![]() ![]() Individuality was in fashion, and it seemed the Manta’s shape and lines were just what the market was looking for. Attractive coupés that could accommodate four were highly popular. The Manta was not only new but also both well-styled and well-timed. “Instead of making an existing model obsolete, the car we are presenting today is an addition to our range and meets a new demand from the market,” said the press release at the time. ![]() For Opel, the Manta was a step into new territory. Appropriately enough, the presentation took place at Timmendorfer Strand on the German Baltic Sea coast. The sporty Manta made its global debut in September 1970. ![]() The Opel Manta had found its identity and from then on got the iconic chrome-plated emblem attached to the front fenders. Until finally his eyes fell upon a shot of a gigantic manta ray filmed from below. So Gallion got on the plane and looked at Cousteau’s images in the French capital. Now we had ten days to design a logo, but we couldn’t find any suitable templates for it”. “At that time, animal names matched the zeitgeist, the Ford Mustang and Corvette Stingray were very successful in the United States. “We had chosen the name ‘Manta’,” says Gallion, 51 years after his Paris mission. The American designer who worked at then GM-owned Opel had agreed to meet the team of French marine researcher, Jacques Cousteau. Over a hundred years later, on a Saturday morning in 1969, Opel’s chief designer, George Gallion (pictured below), on what was a top secret mission, boarded a plane to Paris. Unlike the seafaring manta, which belongs to the Mobula genus (rays, stingrays) that inhabits a range extending from the German Baltic Sea to the American Pacific coast, the Manta car started life in Rüsselsheim, the German city where the Opel brand was born in 1862. The Opel Manta, probably the most fishy representative in a long line of Opel classics, is this year celebrating its 50th birthday. ![]()
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