General Motors‘ Opel division built over 100,000 examples of its Opel GT sports car – a whopping 70,000 of which made their way to the United States. Despite this, the Opel GT is quite a rare sight on American roads, with many car enthusiasts and collectors having overlooked the little two-seater in favor of more imposing, American-bred two doors from the ’60s and ’70s.
It’s still possible to find a clean, well-kept Opel GT for sale in the U.S., though, as evidenced by this extremely nice 1970 model year example that will cross the auction block at Mecum Glendale next month.
Not much information on this 1970 Opel GT is included in the listing, but it appears to have been restored at some point, or it has been extremely well taken care of. This seems unlikely based on the fresh-looking seats and upholstery, but the cabin does show some wear on the steering wheel, so it’s hard to say.
This car left the factory with the four-speed manual transmission, rather than the much less desirable three-speed automatic. One might assume most Opel GTs were sold with a manual transmission, but GM elected to sell the car through Buick dealers, so quite a few ended up with the available three-speed automatic. This one also came equipped with air conditioning and an AM radio.
The only engine offered in the American-spec Opel GT was a 1.9L four-cylinder engine. The engine made a rather stout 109 horsepower, but GM was forced to reduce the compression ratio for the 1971 model year due to emissions regulations. That means this car features the more powerful, high compression 1.9L engine – assuming it still has its original engine, that is. The base 1.1L four-cylinder was not sold in the U.S. at any point, though it was offered north of the border in Canada, so some of these less powerful models have found their way into the U.S.
Check out the listing for this 1970 Opel GT at this link and let us know what you think of this miniature retro sports car in the comments below.
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Comments
Nice car, very rare interior. Custom AC is unique and obviously InOp.. Curious to see how it goes for this one. I would venture in the $15,000 range. As less nice exampled in B-J and Mechum, and Bring-A-Trailer have been going for values that are over what the current value ranges have been running. As for finding a good example. ClassicOpels.com and FB have plenty. Just have to know where to look. They made and imported over 100,000 and we still have parts sources for them like Mustangs, etc.. they’re not near as rare or hard to get parts for as people think they are.