[IROC]

My first "fun" car was a 1973 Opel GT. I did a lot of work on it (Weber carb, exhaust, suspension - even painted it myself), and it was a lot of fun, but in the end they are pretty crude cars. The mechanicals are based on the Manta, IIRC.

Back when I had mine there wasn't much that could be done outside of standard Opel parts (which have become very scarce now), but I always thought it would be fun to build a really cool Opel with a modern engine, suspension, brakes, etc. A friend knew a guy who put a 944 engine in one. At the time I owned mine (mid-'80s), I thought the twin cam Toyota Corolla GTS engine would have been cool (since it was front engine-RWD at the time). Opel GTs only weighed about 2100 lbs, so it wouldn't take a huge engine to make it a really fun car. They only came with about 90-100 hp from the factory.

OK, I'm rambling...