5 Vauxhall/Opel cars that deserve your respect.

In the past 2 and a half-decades GM had arguably dragged the Vauxhall and Opel name through the shit, with the 2 companies pumping out one economy box after another. Resulting in image brand that's most associated with Ecoboxes and the council estates, but there was once a time where Opel and by distinction Vauxhall rebelled and made some truly cool cars. Here is 5 of them.

#1 Opel/Vauxhall Manta

So starting with what’s probably my favourite Opel of all time (yes In spite of the GT)

Now I must admit the reason why I like it so much is quite simple and primitive. it’s drop dead gorgeous, aperfects the 80's design theme of a rectangular '3 box' coupe, but it complements it with some nice curves. It's got a powerfull-ishh engine coupled with RWD and was rather affordable for the times. What more could you want ?

Furthermore, it's got rally heritage baby! Now the story is somewhat twisted here, but Manta is partially a WRC Group B Championship wining car, yes that group B. But more on that in the next car...

#2 Opel Ascona 400 WRC

Source :https://www.pinterest.es/pin/468374429990103423/

Source :https://www.pinterest.es/pin/468374429990103423/

Back in 1982 the underpowered but overly reliable and lightweight Opels took on the Goliaths in the form Audi Quattro, Alfa Rome 037 and many other group B legends.

Now if you research this topic in English you will probably find out that the winning car was the Opel Ascona 400, now if you research it in Polish or German the more mainland Europe languages, you will find sources claiming it was the Manta 400 that won the 1982 championship.

One of the reasons why that might be is that the Manta was developed from the Ascona as 2+2 coupe to compete directly with the Ford Capri, and the Ascona 400 and Manta 400 rally versions went through the very same upgrade process to its mechanical bits.

These included a new Cosworth cross-flow 16v head, originally designed for the 2.0 litre Opel engine but upon discovering lackluster power out-puts, Opel re-bored it to 2.4 litres, and installing an uprated crankshaft from their..... *drum solo* 2.3litre CIH (cam-in-head) diesel... even though it sounds quite mad, it resulted in power outputs as high as 340hp, and that’s without turbos, rather impressive if you ask me.

This resulted in the Ascona 400 being the last RWD car to win the WRC Drivers Championship and the driver behind the wheel was the legendary Walter Rohlr.

#3 Opel Commodore B/ Vaxuhall Viceroy B

So most of you are probably saying something along the lines of 'oh its just a Holden with a different badge'. And you would be wrong, the first 2 generations of the Commodore nameplate were entirely Opel design, starting in 1967 the Commodre A was born based on the platform of Opel Rekord, however it's the 1972 Commodore B generation which interests me.

The 1967 model was a great car, coming with RWD and 2.8 litre straight 6 developing a 150horse power, which for reference is about 10hp more than a Porsche 911 from the same era. It finished the 0-100kph sprint in about 9.5 seconds.

In 1972 Commodore B build on these foundation, upping the power to a 157bhp, which meant it could a 0-100kph in about 8.8seconds, and all the way up to the top speed of a 124mph, all that while looking simply drop dead gorgeous.

#4 Opel/Vauxhall Calibra

Ah the Calibra, a Cavaliere in a sports kit which had the misfortune of popping up on the radar of nearly every ricer in the 90's and early 00's meaning that the car's reputation is probably well and truely set in most peoples minds.

But lets try and get away from this, Ehrnard Shnel this time supported by his GM overlords who've seen the popularity of small Japanese sports cars of the era and wanted to cash in.

And so in 1989 Calibra was born, and for the late 80's it was quite a boom, yes it was based on the same underpinnings as the Vectra A and Saab 900, but unlike the incredibly dull Vectra, it looked fun and sleek thanks to a ton of work put in to reduce the aerodynamic drag all the way down to 0.26. Which was the lowest ever, and continued to be so for the next 10 years, until it was overtaken by the Honda Insight

As you can imagine being based on the Vectra platform it wasn’t overly exciting to drive, even though Opel did attempt to improve the structural rigidity, it did not stand out of the crowd of saloon based coupes from the era like the Ford Probe, or Peugeot 406 coupe.

So Opel did something about it, offering the Calibra with a 2.0 litre turbocharged C20XE engine, producing over 200horsepower, going to ALL FOUR WHEELS, via a Geartrag 6 Speed Box, finally giving the Calibra performance to match it's looks. Although the centre diff had bit of a tendency to well break if abused, which combined with the Calibra's popularity amongst ricers mean that there are very few survivors left out there.

Calibra also featured in the German DTM racing and managed to win it's offshoot series ITC ( international Touring Car Championship) beating both Mercedes and Alfa Romeo, to the Drivers and Constructors Championship title in 1996.

#5 Opel Diplomat Coupe

So we had the pretty, the ugly but fast, the smart, and fast and pretty, well now it's time for the stupid, this is a 5 metre long Opel, with luxurious cabin, and 5.4 litre Chevy Small Block V8 under the hood, that cost 25000 Doutche Marks or about as much as 7 VW Beetles.

The car was part of the Opels KAD range which included the Kapitan, Admiral and the Diplomat which were their range topping models supposed to compete with the likes of Mercedes 350se, but due to poor sales they were stopped after the 2nd generation in 1977.

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