O Is For: 1974 Opel Manta vs 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

Good morning! It’s the end of the week, and we’re all the way up to O in our trip through the alphabet. Today is all about General Motors, as we take a look at two nice and clean coupes in excellent colors. Yeah, they’re expensive, but they’re the nicest examples of their kind you’re likely to find.

Yesterday’s choices were awfully nice too, especially that NSU, and it ended up winning the vote. Rotary power and space-age styling is a hard combination to beat, especially in that pretty blue. Yeah, you’ll have a hard time finding parts for it, but you’re guaranteed to have the only one at any given car gathering.

But I think I have to vote for the beluga whale. I prefer the Hudson Hornet’s styling, but the big bathtub Nashes are awfully cool, too. And I know I can keep a big dumb six-cylinder alive. If I want rotary power someday, it’ll be a Mazda. At least those you can get parts for.

All right, who’s ready to revisit the Seventies? Today we’ve got two of the General’s coolest two-door offerings from that decade that brought us leisure suits and Poco. And true to form, they’re both in garish colors: bright frickin’ orange, and bright frickin’ green. Let’s check them out.

1974 Opel Manta Rallye – $13,500

Engine/drivetrain: 1.9 liter overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, RWD

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Odometer reading: 83,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

The first-generation Opel Manta holds a special place in my heart, for a strange reason: my parents had a red ’71 Manta when I was born, so it would have been the very first car I ever rode in. I don’t remember it; it was wrecked (not with me in it) and replaced with a ’74 Pinto wagon when I was still a baby. But as much as I like unusual cars, two-door coupes, and small European imports, that red Manta must have left some sort of imprint on my tiny, still-developing mind. It may, in fact, have been what turned me into a car guy. Would I be here, writing about cars every day, if my dad had chosen a boring old four-door Dart or something? Maybe not. We’ll never know.

This Manta is the one to get, if you’re in the market. It’s a Rallye model, with stripes, a blacked-out hood, and stiffer suspension tuning. Right up front, I should tell you it has a rebuilt title, because – get this – somebody scrapped it. What kind of monster sends a car like this to the junkyard? The seller has done a ton of work to it, all listed in verbose detail in the ad, but the highlights are a completely rebuilt suspension, a five-speed transmission out of a V6 Mustang, a Weber carb, an aluminum radiator, all-new brakes, and more. It runs and drives great, and is ready to go.

The seller seems to be more interested in taking artsy photos like this than actually showing the car, but we get the gist. The interior isn’t shown; the seller claims it’s a 7 out of 10, which sounds livable. It has an aftermarket steering wheel, but the original is also included if you’d prefer. The seller says everything works, including all the original gauges.

The paint is original, though the hood has been replaced by a hood from another Manta Rallye, and the seller did some rust repair in the floors. It has been updated to halogen H4 headlights, and LED bulbs in the taillights – kudos to the seller for not installing those awful LED retrofit headlights as well. The wheels on it are a period-correct optional set, but it also includes the original wheels, which if I remember right are stamped-steel Rostyles.

1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme – $16,500

Engine/drivetrain: 350 cubic inch overhead valve V8, three-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Grants Pass, OR

Odometer reading: 40,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

Here it is, the number-one selling car in the United States for 1976: the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It was also, as far as I can tell, the number-one used car choice of high-school-age guys in Chicagoland in the late 1980s. My high school parking lot was absolutely full of these things, and usually the two-door coupe version like this. And why not? It’s a good-looking, reliable, V8-powered car that could be bought all day long in the classifieds for a few hundred dollars. Of course, those cars are long gone, having been used up and discarded by those young owners, which is how this one got to be a rare collectible today.

Power comes from a 350 cubic inch version of Oldsmobile’s celebrated V8, though it no longer carried the “Rocket” moniker by this point. It has a four-barrel Quadrajet carburetor and spins a Turbo-Hydramatic 350 transmission to drive the rear axle, with a typical malaise-era tall final drive ratio. Acceleration isn’t great, but the tall 2.41:1 gearing keeps the revs down and the mileage numbers up, and that was the point. It runs great, and even though it may not be the thundering beast that earlier Rocket V8s were, it breathes through a new dual exhaust system, and I bet it sounds terrific.

The seller doesn’t provide any single good shot of the interior, but these two should give you an idea: it’s immaculate. The white vinyl upholstery is all re-done, the dash is original and perfect, and the steering wheel is a 442-style, in green to match the dash. This is not, as they say, your father’s Oldsmobile. More to the point, it isn’t your grandma’s, either.

It has been repainted, in its original color, and the bumpers have been re-chromed. It’s got all new weatherstripping, too. The factory color-matched Rallye wheels with beauty rings are a nice touch, and there are five of them. They even replaced all the emblems. Someone really showered this car with love; it’s a far cry from the rusty, primer-gray Cutlasses jacked up on air shocks that populated my high school parking lot.

So you’ve got one sporty European import survivor that has been mechanically reconditioned, and one malaise era coupe that has been painstakingly restored to probably-better-than-new condition. And although they’re not exactly cheap, they’re both less than a new Nissan Versa. And they’re both way cooler. All you have to choose, and you have all weekend to do it. See you next week!