Why isn't everyone building awesome Opel Manta Bs?

juice !

Henri Toivonen and Fred Gallagher, 1983 1000 lakes rally

Will be out to play in a week or so!

If I had the room I'd have 5 or so mantas by now, by ill ahve to settle for 2 A's for now.

Fire up the welder (but not too much)
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362112417468



Brilliant colour, could be amazing, like the start of the thread.

I've got a lot of Manta love, always liked 'em...


White Opel Manta Irmscher i200 A12OOB - photo by Retro-Motoring


Opel Manta D97XPS - photo by Retro-Motoring


Red Opel Manta GT/E - photo by Retro-Motoring


Opel Manta BUD909R - photo by Retro-Motoring



Opel Manta - Sportsman ET - David Withington - photo by Retro-Motoring

Saw this on a local FB page earlier and it reminded me of this thread 

Always loved these, and the images of a "Heat for Hire" Manta will always get the blood flowing...

Think they suffered due to the relative lack of models with true sporting heritage compared to the equivalent Ford. Wonder if the lower homologation requirements of Group B compared to the Group 2\4 created the imbalance.

Throw in the GM propensity for turrets rotting out and that will drive up premature scrap rates due to it being too much like hard work to repair properly.

I worked for a small company at one point & had a open car choice. In 1985 I wanted a new car & was looking at the Astra which as the mk2 was just about to be launched. So looked at the GTE. There were done around & no deals. Whilst in the local Vauxhall dealers I saw a Manta B GT/E hatch. Big enough for tools & my boss did a deal & got one for around £7K on the road.
B696YMP in red. The car was fantastic. At the time I lived in Newbury & in the early hours the morning could get to one of my customers in the City in 45 mins. One night we went past a 2.8i Capri on the A30 near Hatch, he picked up the pace until we came to the first corner, where he backed off big time. The handling on the GT/E was sublime, it needed an LSD but otherwise was amazing.
I picked up the car on a Thursday & was shocked on finding out the new car needed a 600 mile service, so rang the main dealer the next morning to book it in. This was for the following Wednesday. When I got there the dealer was shocked that it had done 1881 miles. 6000 mile service intervals were a pain in those days. The local dealer was completely useless, as was other Vauxhall dealers I used. At one point it went in for 2 new headlights as stones had done for the ones on it. When I picked it up I glanced down the invoice & asked how many headlights it had? Two came the reply, so why have you charged me for 3? Nothing was never in stock for it at main dealers & everything took an age. After a year I suspected it'd blown its second head & we chopped it at 43,000 miles. We had people at the customers I went to falling over to buy it. It went to a girl at the stock exchange who were a customer.

i just don't get it..

Opel Manta B (1983) Tuning 04 Hintere Seitenansicht by H2O74, on Flickr

Sweeping generalisation coming up so apologies in advance but I find the majority of road rage / tailgating encounters I’ve had over the years have been with Vauxhall owners.

It’s the story of the nova boy growing up.

They “all” seem to be angry drivers so throw the performance bit into the mix and I reckon most got crashed and written off when they were cheap enough to buy on the credit-happy days in the 90s.

Add to that the rust-factor and the previously mentioned red-top conversions of novas and corsas and before you know it you’re looking at a handful left that are owned by long term owners who will restore them one day and those that you do see out and about.