Opel Automobile GmbH (a German division of General Motors at one time) built the Manta across two generations from 1970 to 1988. It was a rear-wheel-drive sports coupe that was sold as the Manta 1900 in the U.S. by Buick dealers across the land (remember the Opel Kadett?). These cars aren’t seen too often these days, especially in the kind of condition that this 1974 edition is in. Well cared for, this Open is in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and is also available here on craigslist for $9,200. Kudos to Pat L. for another creative tip!
If you were around in the 1960s and 1970s and wandered into your local Buick dealer, chances are you’d find an Opel sitting next to a Buick-branded car of considerably more size. That’s because Buick didn’t have a compact car to sell in those days, so the captive import Opel became an easy option. The Opel GT is perhaps the more memorable Opel that Buick sold as it looked like a mini-Corvette. The first generation of the Manta 1900 appeared in 1970 and stuck around until 1975.
The U.S. Manta 1900 got its name in part from it having a 1.9-liter (1900-cc) inline-4 engine that probably had decent pep with the standard 4-speed manual transmission. Almost a survivor (the paint has been redone), this ’74 Manta is in excellent condition and the odometer reading of 51,000 miles may be true, although no claims are made to that effect by the seller. We’re told there is no rust on the German car, probably because it was kept off the roads during Winter. The seller refers to the color as Gun Metal Gray but there’s some blue in there, too.
Further, we’re told that the Opel runs like a top and has no mechanical issues. New tires have been added all the way around, so the buyer won’t have to. A cache of spare parts has been collected over the years and they will come with the sale. This auto is likely to attract some attention at events like Cars & Coffee as there probably won’t be another one there. But don’t trip over those cow-catcher bumpers!
I always thought that this and the Opel GT were two of the best looking cars produced by Opel. The Manta would look better w/o the “battering ram” bumpers; I wonder if they could be tucked? Very nice car, GLWTS!! :-)
The Manta A is a popular enough classic car in Germany that you could probably get a set of repro Euro-spec bumpers from there if there weren’t other alternatives.
It would take quite a bit of modification to fit the euro spec or the earlier US chrome bumpers. The ends of the car were beefed up considerably and pistons added to the bumper attachment points. Not saying it couldn’t be done but it would take some re-engineering for sure. Been a Mustang guy for decades but I wish I still had my small bumpered ’73 Manta Rallye!
I cut mine down by 2/3, shortened the pistons, and pushed the bumper within 1/4 of the body…looks pretty good now..
The early cars had small bumpers.
Which year did they go to the large bumpers? I remember the Rallye version well. I remember it with the smaller bumpers.
I agree. I had a neighbour when I was a boy who owned an Opel GT. Although I didn’t like the colour of the car, I found the car itself beautiful. If only more pics were posted on craigslist. 10 pics is hardly enough to show a car.
I had a 1973 Opel Manta. One of the best cars I ever owned. Stone reliable and easy to maintain. I still miss it.
Same here, Kurt, provided the front unibody stubs supporting the front suspension didn’t rust.
Opel had a rock solid reputation for reliability until the 2000´s when GM decided to replace management with a Mexican executive who destroyed this once great company. Opel, before GM was a technical powerhoiuse, building a fabulous 500cc motorcycle using a Neander pressed steel frame, which they also equipped with a rocket engine way back in the late 1920´s! They also designed and built a rocket engined airplane whic flew at Frankfurt in 1929. It was piloted by one of the sons of the Opel family. It was one of the oldest industrial enterprises worldwide and its Opel ¨6¨ of 1938 was worthy competition to the larger Mercedes models. Alas today, it´s a second hand Peugeot – how sad.
What the Vega should have been.
Bingo! The Chevette however, did use a lot of Opel parts.
Which goes to show that even with good parts GM can still produce a very pedestrian result.
Buick dealers didn’t realize that they had a car just a notch under the BMW of the day. (would probably have said “what’s a BMW?”) I loved the 1973 that I had. It still had the small bumpers, and a carburetor . The ’74 had those massive bumpers and had fuel injection.
I still love the design of this car.
The 73 would have had big bumpers in front only, the ’74 had them at both ends of the car. The fuel injection didn’t come to the other forty-nine (49) states until 1975, so yours must have been a CA car.
I bought a 1973 Manta Rally brand new and it had the same smaller ’71-’72 chrome bumpers the only difference being a rubber rub strip along the entire length of each was added plus somewhat bigger rubber bumper guards. All ’74 Opels sold in the US were carbureted with fuel injection coming to the whole line in 1975.
Having owned a ’73 Kadett (not a Manta) and (still) owning a ’73 BMW 2002Tii, I’m not sure I’d agree that any Opel was “just a notch under” any BMW of the time. But your point is well taken. The real advantage Opel had over BMW at the time was a similar build quality and materials for a lot less money.
IMHO, Buick didn’t market the Manta very well and didn’t train their dealers to sell any Opel products very well. My late uncle was a serial Wildcat and Regal buyer for decades and his commute car for most of that time was always some form of Opel. If Buick dealers had figured out how to make that pitch to every loyal Buick customer, GM might still be selling Opels in the US today.
Totally agree with both your points. When I bought my ’73 Manta Rallye I felt I was getting the affordable version of the BMW 2002. The Buick dealer I bought it from did barely OK in their sales effort but the real letdown came with the service department. Most Buick dealers were flatly disinterested and sometimes downright hostile about working on Opels. I quickly abandoned the dealer network with mine and just found a good independent mechanic that specialized in German autos and that worked out much better. Did most all maintenance and repairs myself anyway as these cars were very basic and easy to work on, even for novices like I was back then.
> GM might still be selling Opels in the US today.
In a way they are, or were until recently; they were just badged as Saturns or, later, Buicks. Of course, now Opel is no longer a GM brand, having been sold to PSA, now Stellantis.
Except that GM sold Opel, a perennial money pit, to the French PSA Group in 2017. PSA merged with Fiat-Chrysler in 2021 to form the Stellantis Motor Group. It figures, GM sold Opel just as it was becoming profitable again after twenty (20) years of losses, just as GM has a habit of cancelling cars and engines just as they finish working the bugs out of them, LOL!
I worked at a Buick dealership. They didn’t like Opels … Because the buyers preferred the Opels. In other words: Dealers complained about not selling enough domestic made Buicks, and the margins on Opel were smaller. The dealerships complaining is what killed German Opel. Which is so typical. MagaDumps of the era hating on “them furrin cars!”, but guess what?!!! The new Opels were what brought BUYERS into Buick dealerships at the time. My dealership only agreed to accept some 4-5 Opels a week to sell, and only if they were sports models. The Kadettes still had tiny engines and didn’t sell well, this being at the end of the Oil Embargo. The sales manager only allowed his chosen ‘pets’ to sell the Opel sports models, which sold as soon as they arrived. But the sales commission was much lower on Opels, because they wanted salesmen (no women selling cars then) to sell the domestic Buicks. I really wish I picked up a wagon, but suffice it to say: Customers came in to buy Opels, NOT Buicks. And the sales manager wasn’t letting the young newby car salesman sell the nicer Opels. Thus, my grocery store job was only enough to buy an old MG. That didn’t run. Until much work done. Mom driving me to my jobs. It was straight commission no draw no hourly wages. Totally corrupt and ignorant operation. But I suspect that was how all Buick dealerships of the era operated. The Buick models of mid-late 70’s were real dogs geared for grandparents, but not cheap. Houston Texas was a city filling up with young families. It’s strange when you’re young and aware that adults much older are lazy corrupt imbeciles. But I eventually got a project Opel GT after the I got rid of the turtle slow MG that I fixed myself, and a very nice Opel Manta in college with low miles dirt cheap. I loved that car. Not fast at all. But great gas mileage and comfortable ride. And lots of girls on dates got rides in it. My most ‘successful’ date car by far. Dated lots of coworkers and girls from college. I think the Opel Manta was just cute enough, not some roid muscle car grabber groper image, that girls weren’t intimidated. Yet lost count back then. Tacky to say, but my Opel Manta years in college is when I stopped counting number of girls I dated. Although I still counted rounding the bases to home plate until a couple of cars later LoL!!
Back in the late 70’s at my first part time supermarket job when we all were driving beat up old muscle cars, an odd duck of a kid was driving a Kadett L. Certainly nothing to look at, but hey, here I am 46 years later remembering that car.
A friend of mine had one in college. One of the best looking imports around at the time. And you never see these for sale in this condition, if at all.
Most were consumed by rust in the 1980’s, and didn’t live long enough to see 1990. Both of the ones we owned ended up going to the crusher. We gave the 1900 to a family friend’s son as his first high school beater, and we traded the Manta Rallye in when I bought my first new car out of college, a 1985 VW Jetta GLI (the sedan sister to the Golf GTI hatchback).
I like these Mantas. Good looking, pretty robust and dead easy to work on. I’m guessing that the US emissions regulations took a big bite off from the performance, but in Europe these typically came with the 1.6L and only the range topping 1.9SR got the larger engine.
They are not terribly sporty, the engines are more torque than power and handling is not very nimble but the gearbox is very nice and slick shifting, clutch is progressive and easy to learn and the brakes are In typical German fashion strong.
I have owned plenty of Kadett, Ascona and Rekord but I guess I was just always too cheap to pay the extra cost for the fancier Manta. It’s still like that – I like the car but not so much that I am inclined to pay $9k for it.
When I bought my 1973 Manta Rallye brand new at the ripe age of 17 it came with horrible Goodyear “PowerCushion” bias-belted tires on narrow steel (but good looking) wheels. As soon as I wore that first set of tires out I moved up to wider American Racing wheels shod with +2 sized Continental radials and this completely transformed the handling. Also switched out the shocks to a nice set of Konis which didn’t help the ride but now I could canyon carve and take on the V6 Capris and Datsun 510s of those days. Great times of my youth, I’d die to have that car back today!.
At the time I purchased the Opel Manta, there was a showroom stock sedan series racing in sports car racing. Nothing could touch the Opels. They were the winning ticket. I knew that I would be needing to buy an automatic transmission car due to a wife that could not drive a stick; I didn’t want a slow dog of a car, hence the winning Opel.
The Opels were so good in the SCCA Showroom Stock class they were outlawed! I tried emulating the allowed SS handling modifications on my daily driver ’73 Manta Rally to great success!
A friend of mine had a ’70 Opel Wagon, and a ’73 Manta in their family. They were reliable, fun to drive, and economical.
What killed Opel sales by ’75 was the depreciation of the Dollar against the Deutsche Mark, that greatly raised prices for Opels and other German cars.
By that time, Japanese cars were becoming more competitive, too. In the late 70’s, Buick sold an Isuzu model (the Gemini) under the Opel name.
To be fair, that Isuzu Gemini, rebadged as the “Buick Opel by Isuzu”, was Isuzu’s licensed copy of the Opel Kadett C, so they were an Opel in design/engineering at least, albeit sadly not in build quality.
Our family had two (2) of these, a 1972 Opel 1900, with a four-speed manual transmission and dealer-installed air conditioning, and a 1974 Opel Manta Rallye, with a flat black painted hood and a full set of factory gages (tach instead of a clock, and oil pressure, voltmeter and clock mounted in a pod between the radio and the console. I drove the 1972 to college, and my younger brother bought the 1974 Rallye to replace his 1969 Pontiac Firebird Sprint Convertible when it was stolen from our dorm parking lot!
The last year for these in America was 1975, when Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection replaced the single Solex two-barrel carburetor to deal with the new, stricter emission rules from the EPA. I think CA cars might have gotten fuel injection sooner, to deal with the stricter CA standards, but I am not sure.
The Solex carburetor was a dog, and the engine often ran poorly even after multiple attempts to rebuild it, so a popular swap was to ditch the Solex carb and replace it with a two-barrel Weber carburetor. The Weber had a manual choke in place of the automatic choke on the Solex (which was heated by radiator water from the heater core), so a manual choke kit was an easy installation, since there was a spot on the dashboard to install a manual choke knob (European cars came with a manual choke, but American cars had to have an automatic choke, again per EPA rules).
You are 100% right about the weak OEM Solex carbs. Back in the day when I worked at Super Shops in San Jose CA, I slapped one of those “Holly Weber” 2bbl carbs along with a Mr. Gasket manual choke cable on my ’73 Kadett. WOW… what a difference! I immediately started recommended them to every Opel driver I met….it wasn’t usually a difficult sale.
It’s pretty obvious that if you’re on this site you’re an enthusiast, and since so many of us had mantas, they must have been a great choice for enthusiasts. Mine was a 74, orange with a black hood. It was one of my first cars, bought in 1985. I can see why there aren’t too many around, at 11 years old, the PA road salt had turned mine into a rust bucket.
I didn’t care, it was $100. As a college student, I had time not money, and I learned a lot about bodywork, how to weld, and swapped my first clutch (taught my girlfriend how to drive a manual in it). Fun car, This looks like a super clean survivor
My Kadett just rusted away. And it was a shame. I drove that car, as a second vehicle, so my wife could drive the Chevy Caprice with an automatic.
I find it a bit unusual, someone with that handle talks of owning a German car. Being sold through Buick dealers, reluctantly, I might add, I bet many people didn’t know it was German. I somehow got away with parking my ’68 Opel Kadett “Mini-Brute” in the old mans driveway, despite his “rules”.
My dad was the same way. Excepting English cars? You better get ready for a berating if you parked a foreign car in our drive.
If you notice, I specifically named TEMU as my objection.
I have no problems with European cars (well, maybe the French), and I’ve never looked at any of the products being offered from TEMU… I do object to the Chinese government doing whatever they can to take business away from American companies with their expressed wish to “bury America”. I purchased my Opel through Buick and it was sold as an “American” car, but when I found out it was German, I almost got rid of it, but it was a solid performer and Germany was not on a crusade in 1970 of “burying America” either. Again, it is the Chinese I’m concerned about and how they are trying to buyout the US… check your recent history for all their efforts in purchasing companies in the US, et al. Sorry for the patriotic blurb (well, no I’m not), but I’m well aware of what is going on regarding China. BF can delete this if they wish.
My buddy had a Kadett Wagon and a two door sedan. Another had a Manta, bronze with blacked out hood. All of them were great little cars I would love to have this one.
Wow, sure must be digging out the last of the storage unit finds to feature this. Opel always hits a ( good) nerve, without repeating, for the time, they were great cars. That’s right, you read correctly, GREAT CARS. It was all about timing. Opels enjoyed a time warp between gas hogs and econoboxes. You had unmatched German engineering, well built cars from a respected country that specialized in such matters, AND, you didn’t have to speak German to get an oil change. As close as your local Buick dealer,,,and therein lie the rub. Like Mercury dealers with the Capri, Buick dealers didn’t care for the Opel. They claimed it took valuable business away from the Buick brands, and they were right. I knew many folks with Opels that would bypass the dealer, because of shoddy treatment.
Opels became the beater of choice for young, college bound kids, or ones heading in other directions, aside from my old mans secretary, I never knew anyone that bought a new Opel. I had several, strictly a winter beater when the MG was stored,( until it too became a beater),a ’67 Kadett wagon 1100 motor, dual carbs( I think) 4 speed, did great holeshots,,that was about it, $100 maybe, then, a ’68 Kadett Rallye “Mini-Brute”, and that was a fun little car. A ’74 Manta like this, and a close friend also had a Manta Rallye and a 1900 wagon, all great cars. Ex-BIL had one too. All had “my” Pinto carbs and all thanked me. The only downside, besides the carburetor, was, being unibody, if the front stubs holding the front suspension rusted, it was all over for most Opels. That and it needed a hatchback, and by the mid ’70s, Japan had already begun to kick our butt with the Celica and Z cars, and was goodbye German Opel. The final and utmost kick in the pants for Opel, was GM had the audacity to import an Asian car( Isuzu, a GM company) with the Opel name. It too was short lived. Great find.
> GM had the audacity to import an Asian car( Isuzu, a GM company) with the Opel name.
To be fair, that “Buick Opel by Isuzu” was a rebadged Isuzu Gemini, their licensed copy of the Opel Kadett C, so they were an Opel in design/engineering at least, albeit sadly not in build quality.
The other Achilles Heel for these in terms of rust was under the battery tray. The battery was located next to the firewall, over the fuse box and the driver’s feet, and the sheet metal often rusted through under the battery, due to a combination of rain water draining off of the hood and corrosive battery gases and acid. Once the sheet metal rusted through, water would drip into the fuse box and the main wiring harness! This is not good. Always remove the battery when inspecting these for rust!
The fuse box was held on by only two (2) nuts, so you could remove the fuse box and push it far enough out of the way to patch the holes under the battery tray, if you caught the rust before the water got into the wiring. Welding new metal into the damaged section would be the preferred repair technique, but we didn’t have access to a welder, and wouldn’t have known how to use it if we did, so we just slathered fiberglass mats impregnated with epoxy into the battery tray to patch the holes before bolting the battery back into place. Both our 1972 1900 and the 1974 Manta Rallye were repaired in this way.
Based on the ads that I get, they are geared toward your interests. I get ads from a US commercial real estate company. I doubt BF has any input as to what ads you are served.
That being said, my first really nice car, complete with monthly payments, was a two year old ’73 Manta Luxus with plush maroon corduroy upholstery. Should have kept it!
Disclosure: This site may receive compensation when you click on some links and make purchases.
so we don’t know which links that BF receives compensation ??
This one is a non-stock color and was originally White, if you care about that sort of thing.
Good catch, I saw the white trunk.
Sidenote worthless trivia. Back in the 90’s in Germany a movie came out called “Manta Manta” starring Til Schweiger who later played Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz in Inglourious Basterds. Funny movie Manta Manta, comparable to making fun of rednecks with mullets and Camaros.
I went to work in the US for a German company in 1990. I was driving Mustangs back then but when I once mentioned to the German personnel that I had owned an Opel Manta as a young man they sort of snickered. I asked why the reaction and they politely told me that Opel owners in the fatherland enjoy a certain sort of reputation. Now I get it.
My Mom carpooled with one of the Engineers she worked with when she worked for the Navy, and he called Opels “Hitler’s Revenge”!
Beautiful looking car. Although I was way too young to drive a car at the time, I remember seeing these when I was a boy. A neighbour of mine owned had an Opel GT, a 2 door, two passenger car.
My first car ever was 1972 Opel 1900, not called a Manta until ’73. The car was great and it was my “learning car”, learning to wrench and learning to drive. So my second car was a ’74 Manta after the ’72 was totaled. Did I mention that I was learning to drive? I miss those cars.
Stop your whining and become a BF member, no more ads.
Disclosure: This site may receive compensation when you click on some links and make purchases.
Since when is it whining to be patriotic to your own country… and I quit shopping WM when Sam died and his kids quit buying American products and threw the cheap stuff into the pot, but charged as it was real stuff.. WM is huge, but they got rich selling junk.
In 1971 I purchased a new Opel 1900 stick shift with a/c. It proved to be a super reliable car and got me through the gasoline shortage while my 9 passenger Plymouth ( 9 mpg ) sat mostly unused.
Wow, 30 comments in and not one reader suggesting that it would be a better car with an LS engine in it!
Become a member and avoid the ads!
True. GM had issues when WWII started, as profits from Opel were seen as aiding the Nazi war effort, at least until Hitler declared war on the US and seized all American assets in Germany after Pearl Harbor, in an attempt to entice Japan to declare war on the Soviet Union. Spoiler Alert: It didn’t work! Japan used a strict reading of the Tripartite Pact to remain strictly neutral against the Soviet Union, and Hitler’s declaration gave FDR the excuse he needed to declare war on Germany. Before Hitler’s declaration of war, FDR faced the prospect of having to fight Japan alone, since declaring war against Germany was still wildly unpopular among a large percentage of Americans, until Hitler overplayed his hand and sealed his fate.
Indeed, Stalin’s “Man in Japan”, Richard Sorge, fed intelligence to Stalin all through the war, and Stalin forwarded a great deal of that information to America during the war. Stalin wasn’t being altruistic, however, but acting in his own self interest. Helping the Americans made it more likely that a second front in Europe would open sooner rather than later, taking pressure off of the Russian Front, all while giving Stalin a chance to share in the spoils after the defeat of Japan. Only the use of the atomic bomb thwarted Stalin’s hopes of partitioning Japan after the war ended.
This car confuses me. There were three models of the Manta – the base, the Rallye and the Luxus. The base and Rallye had vinyl seats like this car but the Luxus had cloth. The Luxus came with a woodgrain instrument cluster surround, a larger woodgrain shift knob and the same style wheels as this car.
So is this car a base car with added woodgrain cluster, woodgrain shift knob and wheels from a Luxus or a Luxus with seats that were replaced with vinyl? It’s not a Rallye as the Rallye would have had a tach and gauges/clock under the radio.
I suspect it’s a base Manta that has had a few Luxus appointments added. If it’s a real Luxus it’s missing those badges.
This car isn’t a Rallye, but I think all trim levels of the 1900/Manta got the faux woodgrain appliqué on the dash and faux woodgrain shift knob. Both my base 1900 and my brother’s Manta Rallye had both decorative items, although the shift knob was just wood-colored plastic with simulated grain molded into the plastic. Maybe the differences were more apparent on the European versions, but the North American export models weren’t so bare bones on the base models.
Remember that the fabric of the seats were VERY susceptible to sunlight and frayed rather quickly. I had mine reupholstered using a fabric from a Mercury that was corded like the original Luxus upholstery. My hunch would be that This car has had the upholstery or seats replaced. Or perhaps is a base Opel, not a Luxus.
Later, many Opel products were rebadged as Saturns to expand the Saturn product line, including the Saturn Astra as a rebadged Opel Astra. My brother bought two (2) Astras, one for himself and one for his daughter (my niece). The daughter’s is long gone, but his example was bought by his son (my nephew) when the son’s Subaru Outback went to the crusher after breaking a control arm. Just as an FYI, GM also went in the reverse direction, rebadging a Pontiac Solstice as a Saturn Sky or Opel GT.
I found this old sale banner for the dealership window, but this site won’t paste a “copy”
so it says…
GM’s lowest price wagon
then smaller print with the sales pitch
then the price $2248
nothing about it being a German car, and a lot of us back then didn’t check original… it was sold as a GM car…
To answer JMB#7, 1974 was the first year for the big bumpers. My ’72 had smaller chrome bumpers, the ’73 model had small chrome bumpers with an added rubber bump strip.
Based on all the enthusiastic comments for this car, my prediction is that the next several weeks we will be seeing a lot of Opels on Barn Finds.
Coming from an old Opel family…Our family had a wagon and several Mantas. My mom had a Manta Luxus in the garage for years until a year or two ago. She offered to sell it to me for a couple hundred dollars, but I had no roomm in my garage. Hers was dark blue with a dark blue cloth interior which held up well and a vinyl roof. Needed typical items from being stored for long period. Brakes, fuel tank, carb rebuild, battery, tires…etc…Biggest thing would have been a refresh of the cylinder head. I learned to drive and took my driving test in an Opel Manta which was stick, totalled one hitting a telephone pole after losing control on ice, almost bought an Opel GT but car got rear ended a day or two after I looked at it. I can’t count how many we went through. My brother had an orange one with the black hood, I bought a dayglow green Manta for $50, put tires on it and drove it for college. Got bored and compounded and waxed it at school and it was like a built in alarm system where I could easily see someone walk beside my car at night from my dorm window. I could drive circles around other cars in the snow. I was driving home from college one weekend in snow, noone else was driving in the passing lane on the highway with about 3 or 4 inches of snow on it. I got in the passing lane and was passing everyone until it got loose and i went down in the snow covered median. I put it in first gear and pulled right out of the median and back on the highway. All that and great mileage. Great starter car. easy to work on and parts were readily available. I’d add this to my collection for the right price.
A guy and me used to ride swap to work. He had a small bumper Opel like this and I had a VW Bug. We’d take his car one week, mine the next. Both got about the same fuel mileage. The Opel had more comfortable seats and a better heater. Both held up to our daily 200 mile commute. When he quit, I bought a new Toyota pickup to drive to work, have no idea what became of the Opel other than he liked to drink a lot on weekends so he probably wrecked it somewhere.