Vern Rieckmann has a pretty simple explanation for why he’s so smitten with his 1973 Opel Rallye Manta — a fun, flashy little blast from Buick’s past.
“I’m just an old German!” he laughs. “My grandparents came from Germany. I speaka the Deutsch! In 1955 I was in the United States Air Force. I was an aircraft engine mechanic and they sent me to Munich, Germany. I was in Germany for 2-1/2 years and I’ve seen lots of Opels over there and I’ve seen lots of MGs and all that stuff, German Fords and what have you, and I just got interested in ’em.”
Rieckmann, a resident of Neenah, Wis., bought his first Rallye Manta almost new in 1972, and he hasn’t been without one since. For a while, he had a matching pair — his original yellow-and-black ’71, and the blue-and-black ’73 that he still owns. Having his and hers Rallye Mantas in the garage was pure Opel Heaven for Rieckmann until the yellow car became the casualty of a collision. “I just loved that car and we had it until probably 1979, and unfortunately, my son was driving it and a lady went through a stop sign and just about totaled it. It made me sick to my stomach. I still have picture somewhere of the two [cars] sitting together. They were a matched set.”
Rieckmann bought his original yellow ’71 from an airline pilot who needed to sell the car not long after he had bought it new. The blue ’73 found him a few years later, but he had to wait patiently for a couple years to land it. “One of the people I worked with came up from Arizona and he drove the car to work. That’s where I first saw it,” he said. “I said to him, ‘If you ever want to sell this one, I’d like to buy it.’ I think it was about two years later he sold it to me. I paid $1,250, I think.”
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