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This car can be very much compared to the Opel Ascona 400. Not only for Manta 400 as well as Ascona 400 being heavily delayed for in-house politics and bureaucracy. In fact the Manta is the coupé version to the Ascona. Both being in a 2-door layout, so is the Manta longer and lower (same wheelbase tho, but lower centre of gravity) and having distinct coupé looks compared to the Ascona saloon car. In rallying terms, both cars were technically strong related. Both had the same 2420cc engine, although the Manta was 20BHP stronger through fine tuning. As well the glassfibre body panels of the Ascona, such as wing extensions and spoilers, have been replaced for ones of a Kevlar compound. Through this and again fine tuning the weight was reduced by 70kg.
All in all the Manta 400 was not much more than a fine tuned Ascona 400. It was the last truly conventional car homologated in the group B era. It should have come much earlier than it did as plainly it wasn't the revolution Opel needed - and it would have come earlier wouldn't Opel have held it back for exactly that reason. They were wondering if the car was big enough a step and at one point they even considered turning it into a group A car. Indeed Röhrl was promised to debut the car during his 1982 season, then it was Henri Toivonen to indeed compete with a Manta 400 on the French Rallye 1000 Pistes (where no homologation was needed) in summer 1982, that was still a full year before its WRC debut! In the end Opel did probably the most sensible thing in their situation. A group B supercar was still far away (read *note below) and if even a small one, the Manta was still a step forward from the Ascona and it wasn't even loads of money down the drain, so at long last they launched it mid 1983.
Despite its delayed launch and its similarity to the Ascona 400, the Manta 400 had surprising reliability problems in its first season, maybe indeed just bad luck. Especially considering Walter Röhrl's 1982 drivers title when driving the works Ascona 400 came through reliability and certainly not speed, the Manta 400 debut was surprising: Guy Fréquelin debuted it on Corsica 1983 with a blown engine, then in Finland (rear axles) and RAC (head gaskets) both times both lead cars of Vatanen and Toivonen retired with identical problems. It seems the driver problems named in the Ascona 400 (group4) story remained completely unchanged, too. In 1983 in their disastrous RAC (GB) Rally, Jimmy McRae made up for disappointment with a very fine 3rd place. And while Ari Vatanen still complained the Manta 400 was, if anything, even more understeery than the Ascona 400, Henri Toivonen won the BRC Manx Rally ahead of Vatanen! Sure conventional cars were nearly outdated anyway, and Ari Vatanen left the team for Peugeot in 1984, and that left Opel without a lead driver for the WRC. Eventually the Manta 400's closest claim to victory was also Rauno Aaltonen's closest he ever got to win his favourite rally: 2nd on Safari 1984. In Safari 1985 the Opel Manta 400 even was in 1st & 2nd position until very unluckily once again minor problems bit both cars badly on the last day!
However in all that the Manta 400 became a big hit on national level. Especially in UK - even though that is Vauxhall territory - Opel Manta's turned up in all sorts of colours. Jimmy McRae (red & blue for AC Delco) won the BRC title in 1984, team mate Russell Brookes (yellow for Andrews) repeated the trick in 1985, while the FRC 1985 belonged to Guy Fréquelin. At least the BRC was extraordinarily exciting in these days, as the Audi Quattro was minutes ahead of the Manta in forest performances, but the championship became an exciting close battle for bad Quattro reliability and solid Manta asphalt performances. Ironically it was Opel's home market, where the Manta 400's potential was put into perspective. A works Opel Manta 400 could win the German championship only once, and only after the older, private Ford Escort BDA was disqualified for a non performance related issue!
Talking rally car and groupB developments at Opel in that era, it is interesting that indeed a 4x4 version of the Manta 400 existed. This prototype carried the reg plate GG-CM 537, which bears an interesting similarity to the reg plate of the car used for the Manta 400's WRC debut (both registered at same time). However the 4x4 conversion was carried out by British company Ferguson for Opel. Why this 4x4 prototype was never a route followed further is hard to guess. Indeed it is only my guess, but since it had the same relative low torque 2.4 atmospheric engine, I doubt the Ferguson 4x4 equipped Manta 400 was actually faster than the RWD one.
*note: As it seems Opel realised already before its launch that the Manta was not a big enough step forward, so not long after its launch Opel started working on a proper group B supercar, called Opel Kadett 4S. Opel showed some fantasy with the car as - apart from 4x4 - it had a mid engine that was located behind the front axle rather than in front of the rear axle. Early versions had a 500BHP Zakspeed Turbo engine, but then the discussion of replacing group B by group S for the end of 1987 came and Opel replaced the Zakspeed engine by its known Manta 400 engine, making this an ideal group S car. However the accidents in 1986 meant group B was stopped and group S never happened, such the Kadett 4S was a stillborn project. The groupB Kadett 4S actually even started one rally, the British national Audi Sport Rally, where Andrew Wood finished 4th behind 2 Ford RS200 and a Metro 6R4. This event was in October 1986, 2 months before the ban of groupB, which very much proves how unlucky the timing of the project was.
|
Model & Evo. (Activity) |
BHP@ RPM |
Torque (Nm)@ RPM |
Length Width Height |
Weight (Kg/BPM Ratio) |
Trans. (W'base) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Manta 400 _ (83-86) |
275/7200 | 300/5200 | 4475.1670.1320 | 980 (3.6) | RWD (2518) |
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