Why isn't everyone building awesome Opel Manta Bs?

[HoTWire]

Every year the lovely folk from the Opel Manta Owners Club book a stand at The Gathering, and every year it is about the same size. This is nice and all, but it did make me wonder why there aren't loads of Opel Mantas being done? They are an awesome looking car with bags of potential and well documented upgrade paths. They have the race history and are just a straight up good shape to start with. So... Anyone want to clue me in as to why we don't see more of these :





Or these







or this




To my eyes (and it may be because I wear glasses) they have a certain resemblance to the angular coupe's from Japan, the Z20 Soarer in particular







So instead of lusting after Japanese RWD coupes to import or whatever... hit up Ebay or wherever and buy a Manta B instead, because I want to see more of them

Hatchback variety, but the ideas still work
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1984-opel-manta-gt-1-8s-barn-find-original-unmolested-example-last-used-1999-/282527529478



And another : www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Opel-Manta-1984-GTJ-/132225929308

Why are all these cars red?
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Opel-manta-gte-coupe-project-rwd-not-escort-mk1-mk2-cavalier-needs-tlc-/252997266780



Or you could just go more old school and pick up the always lovely Manta A
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Opel-manta-A-series-/162554307792

[Dr.AK]

Jun 19, 2017 9:09:46 GMT HoTWire said:

Saw this one at a show in Belgium yesterday, bloody fine car!


To answer your questions, my take it on it is that the Mantas are getting rare and pricey now. They used to be everywhere in Germany but always had a bit of stigma because they used to be driven by weird people. But they have pretty much died out in normal traffic and most of them are in the hands of die hard Opel fans and collectores. Prices have really risen a lot as well.

It's a shame. I always dreamt of building one, but I fear they'll soon get out of my price range forever.

[qwerty]

Surely must be cheaper than a Capri?

Controversially I think they look better than a Capri as well.....

Tom

[Dr.AK]

Well, this is what 3500€ gets you in Germany right now:






To be fair, that's a pretty extreme example, but scouring the for sale ads, it seems like anything below 5 grand is either utter curse word or seems too good to be true.

[Stiff]

It's a pity the a Series are so rare and pricey as something like this is right up my street. Without the stripes though - wouldn't want it too lairy

[BenzBoy]

I know if an RB25-powered Manta B which is currently nearing completion, which will be an absolute weapon on the roads!
I suspect a lot of UK Mantas have headed across the water to our Irish cousins - might be worth investigating what those guys are building!

[darrenh]

genuinely i cant answer the question, but having been in the vauxhall/opel scene for 21 years now my feeling is that they are just not popular enough, culturally, in the UK. this applies to novas, astras, cavs, carltons et all in my opinion. whilst in most cases technically superior to their ford rivals, they just don't seem to have that X factor which catches public imagination/heart.

modus operandi picture of Ari and the 4x4 prototype

[mantiac]

Built this one a few years ago, 300hp Cosworth. When I came to sell it, I couldn't give it away. Ended up selling the rolling shell for the price of the brakes fitted to it, and even then I had to twist the guy's arm...

[The Jackeria]

Could it be something similar to what is happening to calibras? The engines were robbed and fitted to smaller chassis cars because they were quicker with the same power?

Or was there another 80's car that stole the limelight?

I remember my dad and uncle having a series of mantas in the 90s. My uncle kept the wheels in his garden for close to a decade following removing them.

[welshpug]

they've mostly rusted away??

[skkylinedave]

I think its the problem that they were not that popular to start with . That meant that there was only a hardcore of enthuisiasts when they got older . My old man had a GTE in the mid 90s to early 2000s and i used to read the club magazine.

It seemed that even back then you just could not get the parts of if you could they were phenomially expensive from Germany . Stuff like normal headlights ran out years and years ago . Also they rusted very badly from what i can remember in places where panels were difficult to find like inner wings .

My old mans had a bare metal respray but it rusted to curse word still a few years later . No one on ebay really wanted it . IT ran fine and everything was great apart from the welding but it still went to some rally school somewhere for £100 or so .

[accord83]

We have had our Escort in the family for 3 generations, it is like triggers broom, and is the family pet scruffy dog. I bought a 1976 Manta 1600 auto coupe in 2015, it was knuckle bitingly pretty, I loved looking at the car, on a motorway it was extremely comfortable, and it was mint. I sold it after 5 months because I was going to be out of driving action for 3months following hand surgery,
I also could not love the car no matter how I tried, it was like a super model with no one at home, it didn't have soul. I think it was too well thought out, the CIH engine is a boat anchor and the bonnet is way too long, it felt like turning a canal barge.


BUT,

I wish I still had it though as it made a Capri look like the ugly mate which always comes with the fit lass. It is one of my rare regrets I've ever had about selling a car.

[austinpowers]

I had a Vauxhall cavalier GLS Sports hatch as my first car, which is the same just with a different badge and fake wood trim. Even back then in the early 90s they weren't a common site on the roads. They just didn't sell that many when they were new compared to the Rord Capri.
I have had both in the past and would be happy to have one again, but the prices that they are going for means that it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

[stefan1971]

Always wanted a manta back in the day but couldn't afford the insurance so went for the cavalier sri, one of my mates had a white GTE on a B reg when I was in the army and I loved it, also one of my sergeants had an early one and was well sick when we went on a live firing exercise for Northern Ireland training and one of the targets was one, he was a bit better when he got permission to take the manta ray badges off of the front wings.said they were really rare back then.
Ps really love the orange cosworth one.

[1900sr]

In my case it's because I haven't got the time or money to start it yet. Having said that my idea of awesome is how it left the factory, so probably not the same as most people on here.

[fordperv]

Jun 19, 2017 15:30:40 GMT mantiac said:

Built this one a few years ago, 300hp Cosworth. When I came to sell it, I couldn't give it away. Ended up selling the rolling shell for the price of the brakes fitted to it, and even then I had to twist the guy's arm...

Love it

[ChrisT]

There are some very nice modded Mantas out there but few and far between, think the reasons have been mentioned in the replies.
A lot of them rusted away - every show I've been to it's guaranteed someone will come up and say 'I used to have one of these but had to get rid of it because of the rust' - and the replacement panels/repair sections weren't easy to come by, so they gained a bit of reputation and people stayed away from them.
They were very under powered, the 1.8 OHC had potential but the CIH is, as said above somewhere, a boat anchor, so there was never any love like there was for a V6 Capri and the like.

That said, here's one a made earlier....

[vulgalour]

It's not just the Manta that's missing out, even the venerable Nova and Corsa B are getting to be a less common sight now. Then there's the real rarities, the ones you only see hidden away in the dark corners of forums like the Monza, Royale, VX490, Viceroy and 2300 to name just a handful. When was the last time you paid attention to a Tigra or a Calibra? When was the last time you saw a Nova in the wild, or a Mk1 Astra? Even the Chevette and Cavalier that used the same styling queues as the Manta have all but disappeared now.

Throughout the 80s and 90s I saw a grand total of 3 Mantas in the wild. A faded red one with quad lights, a white one with quad lights and a metallic blue one with a vinyl roof, fishtank headlights and headlight wipers. That's it. You'd see one or two in printed media or on the telly (usually racing) but they were rare even in their day and what's worse, they never jumped out as being particularly special, just as being a smart looking car. They didn't pop up at car shows either. They fell out of the public consciousness, at least in the UK, and what few did survive succumbed to the most horrendous varieties of hidden rust and parts support issues. They weren't valuable and they weren't valued so they disappeared.


Do we need a Vauxhall appreciation thread? I'm beginning to think we might.

[tdk]

Jun 19, 2017 23:36:57 GMT vulgalour said:

It's not just the Manta that's missing out, even the venerable Nova and Corsa B are getting to be a less common sight now. Then there's the real rarities, the ones you only see hidden away in the dark corners of forums like the Monza, Royale, VX490, Viceroy and 2300 to name just a handful. When was the last time you paid attention to a Tigra or a Calibra? When was the last time you saw a Nova in the wild, or a Mk1 Astra? Even the Chevette and Cavalier that used the same styling queues as the Manta have all but disappeared now.

Do we need a Vauxhall appreciation thread? I'm beginning to think we might.

The Manta has motorsport pedigree, RWD, and slinky styling. I wanted one and ended up with a MK2 Cavalier SRi. Harrumph. The Nova isn;t anything special and the Corsa is as plain and forgettable as they come, plus have the chav stigma, too. Such a shame that Vauxhall (Opel) went from making interesting stuff like the Manta, Royale, Chevette HSR and so on, to utter bilge like the Corsa and Vectra and so on. No wonder the marque is on the verge of vanishing from the UK, no-one really cares any more, they're now just bland beyond words.

But ('scuse the ramble), yes, it's time to celebrate some interesting Vauxhalls. Do we have a Calibra thread?

ETA - My pin up as a kid.

[Colonelk]

Jun 20, 2017 8:28:01 GMT tdk said:

The Manta has motorsport pedigree, RWD, and slinky styling. I wanted one and ended up with a MK2 Cavalier SRi. Harrumph. The Nova isn;t anything special and the Corsa is as plain and forgettable as they come, plus have the chav stigma, too.

I humbly disagree
Nova has motorsport pedigree as well, and is IMHO an awesome slice of box-arched 80's hatchback.
Corsa B also has a reasonable rally life and have some interesting 90s styling cues. Chav stigma? Maybe 10 years ago.

I think it was the mid 2000s they lost their way, mainly because we lost the Omega at that point. But that's my tainted view, because I'm a GM 6-cylinder-ist
Still they are Peugeots now haha.

I've always been a fan of Vauxhalls (and Opels) throughout the ages. As mentioned for some reason they always just fail somehow to capture the publics imagination.
Having said that, they slowly went from being technically advanced compared to their competitors to just being another option of the same.

Works for me though as it means they are usually a cheap marque to get into (if you can find one). Exceptions now seem to be HC Coupes, Novas and Mantas all going up in value.

I do love the Manta A though, they are soooooo sexy. Have a random pic.