http://cartype.com/pages/5016/opel_manta_b__1972 That thing is sexy! The rear seems to have boat tail Riv subtle infuence.
Opel did make a car called the Manta from 70 to 75 but it looked nothing like that. Too bad they never produced that.
If Opel had built that car instead of the POS they eventually built, it might have remained a going concern for GM. As it was, I learned a lot of interesting, brutally vulgar German words and terms that I can't even insinuate the meanings of when I heard my relatives describe the cars.
Opel may be a 4 letter word but I got a lot of enjoyment out of my 72 Manta Rallye.....275k miles worth....still have it. Over here at least it was considered better than stuff we had at the time Vega, Pinto, Capri, Celica, Colt....etc It was an improvement over the Kadette at least....
Opel IS GM in Europe and is still going strong. I had a 75 1900 sedan that was built on the same floor pan as the Manta, the only year they came with Bosch fuel injection. It was a nice car, more like a small AUDI. I also had a 71 Opel Rekord when I lived in Germany that was a decent car, reminded me of a Nova. I lived 10 miles from the Opel plant, and the Germans thought Americans must be terrible drivers since they had to put such large bumpers on the cars for export to America starting in 1974. They also saved the marginal parts for the American cars since America has speed limits and the cars don't go that fast over there. What we saw in America was a small sample of the cars Opel produces. They have a full size car called the Diplomat that comes with a 300 hp small block Chebby. 1975 was the last year GM imported Opels from Germany due to expense, the 76 Opel was made by Isuzzu.
GM sold Opel to the Citroen group last year. Market share over there was dropping and the designs were stagnant. Most of what they ended up using over here didn't really pan out either, the small Buick Encore (Opel Mokka) and the current Regal aren't doing that hot as compared to others. When we were in Germany in October there weren't many Opels to be seen on the roads, that really surprised me. There were an awful lot of Hondas and Hyundais though. My grandfather always had Opel, and the Rekords were pretty good, as was the Diplomat. Yes, they used warmed over Chevy designs, particularly the SBC and that stovebolt six. They weren't too bad. The Manta actually was pretty hit and miss; there were those that loved them, and there were those that detested them equally as much, such was the experience. My first brand new car was a 1991 Pontiac LeMans, - a Kadett, and it lasted 500,000 km, - most only did about 80,000 miles before they blew up. But it was a good basic design. As far as refinement went, it had nothing on the comparable VW, and that's what drove Opel into the toilet. Part of the reason was because even though the car was designed in Germany it was actually thrown together in Korea, and a lot of Opel's bread and butter car lines have been ever since. No one wants to pay for a car that has pretensions of quality and doesn't deliver, particularly when the company down the street makes a better product for the same money. And that was the thing between Opel and Hyundai.
