Shooting a film about classic full-throttle virtues in times of Luisa Neubauer, highway stickers and electric car hype seems completely crazy. That’s probably why many fans are waiting for “Manta, Manta 2”.
“Klausi, you have to fill up with leaded petrol – then the car will be much lower!” When Manta driver Klausi was instigated by Mercedes driver Alex in the cult film “Manta, Manta” to pour leaded petrol into his tuned blue Opel, he got snarled in 1992 cinema Germany laughing. And when the main character Bertie (Til Schweiger) is irritated by a reporter in her green duck and accidentally steers his Manta up onto a car transporter, there’s no stopping him. The scene is only topped when Bertie’s friend Uschi (Tina Ruland), a hairdresser by trade, accidentally uses her urine sample as hair gel for the pregnancy test.
At the beginning of the 1990s, when Germany had just been reunited and the east of the country could not only enjoy sensible vehicles without two-stroke stuffiness and plastic bodies, but also enjoy speed limit-free motorways, the world was still for tuning fans in order. The kids met at the gas station at the weekend to show off the biggest exhaust, the widest spoiler or the most illegal engine tuning.
The film “Manta Manta” also works as a contemporary document. He skilfully captured the world of the early 90s, of course exaggerated in a comedic way – and that in an authentic Ruhrpott setting. As producer, Bernd Eichinger made sure that the strip didn’t degenerate into pure slapstick despite all the clichés and full-throttle scenes. In the end, Bertie’s sense of family wins over his enthusiasm for horsepower when his girlfriend Uschi is expecting a baby and Bertie now has to get “a Pampers bomber”. Eichinger’s car film became a street sweeper, with 1.2 million viewers running into the cinemas in 1992.
Of course, the film gave the image of the Opel Manta the rest. Would you like a taste? “What’s Left When a Manta Driver Burns?” A gold chain and a howling hairdresser. “
The tuning of the 90s was almost modest compared to today’s high-performance cars with petrol, hybrid or electric drives. Bertie’s movie Manta, transformed by the tuner Mattig into a wide-bodied bolide with garish paintwork, got just 135 hp from a displacement of 1.9 liters. No wonder that the car in the film is defeated in the traffic light race against a fully occupied BMW 3 Series.
Opel was never an opponent for BMW anyway, but in the early 1990s the brand was quite far ahead compared to today. The Manta was already history back then (the last rolled off the assembly line in 1988), but Opel’s 90s models were real competitors for VW models – for example the Astra, Vectra and Calibra.
For Til Schweiger, who at the time was only known in a supporting role from “Lindenstraße”, “Manta Manta” became a career springboard. “ That was my breakthrough with the audience. Not in the film industry. They didn’t even see the film. The reviews were also devastating. But back then I couldn’t cross the street without people calling Bertie after me,” Schweiger recalled in an interview with the “Bild” newspaper.
On the other hand, the similarly positioned film “Manta – der Film”, which was released almost at the same time, went unnoticed. And that, although he was actually made more intelligent and satirical, also drew many people to the cinemas and had brilliant guest roles – including Dieter Pfaff as a stuffy Opel Vectra driver, Dieter Thomas Heck as a windy car dealer, Ralf Richter as a police officer with a Ruhrpott snout and as the icing on the cake comedy legend Helge Schneider, who satirized himself.
It will be all the more exciting to see how the sequel to Schweiger’s cult film takes off. It is currently being filmed and is scheduled to hit theaters in 2023. Little is known about the plot. Bertie and Uschi have two children but are separated. Bertie is a used car dealer and has to take the “idiot test” (MPU) right at the beginning of the film because he has lost his driver’s license.
And the car world is completely different in 2022 than it was in 1992. The industry only talks about electric cars and “transformation”, fuel prices have recently been and will probably remain so in the future at two euros per liter (in 1992 it was 1.33 German marks, i.e. around 70 cents). Out of sheer climate panic, young demonstrators are glued to the freeways and many cities are working flat out on the car-free city.
Can a film with squeaky tires and roaring engines still work? Til Schweiger and Tina Ruhland have already revealed that the sequel should definitely exude the spirit of the original instead of fun-free messages about not caring. It was also announced that Germany’s most famous car tuner Jean Pierre Kraemer from “JP Performance” should have a guest role. In which he will hardly appear as a climate activist. And Schweiger made it clear to the “Bild”: “Manta, Manta 2′ did not start to roll out the red carpet for gender madness. Of course, the roles from back then have gotten older and have more life experience. But they’re not completely new characters. “
However: Til Schweiger also seems to be taking it easy today. “I do enjoy driving fast. However, I haven’t driven that fast for a long time since I became a father. But I still like to drive fast on the freeway at night when it’s empty. But now you only drive in eco gear when it comes to prices,” says the movie star.
And if the film still wants to touch on the current car topic number one, electromobility, Opel even has the right car for it: The Manta is to be reissued as a retro model with an electric drive and in the look of the very first Manta. The Manta GSE Elektro-Mod thus clearly stands out from the second Manta generation, which is also a classic today – but in people’s minds will probably always be the dressed-up chav slingshot that people joke about.
All electric car and plug-in hybrid models at a glance
