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)
Would take the Manta in half a cocaine heart beat but for the automatic
Oh, I also had a $400, 4th-hand Corsica that had been abused, crashed, neglected. Absolutely refused to die – dumb ass me ran it out of oil on the south side of Chicago, engine grinding and smelling hot and bad, top speed of 35 or so. Coasted into a sketchy gas station and let it cool down. Added 4 quarts of lo-buck motor oil and, after a few blocks of protest, drove it back to the north side just fine. Took it to Tex-ass with me in ‘99 and it still got 31 on the highway. It still ran well when the ECU died a week before my wedding in 2001 and I sold it to my mechanic for $450 and his daughter drove it until at least 2007 (the last time I remember seeing it).
Terrible car designed by people who have never driven a car, but an engineering marvel :).
I had a Grand Am with the 3.1 and the intake gasket was failing (predictably), but I just kept driving it anyway. I remember checking the coolant reservoir and it was just a brown milkshake. Kept chugging for a year, then died, sat for a month and I tried to start it on a fluke, and it started. So I drove it for another month or two before it died again.
Made it to 195k though. If it were worth repairing the gasket, I’m sure it could have gone over 300k.
Yeah, when my Grandma had a Corsica it was in exact opposite shape: pristine. Years later I found out how bad Corsicas were- at least most of them that weren’t taken care of. It probably still wouldn’t have lasted a long, long time (or just ran badly longer than other cars run)
Anyway, eventually she got a Hyundai and it was at least a step up
My grandmother had a later model Corsica 4cyl (the one I couldn’t kill was a 2.8) and while it wasn’t a nice car, it functioned well and never let anyone down as long as you kept the fluids up as it did weep.
My parents brought me home in their ‘71 240z sitting on my mom’s lap. When my brother came along in ‘73 they bought a brand new BMW Bavaria that ran like a scalded cat until it rusted completely away. The motor lived on in our ‘77 530i, some 400,000 miles or so, 75,000 or being teenage miles. As long as you kept it on the road and kept oil and coolant in it it’d run happily near redline in 4th all day..
In ‘87 or so dad bought an ‘88 Beretta 5-speed that somehow had GT trim but 14” wheels. 15 years, 287,000 miles, and one clutch later he sold it to the paperboy for $150 because he was sick of looking at it; the kid made it to 380,000 before he had a disagreement with the garbage truck over right-of-way on our narrow, WV hollow road.
Thanks for stirring up the memories :).
Coming tomorrow- Torch does a deep dive into those silly rain-deflector things that don’t work and look terrible.
Beretta for me. The old Opel isn’t appealing to me with it’s slushbox, needing lots of work and it’s un-special style to my eyes.
The Beretta will be a better vehicle in every way except maybe for the novelty factor.
If the Opel was like $1000, then it would be a contender.
Huh… am I finding myself in a weird moment in time when these two cars are broadly equally appealing to me? The old Manta feels like it *should* be more desirable, being older and much more rare (in the states) – but I have no personal frame of reference for that car. The Beretta, on the other hand, is solidly from the era of time where I was becoming a gearhead. At the time it wasn’t desirable, but it was ubiquitous, and I’ve always had a soft spot for the 60 degree v6 family of engines – simple as a hammer and just as reliable, and allowed GM to offer regular working stiffs a v6 on a budget that would only get you a 4 cylinder elsewhere.
So for my money I’d buy the Beretta for half the price of that Opel, and you have a daily-drivable ‘classic’ (they are more than 25 years old now, lord how time flies…) that you can fix with a rock and seas of NOS cheap parts from RockAuto. Solid win for the Chevy, IMO.
Opel, the side effect of fifty year old cars with low miles is usually sitting around without proper storage treatment. Once you drop the carb and replace it with a Holley Sniper 1 barrel, and probably replace every rubber piece under the hood, you could have a pretty decent time capsule.
I forget the derisive nickname they used for the Beretta back in the day, but the 4 door version (Corsica) got the nickname “Corpsica”.
Enough said. Opel all the way today.
Wow, surprisingly the 1st time I’ve heard that…when my Grandma had a Corsica it was pristine for obvious reasons then years later I found out how bad they were. Hilarious!
(and I’ve heard just about every funny nicknames for cars- my favorite is Chevy Shitation)
I have a weakness for old Beretta’s but that Opel is so classic cool I can’t say no
I’m digging the love for the Beretta from some of you, as a former L-body owner myself. Probably an underappreciated group of cars in the general population, but surely worthy of Autopian interest. 🙂
Also, those rain deflectors must go. The Beretta/Corsica had aero doors; the profile is wrong for sticking them on, and the wide window molding with a groove molded in it isn’t suitable for holding them — so they have to go above the trim which makes them useless and stick out too far. Even the rare ones that inserted into the top of the window channel were still wrong on these cars — they just don’t work against the aero styling of the car.
That said, the Opel is also way cool — another nifty GM offering that deserves to be remembered better.
That Opel is much, much, much more interesting than the Beretta. Since it is a slushy-box, no harm in a mild restomod. I’d look to these guys for how it should be done.
https://www.theopelproject.com/opel-manta-running-full-webcon-alpha-system/
I like both but am picking the Manta because it’s cooler and scarcer, and because much more desirable Berettas exist at modest prices. Let’s start acknowledging what a handsome design the Beretta is, though.
Agree, remember how sleek and modern the Beretta looked when new in 1988 to my middle school eyes. Between that and the Taurus/Sable the future had arrived and nearly everything else on the road just looked old.
I voted Manta though.
I used to get a ride to high school every day in a Beretta. I was a freshman and didn’t have my license yet, and the bus ride took about an hour longer than driving. So I hitched a ride with a Beretta Guy. He was a real jerk, so I voted Manta.
Had a brother in law that had a black Beretta, he also could be a real jerk.
Now I wonder if that was a thing?
Seriously the Corsica models always were more appealing to me visually though.
Properly optioned, the Corsica was a superior sleeper 🙂
Could be. This one was also black.
My Corsica was that rather intense electric blue metallic shade that GM had in the 90s, with the reddish-orange trim replacing the standard chrome trim and badging. (Not that Corsicas had much trim and badging to begin with — they seemed to escape the gingerbread.) I miss colorful paint options for cars…
I like the Manta but it’s overpriced. I was always impressed by the roominess of the Beretta. In honor of your mom, that’s my choice.
I honestly had no idea that Berettas were still in the lineup in ’95. They always seemed like earnest rides to me. I’d be more inclined for something like that rather than the Opel which just seems like it would be more of a PITA than its worth.
FWIW, my mom didn’t bring me home in her Spitfire, but she took me everywhere in it for the first few years. Then she wanted something with a bit more room for kid stuff and ‘upgraded’ to a Beetle.
I turned out fine. I swear I did.
When I came into the world, my father had a Spitfire and my mom had a Beetle. Best of both worlds? (Of course, my father had to occasionally borrow the Beetle when it got too cold in the winter…)
If I can rebuild the carb on an International Scout (which I have done), I can rebuild the carb on that Manta.
That looks like an aftermarket Weber DGV 32/36 which is a very simple carb. They used to make kits to replace almost every emission carb with those Webers back in the ’80s.
Beretta for me. I owned one, just in screaming red and with a manual. Picked up my first autocross trophy in her.
Great cars for what they are, an everyday ride with a little sporty style. Underappreciated things about them:
Those seats are way above their league, both comfort- and bolstering-wise, and the fabric is nice and grippy to hold you in as well.
Also, Chevy never refreshed the design in any major way, so it doesn’t look as instantly dated as other models that go through big changes do.
Having owned a Z52-package Corsica, I’ll second your comment. The seats in those cars were excellent. The body styling was executed well. It mostly erred on the side of simplicity, which is far better than being over-wrought. Although the ’92 refresh of the interior was a definite improvement over the original version.
Just putting better-than stock tires on them could wake up their handling in vanilla form. They benefitted from GM having a better-than-average understanding of and commitment to FWD engineering compared to so many other automakers that viewed FWD as predominantly an economy-car thing. And by the time Chevy fronted these L-body cars (and GM fronted the N-body for rest of the divisions) they’d definitely been doing their homework on transverse-engine FWD. Then for those times when Chevy got management looking the other way and put out some more potent versions of the Beretta/Corsica, they managed to build some cars that punched above their weight.
I remember mine sure woke up with even reasonably better tires compared with the OEM donuts.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure GM corporate thinking was at the forefront of putting crummy low-rolling-resistance tires on ordinary models in order to make their fleet average fuel economy numbers look better. A lot of their cars suffered for that, and it probably contributed to the popular opinion that GM wasn’t up to what the imports had on offer. Tires can make huge difference on an otherwise well-engineered car. (It just wouldn’t be GM if they didn’t pull the rug out from under their own feet from time to time.)
My current Ford Focus came with horribly stiff Hankooks from the factory, I’m sure for gas mileage. Once I swapped them first for Dunlops, and now my current Firehawks, it felt like a different car entirely. Though I kinda miss being able to easily chirp the tires into second, though not b/c engine power…
Saw the Manta in the title…scrolled down to vote.
Yep its got an auto, but there’s probably a rusty donor Opel GT out there to give you the proper transmission.
Manta. It’s overpriced and not my favorite Opel (that would be the GT), but these were strangely popular where I was living during their heyday, so I’ve got some good memories of Mantas. I hope these were named for the ray and not the cloak.
A good friend drove the Beretta. I liked the looks, and it had plenty of pop.
So sorry about your mother, but good on her for muscling through. I’ll pick the Beretta.
I’ve always liked the look of the Beretta for some reason. On friend in university had one and figured out that he could use the long pointy front end to go under the parking barriers. Apparently they were designed to lift if you put enough upward pressure on them – probably to save more expensive repairs. So for the last year or two of school he would park for free. Paint was already pretty bad so saving a few dollars a day was more important to him at the time.
Shit Mark. So sorry to learn what your Mom had to endure and deal with in her life.
But the brain says vote Beretta today, because A/C, safety, and interior space.
Magic 8 ball says to vote for the Opel though.
Listen to the 8 ball!
For me, the Beretta takes it. Normally I’d go for the Manta, but at nearly twice the price, and a 3 speed with the 1.9, the 3.1 and 4 speed puts it over the top. Plus I’ve always kind of liked the looks of the Beretta.
Yeah, I wanted to vote manta, but it’s just… not a very good manta, sadly.