German Opel

[PC]

Haven't seen an Opel for a long time and didn't know they were still made. ...

Like E.T., Opel went home years ago.

Commonly available in Europe, just not here, mostly. Thank to GM's "expertise" in badge engineering, some Opels have snuck over here under the radar. The Cadillac Catera was an Opel Omega and the current Buick Regal is an Opel Insignia.

...We would regularly trounce them at autocross events, even in an MGB. They just seemed awkward to me.

Opels were brought over to Buick dealers in bland commuter trim. In Europe, where you could get the bits to properly prep them, they did rater well.

And then there was this:

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/power-to-the-opel-1974-opel-manta/

Man, I loved my '74 Manta. Looked exactly like the one in the article. Regretted the heck out of letting it go but I had no place to keep it. Years later I tried to get it back but the guy we sold it to had passed it on to some guy who took it out of state.

 

[glemon]

I daily a 2002 Lexus IS300, it has everything I could need and I consider it a luxury car for me. Ice cold air and furnace level heat, power windows and locks, amazing reliability, nice handling, but smooth ride, a cool compass built into the rear view mirrow, RWD, which I like, a double overhead cam straight six, just like a proper jag. But no touch screen or display, just tactile buttons with a smooth silky feel to control most everything. It will be my old man car, where years from now kids will see it and marvel at the granpa still driving the car he got 25 years ago. I only got it four or five years ago, it was low miles and I cross shopped it with newer cars that had the latest "I-pad in the dash" features and controls. I bought it because it drove great and didn't have the new tech I didn't want. I call it the last of the great analog cars, engine controls are digital, which done right is a good thing, user interface is analog. A plus in my book. In stock form, with low miles, these are already achieving a bit of price bump and collector status, especially with manual transmission, for all of the aforesaid reasons.

As far as the Opel is concerned, they sold these over here for a year or two as the Saturn, cool little car that came out with little fanfare when Saturn was dying and Crossovers and SUVS were where all the market growth was, it didn't stand a chance, but I still see one every once in a while, first time I noticed one I thought "kind of a cool little car" but even car crazy me had to look up what it was, it was so rare and obsure over here.