ABC Wednesday: O is for Opel GT

This was one of the cars on show at the classic car rally held recently at Ewen Fields in aid of SSAFA, a charity that provides practical support and assistance to servicemen and women, veterans and their families.

The Opel GT is a two-seat sports car which first presented as a styling exercise in 1965 at the Paris and Frankfurt motor shows, and introduced as a production model late in 1968. It relied partly on components from the contemporary Opel Kadett B and had a body made by French contractor Brissonneau & Lotz. Between 1968 and 1973 a total of 103,463 cars were sold.

Designed by Opel Stylist Erhard Schnell, the Opel GT was a fastback, that had neither an externally accessible trunk nor a conventional hatchback. There was a parcel shelf behind the seats that could only be accessed through the main doors. Behind the parcel shelf was a fold-up panel that concealed a spare tire and jack.

One unusual feature of the Opel GT was the operation of the pop-up headlights. They were manually operated, by way of a large lever along the centre console next to the shifter. Unlike most pop-up headlights, they both rotated in the same direction (counterclockwise from inside the car) about a longitudinal axis. One standard joke about GT owners was that you can easily spot them due to the heavy muscles on their right arm built up by using the lever to pop up the headlights.

The interior of the Opel GT was surprisingly large for a car of its size, owing to its original design process (exterior metal was sculpted around an interior model). Headroom and legroom were sufficient for those over 6 feet (1.83 m) tall.

More information on Wikipedia

I'll be posting more photographs from the event at a later date.

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