) about $700 more than a basic Manta. With a Pinto at about $1919, these were costly, but since the Asian market hadn’t kicked in yet, and the Capri was the only alternative, and aside from the Isuzu Opel, which was just plain wrong on so many fronts, the Opel quietly faded away,,,,until just now. Thing to check here, is the front suspension is mounted on stubs coming from the unibody, and have a tendency to rust through. I replaced the dismal Solex on mine and couple others cars, an Autolite 2 barrel from a Pinto fits right on, and with mechanical secondary, a much better drive. They were good cars.
Thanks, Russ.
Good little nightmares for opel ascona at the time! Great car ! You can
Work out easy up 2.0 liter and better carburetor at the weber 40 and nice cams 152 timing ! Well of course better pistons from commodore opel as well ! And bingo ! There you are a very powerful fast car ! I really enjoy a lot at the time! Well opel manta rally didn’t have a chance in 1/4 mile those days! Still the little car is a good car to restore! And have fun
Like the special lightweight driver’s seat.
The Ascona/1900/Manta/Rallye/Sportwagon were a significant improvement over the earlier Kadett with more interior room, better seats, tighter suspension & structure, weather sealing etc etc.
Yes, stock Goodyears were a joke but Michelin had 70-series tires for the 13×5 rims. Stopped by on the way home from the Buick store.
Under Buick dealer influence quite a few were sold with 3-sp automatics and the gearing was long enough they made good flatland cruisers. Only some Fiat Sport and Alfa Romeo models had 5-speeds back then.
I drove my ’74 well into the ’80s with 100K+ on it. Currency changes in the Dm vs the $ killed it. Buick service shops varied but most were unenthusiastic.
Nobody is going to retire to Antibes on the proceeds but they were good cars. Ate up the early years of SCCA Showroom Stock.
you don’t see these anymore.
I always liked the body style on these. When living in Illinois a local guy lowered his and installed a small block Ford V8. It was cool looking with the “Minilite” look like wheels, fat tires and it was a screamer on the autocross runs. If I ran across one of these locally with no rust issues. I would buy one just to play with.
Most of my first cars were Opels… Either a Kadette with a 1.9 or a 1.5.
My Dad was there Opel tech back in the day. Guess that is why Opels were my first cars to drive!! Owned many more years later…including Opel GTs.
Would love to find a 68 to 70 Kadette Rallye!!
It’ll be a real short test drive, with that custom front seat.
This one has pretty rough interior, but the body does not look too bad for a 73.
Might be a nice project, a bit far away from where I am in South Carolina.
I had a 73 manta rallye 4 speed.
Had round fog lights standard as well as a nice guage pkg.. mine was white with black hood and stripe, interior was red and the seats were nice and comfortable.
My dad bought it new in 73 for 3k out the door!
We drove the hell outta this car racing up and down the mountain roads. We raced
BMW 2002 and to tell the truth for the money it was a dam good little racer.
You could toss it around!
I ended up totaling it when a ford maverick pulled out in front of me and I T-boned him!
What a shame too only had 21,000 miles on it! Great times for sure.
The rear suspension setup, a solid rear axle with a Watt’s linkage, coil springs and trailing arms, was high tech for 1973, about as close as you could get to an independent rear suspension back in the day without spending Corvette money for a true IRS setup, except for the Corvair or a 1961-63 Pontiac Tempest, made so memorably famous by Marisa Tomei, as Mona Lisa Vito in “My Cousin Vinny” (1992), LOL!
We owned two (2) of these as daily drivers in college, used of course. I had a 1972 mint green Opel 1900, four speed with dealer-installed air conditioning, my brother bought a yellow 1974 Opel Manta Rallye to replace his stolen 1969 Firebird Sprint Convertible, which was never recovered (Rob Sad.). His developed carburetor issues which weren’t fixed by rebuilding the stock Solex carburetor, so the Solex went into the trash bin, and it was replaced with a manual choke Weber. In the final year of US sales (1975), the carburetor was replaced with Bosch fuel injection.
Great handling cars, but rust was a problem, particularly under the battery, which was located next to the firewall and brake master cylinder. Battery fumes would rot the metal, which would allow water to leak into the main fuse box, creating no end of electrical gremlins!
If I ever buy another one, the first thing I’d do is move the battery to the trunk and weld in new metal to fix the large hole in the sheet metal under the battery that would be there, thanks to the rust from the battery corrosion. We slathered fiberglass cloth and resin under the battery to patch the hole, as a cheap fix, befitting our status as poor, starving college students, LOL! Don’t forget to unbolt the fuse box from the sheet metal first, so you don’t get liquid resin in the wiring, LOL! It’s just two (2) nuts that hold the fuse box in place, attached to threaded studs welded to the sheet metal.
The other Achilles Heel for these was the distributor hold-down bolt. It threaded into a small extension of the engine block casting, but the extension would crack and fall off if you over-torqued the hold-down bolt (don’t ask me how I know this, LOL)! Then you couldn’t lock the distributor into position and the distributor wouldn’t hold timing. The fix was simple. A Heli-Coil insert and a couple of washers under the hold-down bolt was the fix. We had to have the car towed to our mechanic for the fix, since we didn’t have a Heli-Coil or the Heli-Coil tool!
My grandfather and I always had Cadillacs and he had a few other American cars as well. One day he decided to buy this used 69 opel for $200.00 to save gas. The first time he drove it at night, he tried to turn the high beams on by depressing the dimmer button on the floor, like our other American vehicles but instead of the high beams illuminating, the windshield got squirted!
We use that car for almost 12 years and then sold it for $500 more than we paid for it
At least it came with a windshield washer as standard equipment, LOL! Many American cars of the 1960’s, still made it an extra-cost option, including my Mom’s 1961 Buick Special, LOL!
I did not realize that those were actually optional with some cars. I’ve never owned any car other than Cadillacs from the 60s and 70s.
@Robert Atkinson, Jr. They had a torque tube setup on them also. If you powerbraked a Opel automatic car the whole car would lift and look like it was going to attack… Buick GNXs do the same thing because of the torque arm.
I’ll take your word for it, because both of ours were manual transmission cars! No power braking a stick shift, LOL!