Opel Postpones the Manta's Comeback

While design models are still slumbering in Rüsselsheim, tuners and nostalgics are being dealt a blow. Opel is pursuing other plans instead.

Car manufacturer Opel is postponing the battery-electric comeback of its classic sports car, the Manta. "The Manta project exists, there are design models – but none of these models will be launched before 2030", Opel CEO Florian Huettl told Spiegel magazine.

Originally, the cult car was to be revived as an electric model in the middle of the current decade, as Huettl and his predecessors had repeatedly announced. To this end, the Rüsselsheim-based company presented a Manta A converted into an electric car, which was explicitly intended as an emotional warm-up for a future series project.

First the Compulsory, Then the Freestyle

The sporty Manta coupé had a large fan base in the 1970s and 1980s. The Manta B in particular became the preferred object of tuners and hobbyists, who decorated the car with a foxtail, among other things.

According to Hüttl, Opel has reordered its medium-term priorities within the Stellantis group. A new edition of the Corsa small car and new SUV models are initially taking precedence over a new edition of the Manta at the German subsidiary.

This is a partly automated translation of this German article by dpa.