Opel marks 30 years since Manuel Reuter's 1996 ITC title in the Calibra V6 4x4

On Sunday October 27, 1996, Opel celebrated Manuel Reuter's victory in the International Touring Car Championship (ITC) in Brazil at the wheel of an Opel Calibra V6 4x4. The result made Reuter, his black Calibra and Opel icons of international motorsport by taking the unofficial World Touring Car Championship. Opel calls it one of the greatest successes in its motorsport history, which began as early as 1899, together with Walter Röhrl's 1982 World Rally Championship title.

Reuter took the championship lead with two victories in the first two events at Hockenheim and the Nürburgring and held it until September, when a collision at the Nürburgring and an engine failure at Magny-Cours - where marshals failed to extinguish a fire and the Calibra burned out - cost him points. Nannini then made up 70 points in four races and Schneider took the lead after the two races at Mugello, but at the European finale in Hockenheim Schneider scored zero while Reuter scored 35. From the third race weekend in Estoril, Reuter says he almost always carried maximum placement weight and still often finished in the top five, while Opel could drive freely against the Mercedes and Alfa spearheads and he had to prevail against seven strong teammates. After his Hockenheim victory he stopped the Cliff Calibra in the middle of the start and finish straight, got out and was celebrated by tens of thousands of Opel fans in the sold-out Motodrom, earning him a hefty fine of 10,000 dollars from the FIA. "It was worth it," the Mainz-born driver still grins today.

Before the penultimate round, the black Cliff Calibra had already fallen off a pallet during loading at Frankfurt Airport, leaving two broken and two bent shock absorbers. On the roughly 45-kilometre journey from the Aeroporto Internacional de São Paulo/Guarulhos to the Autódromo José Carlos Pace on the outskirts of Interlagos, the convoy of ITC transporters came under fire from a sniper at a red light in broad daylight; the local truck drivers returned fire and police arrived quickly, leaving isolated bullet holes and two flat tyres in the trucks. Local hero Tony Kanaan, who replaced the Austrian Alexander Wurz as an Opel guest driver in São Paulo, had been robbed on the street in his hometown twice the previous week.

Problems with the set-up of the Calibra and an accident in free practice on Friday left the championship leader twelfth on the grid, but Reuter duelled with opponent Bernd Schneider on a damp track in the first race and finished fourth. After the 20-minute repair break between the two races, the starter of the Cliff Calibra refused to work, so Reuter had to start the second heat from the pit lane while the rain increased. When the Opel team saw that Schneider had his car fitted with slicks, it decided to fit the Cliff Calibra with slick tyres as well: "We were leading the championship, so we wanted to do the same as Bernd to be on the safe side." Reuter calmly made up position after position with his all-wheel drive car and finished fourth again: "At the beginning it was quite dangerous, I had to go through the gravel twice. But in the course of the race, our tyre choice proved to be the right one." "When my team pushed the word 'Champ' to the cockpit display when I crossed the finish line, I first asked if they were sure and hadn't miscalculated," he recalls.