Estate Sale: 1971 Opel GT
In an eBay listing that is distinguished by its brevity, we find this 1971 Opel GT, bid to $5401, reserve not met. The car is located in Martinsville, Indiana. Opel was owned by General Motors for decades, forming the cornerstone of GM’s European operations. The GT was conceived in 1963 by Chevy Tri-Five designer Clare MacKichan, who had been sent to Germany to run Opel’s creative studio. Sports cars were nowhere on the company’s résumé, so management was not particularly keen when the project was revealed. Only when Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen became GM’s Overseas chief did the prototype see the light of day. That moment was at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show. The public loved the little car, but it took three more years for the GT to enter production. Built around Kadett mechanicals but with a complex shell manufactured by French firm Brissonneau and Lotz (known for locomotives), the car was replete with quirks including door openings cut into the roof, rotating headlights, and no exterior trunk opening.
Through 1970, the Opel GT could be ordered with either a 1.1 liter or a 1.9 liter overhead valve four-cylinder engine situated far back in the engine bay for better weight distribution – which still wasn’t great at 54%/46% front/rear. In 1971, the 1.1 liter was discontinued, leaving the roughly 90 hp 1.9 to carry the flag. The factory-supplied carburetor was a Solex, but Weber replacements are incredibly common, usually topped by the rectangular aftermarket air cleaner seen above. The transmission was usually a four-speed manual but a surprising number of GTs arrived with a three-speed automatic. This example is a manual. A revision to the listing indicates that the car does run and drive.
The interior needs renovation. The carpets, upholstery, dash, and steering wheel are cracked or torn. On the other hand, the floor we’re shown is clean. We can’t see behind the seats, but that’s the access to the trunk – through a vinyl “curtain”. The Opel GT was sold through Buick dealerships, a slightly confusing strategy since Buick’s image was about as far from sporty as you could get. Still, some 70,000 copies were sold in the US through the end of production in 1973.
The headlamps are operated manually, and they rotate around a longitudinal axis. This mechanism can fail, and speaking of failures, this car is a tight squeeze when repairs are needed. Its dimensions are diminutive and the hood opening is not generous. Still, the GT’s swoopy looks are a strong selling point. Prices have strengthened for these pretty cars in the last several years; this seller could achieve a much better result if he were more forthcoming with the car’s history and condition. What price do you think will send this one to a new owner?
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Comments
One of my favorite cousins who was older than me had a yellow Opel GT that I got to ride around in a few times during the late seventies, a long time ago but I remember it was fun and I liked how the headlights flipped around and up! Oddly, there are 2 of these still cruising around my neck of the woods, both owned by the same person and frequently driven, and I always give him a thumbs up and get one in return! No idea what this one will tip the scales for, will be interesting to watch and see.
Paint it brown and i’m seing Maxwell Smart and 99 driving to control h.q. Hope i’m not the only one that see’s this 😉
https://d2046fb22nsf40.cloudfront.net/2019/07/smart51e.7073.jpg
Google is your friend on this one
Missed it by THAT much! LOL!
Maxwell Smart drove a 1965 Sunbeam Tiger
Yes, he did. He also drove an Opel GT, then in the final season, he got a VW Karmann Ghia!
Owned a red 1972 GT for about 11 years. It was an automatic and seemed to have more than enough pep to get you wherever you wanted to go. Eventhough it didn’t have a back seat we could stuff our two kids in the back up until they reached junior high.
Car was a blast to drive and very easy to maintain. Only drawback was it rusted out to the point where I had to junk it.
I had a 1973, and I concur with your observation. At 6ft2 I could get in and out of it easy and it had room for two comfortably, fold a third across the back “parcel shelf for a short ride and the suspension did not even bottom out. It was remarkable competent at relative high speed. Space issues, as I recall you could change the starter out from the top. Rust a problem, finally one day driving in a heavy rain, I could not understand why drops were hitting me in the face no leaks around the windshield that is until I glanced down, the floor mat had moved and I was getting spray from rust holes underneath. This was about 4 years after having a body shop “take care ” of rust issues. Thus the end. I think about one from time to time especially when driving around parking garages, buckets loads of clearance with it, more of a wear it like a favorite blue jean jacket than drive it.
I remember growing up we called this GT the Mini Vette. There where many running around where I lived. We had college students from Manhattan College driving these. I knew someone who own one. They tried to squeeze more horsepower from it. Change the exhaust with headers and Weber carb. But the 1.9 just didn’t really have it. It was sooo tight in the engine bay. Doing work on it you join the busted knuckles club. 😂 They are nice simple vehicles to drive. Good luck to the next owner. 🐻🇺🇸
These were wonderful German-built sports cars that were not too bad to work on for routine maintenance and really fun to drive and look at. A car that is accident and rust free (however unlikely) should bring all of the money.
Good choice for a radical retro-mod project.
Cut down the middle widened & cut at B Piller stretched a mid engine GT set up w/ZF transaxle.
Front end mustang II suspension.
Entire body sheet metal dropped on a Tube frame chassis.
Custom Dash taken from your choice of vendors.
Seats out of any number of wrecked modern rides.
Retain the basic Opel body lines
Farm in a reversed MAZDA 323T 4×4 1 yr only rally car set up instead of mustang II
Or run the Full race Mazda 4cyl rally engine & its backbone to rear drive set up w/tunnel hump.
Lots of possibilities.
It’s cheap enough you can really get creative.
No sense restoring it – that’d be lame.
Course the small Chevy 350 383 will fit lots of guys did that- makes for a out of balance sloppy hard to control car.
Balance geometry is essential.
It’s a low slung death trap as is.
Radical resto-mod tube frame only way to go to handle power & be safe.
Owned 2 of these and an Opel Manta. A GT was my first car. It’s almost criminal the back 1/3rd of the car is essentially useless because it’s only accessible behind tall bucket seats that a larger guy like me aren’t keen on fumbling around behind. Hatchbacks weren’t new. Yet if the Opel GT had a hatchback, it would have had a run similar to Toyota MR2, yet more practical than the MR2 (my MR2 had a rear trunk, but put your ice cream there by the engine and you spilled a milkshake in the trunk. The space in hood area in front was not flat and only good for a soft briefcase you wouldn’t be putting there to begin with). I have always felt manufacturers don’t want to try as hard to make economical good reliable 2 door sports cars. Because they must figure we won’t buy next replacement, so why try too hard? Any of us with a couple of years under our belts could do better. Opel GT was a broken promise. Almost there. Only needed fuel injection with CDI ignition and a hatchback. And some rust proofing. Lose the flip lights do some stylish things behind a lens like modern cars. I miss those oily little Opels. They were decent but potentially fantastic.
I remember two (2) of these when I was in college. A high school friend had one and I carpooled to college in my Freshman year with a Senior who owned one. I’m not sure, but I thought that the later editions got a small deck lid, but maybe not. The engine in the US market was the same 1.9L mill that was in the 1900 and Manta, I think that the 1.1L motor was only sold in Europe.
Two things about my college commute in one of these stands out. First, I rode in the back one morning when my carpool buddy had to take another guy up to college. That was the one time I was glad I was only 59.75 inches tall, LOL! Second, I almost died in the same car one morning. There was about four inches (4″) of wet slush on the road one morning and while driving to school, an elderly gentleman driving a full size Chrysler product looked directly at us, then turned left directly across our path! My pal steered around him, bounced us off of a snowbank, and we missed the guy by inches! Then I checked my underwear for stains, LOL!
“Your Mother always told you to wear clean underwear, in case you have an accident. But if you’re going to have an accident, first you say it, then you do it! And no matter what happens, you’re going to have soiled underwear!” – Bill Cosby
One of the guys in high school had an early one … said he got pulled over for speeding at 130mph but no one really fell for it even though he was proudly waving the ticket … found out later his dad knew a cop who wrote the ticket for him …
My friend had one in 1974. I think a 71 model with the automatic. I put an after market am/fm cassette for him. Yeah no room. Still a pretty car. Buick also sold the opel manta which was head and shoulders better.
I agree. Manta a better ride. GT is nice but oddly shaped IMO.