Used Car of the Day: 1974 Opel Manta

by Tim Healey

Published: August 5th, 2025

Today we're going back to the decade of disco for this 1974 Opel Manta.

This one has just under 100K miles and is pretty stock, or so says the seller. They also say it drives well and only has some minor issues.

It's a four-speed manual with Recaro seats, and it's a Don McLean car -- apparently the late Mr. McLean was a big car guy who was known in specific car-enthusiast circles. Or maybe Opel and/or Michigan circles. I don't think I am familiar with him.

This one is available in the Detroit suburb of Troy for $9,000. Click here for more.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 14 comments

Pianoboy57 on Aug 06, 2025

We had a '71 1900, lower trim than Manta but a really fun car.

1 Reply
Rich on Aug 07, 2025

I went and saw this car yesterday. Yes there is an Opel GT in the garage.
This is a very nice car. Don is well know by other Opel owners, I met him only a few times and only briefly But had never seen his cars.
I highly recommend this car. (I’d love it but I already have so many that I’m so desperate for storeage I have one at my X-wife’s house!).
I posted a little YouTube video, I hope it helps.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQ-MHi8lIU&t=1s&pp=0gcJCa0JAYcqIYzv

{ "id": "9765247", "alt": "", "title": "", "video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/nvQ-MHi8lIU", "youtube_video_id": "nvQ-MHi8lIU" }

{ "width": 634, "height": 357, "showRelated": false }

2 Reply

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