The Opel GT team didn't land a follow-up win at the 1972 Targa Florio, but that's when they adopted their now-iconic blue and yellow livery.

Reliving History

Van Sevecotte’s car is the original gold one that crashed while testing and had to run the 1971 Targa Florio with its headlights open. “It still has traces of the gold paint under the doorsill. You can also still see why this was the damaged car. For instance, the right wing support for the bumper never was replaced. I could have changed it, but for history’s sake I just kept it this way.”

This car also still carries the blue windshield banner assigned to the Pianta/Schön car for 1972. “The three cars used different-colored ribbons so they could be easily identified,” he adds.

“It’s just a shame Conrero was limited to just three cars–sometimes even just a single one–against an army of Porsches,” Van Sevecotte explains as he shows off the car. “Maybe things would have been different if they had more GTs at the start in 1972, but it is clear the Italian budget was a bit more restrained than Porsche’s race budget.”

Although no more than three Opel GT race cars ever entered an event, Conrero built four of them. All are still around: This one lives in Belgium, while the others are stored in Italy.

This GT hasn’t become a quiet footnote in the history books, though. Faced with an open runway for our photo shoot, it can still accelerate impressively. It also makes quite the effort to torture the ears–credit the side exhaust and stripped-out interior.

This car obviously still makes good on the Opel GT’s period advertising slogan: Only flying is more fun.


Once in our life the little guy wins one.