Good morning! I know I’ve shown you cars that my dad used to own before, but today it’s my mom’s turn, since I happen to have found two cars very much like cars she used to own. She wasn’t as much of a gearhead as my dad was, but she still had some interesting rides.
Just in case you somehow missed the joke on Friday, yes, those cars were owned and up for sale by our own David Tracy and Mercedes Streeter. In fact, the BMW already sold, so all of you voting for it are a day (or two) late and a dollar (or fifteen hundred) short. You can still score David’s Leaf, however, and take advantage of those sweet, sweet government rebates.
Out of curiosity, I looked up a couple of mileages for my local drives: my nearest Target store is 13.6 miles away, over rural highways with speed limits between 50 and 65 miles per hour. So I could get there, but not back. There is a supermarket closer, however, just 6.3 miles away, so technically I could use the Leaf for running some errands. I don’t think I will, though.
Now then: I remember being surprised, shortly after I got my first car, when I asked my mom what her first car was: a powder-blue 1961 Chevy Corvair sedan. Somehow I expected it to be a hand-me-down of one of my grandpa’s parade of Buicks, but no; she got to pick her first car out herself, and she chose the Corvair. And when I was a freshman in high school, and she finished her Master’s degree and opened her own counseling practice, she picked out a very specific new car for herself: a bright red Audi 5000S. Nothing else would suffice, she told my dad. She would have told you she wasn’t a car person, but she knew what she liked, and there was no changing her mind.
One of these is similar to a car she used to have, but different in one important way. The other is the spitting image of her car, but a different model year. Let’s check them out.
1972 Opel Manta – $4,200
Engine/drivetrain: 1.9-liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Madisonville, KY
Odometer reading: 82,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives, but needs carb work
When I was born in 1973, my mom’s car of choice was a red 1971 Opel Manta with a black vinyl top. It was the car for which, after years of coaxing by my father, she finally learned to drive a stickshift, and she spoke fondly of it often over the years. My dad, at the time, drove a ’67 Triumph Spitfire, which means that the Manta would have been the first car I ever rode in, coming home from the hospital. (I doubt, even in the lassiez-faire early ’70s, they would have brought an infant home in a Spitfire in January.)
The Manta came with a couple of different engine choices in Europe, but as was customary then – and still is to some degree – in the US we only got the largest engine, a 1.9-liter overhead cam four. Unlike my mom’s car, this Manta has an automatic transmission. Yeah, I know. The seller says it runs and drives fine if you baby it, but bogs down and stalls if you put your foot in it, so some carburetor work is going to be necessary. It’s in good mechanical condition otherwise and has larger Opel GT brakes fitted.
It’s holding up pretty well for a fifty-two-year-old car inside, but it has a couple of popped seams on the vinyl seats and some stains on the carpets. One photo in the ad suggests it may need a headliner, too. You’re not likely to find much in the way of restoration parts here in the US for these, but the Manta still has a pretty good following in Germany, so some stuff might be available there. Or just leave it as it is and don’t sweat it.
Outside, the paint is a little faded and chalky, but there’s no rust to speak of. And this old single-stage paint can be brought back with some polishing compound and elbow grease, at least well enough to impress the crowd at Cars & Coffee.
1995 Chevrolet Beretta – $2,200
Engine/drivetrain: 3.1-liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Baldwin Park, CA
Odometer reading: 138,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Remember that Audi I mentioned earlier? Yeah. That story didn’t have a happy ending, unfortunately. That car was involved in two serious wrecks, one with all of us in the car and one with just my mom. The second one put her in a wheelchair for the last fifteen years of her life. For a long time she didn’t drive at all, but then she wanted to have the freedom again. Her new car had to have two things: the ability to install hand controls, and room enough behind the driver’s seat for her to stash her wheelchair easily by herself. The answer, after checking out a whole bunch of cars, turned out to be a 1993 Chevy Beretta, of all things. It was perfect for her.
This Beretta looks exactly like my mom’s car: Same base-model trim, same refrigerator-white paint, same gray mouse-fur upholstery. It’s powered by GM’s ubiquitous 3.1 liter V6, a nice reliable engine – give or take an intake gasket or two, and a little piston slap. My mom’s Beretta used a three-speed automatic; by 1995 this had been updated to a four-speed. Having driven my mom’s car from Illinois to Colorado and back, I can tell you the overdrive is a welcome improvement. It runs and drives well, and has had some “engine work” recently, but that’s all the information we get.
The interior is only okay on this car; the driver’s side seat side bolster is pretty chewed up. And there’s a towel on the passenger’s seat that I fear hides further damage. It also has a dashboard toupee, and who knows what’s lurking under there?
Outside, it looks halfway decent, but white paint hides a lot. The trunk lid looks a little wonky, but honestly, as much as I love GM cars, that could have been that way from the factory. One thing I don’t like is that it has those silly rain deflector things on it. They don’t work, and they look terrible.
These two don’t really match up, I suppose, apart from both being two-door coupes made by General Motors. But since when has that mattered here? One is a classic that needs a little tinkering, and the other is just a tired but reliable old car. See? Something for everyone. Which one will it be?
(Image credits: Facebook Marketplace sellers)
I recognize the Manta’s entire drivetrain. It is, essentially, the same unit from stem to stern as that in my mother’s 1971 Opel GT: the 1900 was the hi-po engine option (power fell through the floor in the next model year with an emissions-related compression ratio reduction), the light-duty TH180 transmission ensured that, regardless of power output, you took your time getting places. The GT got a Solex two-barrel carb and this Manta appears to be wearing a Weber.
I love the greenhouse on the Opel. Beretta/Lumina is a malaise era flashback and a no-go, even at half the price.
Too late for the “official” tally, but I’m pleased to see that the Manta won. No shade on the Beretta, the design of which has aged extremely well over the ensuing almost-40 years, but we’re big Opel fans around here.
The presence of rain deflectors pretty much guarantees that the Beretta was owned by a chain smoker. I’ll take the Manta.
Manta…I was gonna go for the Beretta but eventually it will just be a tired old car even though it will run badly longer than other cars will run at all. The Opel is more interesting, an actual classic, and it would be fun to tinker with
Classic Chuck Jordan design vs. Chevy Beretta? I’ll be a Manta-fahrer.
Opel for sure! I had a 74 with the giant bumpers, but still a great car. Paid $75, buffed and waxed it, fixed a rotted out piece of quarter panel with bondo, and put a clutch in. Took me through a couple years of college and I taught my girl at the time to drive stick in the beast. Always thought I could like another.
My parents both had Opel Mantas. My dad had an orange one that he named Red which lead my mom to tease him about it. My mom had a white one named Angie. I can remember how hot the seats and seatbelt buckles got when getting picked up from the pool on hot summer days.
I also vividly remember a gas station attendant telling me to get out of the car as i watched the paint on Angie’s hood starting to bubble as, unbeknownst to me, the engine was on fire. Angie spent the rest of her years in the garage being used for faux Dukes of Hazard shenanigans before being towed away to god knows where.
The Opel has a cam-in-head engine, not an overhead cam. Granted the distinction is pretty subtle, I think it mainly has to do with getting hydraulic valve lifters in and otherwise overhead cam engine, but I’m no engineer, I just look at the pictures.
Today is a bit of a “Why not both?” day for me. A cheap reliable daily, and a cheap nice looking classic to tinker with. All for $6400 before you even try to negotiate. NOT BAD!!
The first car I ever drove on a public road was a Beretta. It was a rental because my dad’s car was in the shop. All of our cars were manuals and this one obviously was an automatic. No comment as to how old I was.
Hey, Mark, those rain deflectors may not be quite live up to the hype when it comes to rain, but they’re great in hot weather when you can leave the windows open and inch or so to reduce the heat in the oven.
My parents told me they brought me home from the hospital in a MG TD.
In 1991, I almost drove my wife and son Home from 77th St. and Manhattan upper Eastside in a 1962 two door Ford galaxy, realized that not only did the front seats, not have anything to keep them from folding forward, but there were no seatbelts in the rear, and I’d probably get arrested if I even put a baby near that car. I made my wife and child take a taxi. I was transported in that very car by my grandparents, and it’s death trap nature hadn’t occurred to me.
I’m still a little unclear how whoever was holding me in the TD managed to hold onto the oh-shit handle because no seatbelts and to the door because it just opened all the time and also hold on to me.
I had a good friend with a blue Beretta and boy did we have some good times in that thing. There aren’t a lot of cars that I have really fond memories about, but looking at the pictures of the Beretta above conjures up…nothing. I’ll take the Opel, because all those good memories were in spite of that garbage Beretta, not because of it.
Mark’s story about the Beretta reminds me of my late Aunt Lois. She lost the use of her legs as a teenager in the 1940’s due to polio. Despite this – or perhaps because of it – she was fiercely independent. I was only a little kid in the 1970’s, so my first memory of her driving was in her 1970 Pontiac LeMans 2-door, red with a red vinyl interior. She would slide into the driver’s seat, fold her wheelchair and stuff it behind the driver’s seat. Later, she bought a 1977 LeMans 2-door in white with a red vinyl interior and used it the same way. That’s how it was done back then. I think it was 1987 when she finally needed to get a van – a Chevy Astro with a lift in the back. Anyway, thanks for the memories.
A funky, cool little Opel or a (apologies to your mom, Mark) mid’90’s GM Dullmobile? Easy choice. Plus, when I first met my wife, she was driving a Manta. That was almost 40 years ago and this one is in infinitely better shape than hers was. I’ll drive this one home late at night, put a bow on it, and lead her out to the driveway blindfolded the next morning. Her first reaction will be an excited “Oh my God, it’s an Opel!!!” (And her second reaction will probably be, “Why did you buy another car?????”, but at least I’d get that first reaction.)
Beretta and find some Z26 wheels for it. I’d be the coolest guy in my high school parking lot.
My wife’s family had a black-on-black Manta (named Blackie) in Alabama in the early ’70s, thing must’ve been hotter than the sun.
I’d be more interested in the Beretta if it was in one of the hot colors they came in (IIRC teal & yellow).
This vote proved harder than I thought because let’s be honest: both cars look ok, are quite rare and colud give me good service. In the end it all came down to whether I wanted a daily driver or a weekend cruiser.
Since I already have two daily drivers, a weekend cruiser would fit in my garage really nice.
So Manta it is
I don’t have any interest in restoring 1995 cars, and the Beretta is a bit too beat to serve as a daily, so I picked the Opel. It’s not an ideal project, but it’s in good condition and just interesting enough to get my vote even though it’s definitely overpriced.
First, no wagon, so no winner, but, if one has to be selected, I’ll stay away from 70s era malaise, even if this one isn’t directly afflicted with such.