When I was knee high to a Cortina, our visiting healthcare professional was a lady, and she drove an Opel Manta. It was a GT, the base model in the UK in the mid ’80s, and I thought it was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. It had those anthracite steel wheels with the little triangular cut-outs, and little plastic hubcaps. Much more awesome than the badly rusty Vauxhall Victor my Dad had at the time.
When I saw this model for sale in a Chelmsford toy store about fifteen years ago, I obviously had to have it. Of course, as tends to happen it represents the range topping GT/E Coupe rather than the GT Hatchback, but aside from that finding it was Manta be.


Vauxhall and Opel, confusingly, both appeared in the UK market for a while in the ’80s. You could choose an Opel Rekord or Vauxhall Carlton, Opel Monza or Vauxhall Royale. When it came to the Vauxhall Cavalier and Opel Ascona, though, things were different. In Germany the Ascona had a bluff, squared off nose, where as the UK version, the Cavalier, had a streamlined, grille-less front designed by GM Penman Wayne Cherry. A slatted version of this nose was adopted by the Opel Manta, which was also sold as the Vauxhall Cavalier Sporthatch. Confused? Yeah, so was everybody else..

later GM realised that such duplication was a bit silly, and handed the UK market over to Vauxhall, pruning back all Opel offerings aside from Manta and Monza. Opel became GMs “Performance” brand in the UK. The Manta was kept in UK brochures until 1987 to combat Ford with their Capri, which received very little development after 1982 and was only sold in the UK after ’84. It finally slipped quietly into the night in 1986 but the Manta stayed on sale for another year or so, possibly because GM forgot all about it.
This model is a slightly strange one inasmuch as that it represents a Manta in subtly accessorised form. From front to back, there are a pair of Irmscher style twin headlamps in place of the correct flush mounted trapezoidal glass affairs, and it is sitting on a set of classic ATS “CUP” alloy wheels. These changes are period correct, but I would have loved it if the model could have been straight out of the pages of the brochure.

Fortunately, the model itself is lovely. It doesn’t fizz with detail from every pore, but it does a convincing enough job of looking like the real thing. The shape looks right, (resemblance to the Chevy Monza / Olds Starfire is no coincidence) the stance looks good and the details which are there are to the right scale.
The extremely distinctive MANTA GT/E graphics have been well observed and are applied in the right place. The headlamps themselves are wonderfully lifelike. From the rear three quarters the rear lamps are the right shape and pattern, but don’t have the same degree of realism as the front ones. The trunklid doesn’t open, either.

The doors do, though, and they’re glazed. They’re a bit of a swine to get open though, as they are so tightly fitted and use a spring-clip rather than a dogleg hinge. Inside there is a fully marked instrument cluster and a well formed and accurate dashboard, if you can see it in all the black plastic gloom. The steering wheel and seats are correct, too.

The bonnet opens wide, and beneath can be found the 2.0 litre 20E Cam-In-Head engine, providing 110hp via Bosch LE-Jetronic fuel injection. Though all the hardware is in the right place, it’s rather short on wiring. Perhaps a 1/18 scale electrician needs to get busy under there.

It’s a nice model overall, which is just as well as Revell are the only firm to have ever made a 1/18 Manta. They sold this one, a yellow version and a model of the Manta 400 rally car and its homologation counterpart. Intriguingly, looking on eBay there are folk trying to flog this very model for over £100. I’d be tempted to sell this one if values head further north… not so long ago you could buy a 1/1 scale Manta for that kind of money.
(All images copyright Chris Haining / Hooniverse 2015)