The great thing about vintage racing is that you don’t have to be super aggressive if you don’t want to. You have an opportunity to race against some great competition, and have a lot of fun, but you can err on the side of preserving the car, or even blame your lack of pace on some period-correct piece or another. “Oh, I could hang with you guys out front, I just don’t want to blow up the transmission, these things are practically made of glass.” Who cares? You don’t win anything more than a ribbon or a plastic trophy anyway. That’s why you should buy this Opel GT if you want to start getting on track.
This “fully prepared” F Production Opel GT absolutely looks the business. As the mini-Corvette of its day, the German-built wonders have always intrigued me. They just look so damn cute, you know? This little car would have weighed just over 2,000 pounds when it was fresh off the assembly line, but with one-piece fiberglass front and rear clips, a stripped interior, and lightened everything, it’s probably a good bit under that as it sits. The 1.9-liter four-cylinder under the hood made an honest 102 horsepower, which was spritely, if not robust.
The listing for this car shows quite a few motorsport-specific components. There’s too much to dig into, but I’ll drop the Craigslist ad description here:
SCCA F Production Opel GT, Fully prepared, Engines (2) professionally built and assembled, Ceramic lifters (lightweight and cams don’t wear), Rocker Arms custom built by Harland Sharp, Oil Accusump, 2 Weber 45 side-draft, Coil-over suspension (front and back), three-link rear suspension (open drive shaft), Big brake package (front vented, Wilwood calipers and rear solid rotor with Wilwood calipers), Custom built dog gearbox (4 spd with pit gear), Quarter Master 5.5″ clutch, Fiberglass nose clip and rear panel (provides easy access – secured with Dzus fastners. Three sets of wheels (one set custom made/fit), plus one set of seldom used rain tires. Many spare parts, including original suspension racing parts for vintage racing. Ready to go racing!
If you’ve been looking for an excuse to get on track, this might be your way to do it. You don’t want to just jump into some high-horsepower machine right away. First of all, you wouldn’t have the skills to get the most out of it, and more power would just serve to mask your mistakes. Second of all, the faster you go, the more it’s going to cost in consumables like brakes and tires. Start small. Hell, nobody’s pushing you to go faster but yourself.
Have fun with it. What’s fifteen grand between friends?