Not long ago, I had the opportunity to drive a lovely Opel GT, which was owned by Elana Scherr, one of my favorite auto thought writers. This thing is definitely a little charm, a small and flexible car that longs for, and it feels a bit like Opel uses some kind of black magic to inject the soul of a truly happy dog ​​into the car. Elana also pointed out some hidden things, once I saw it, I couldn't get rid of it. And, as you know, when this happens, my job also reminds you of it. Just like a virus.

This Opel GT seems to be in stock, so what I am doing here is not some stupid one-off special project. This is something from the Opel factory.

Because you have some superpowers, I bet you can see the inside of the car with your X-ray vision, if it helps. Come, give it a try:

The pain of survival is not equipped with one, but two 5.0Ah batteries, and even a soft bag for storage.

Look? I know you can do it. Of course, this doesn't really highlight the content I am interested in. This is the problematic point:

See what we are watching here? Power brake booster and windshield washer fluid storage tank.

Do you see anything strange?

In almost all cars I can think of, if it has a front engine and has a power brake booster, then the booster/brake fluid reservoir/master cylinder is almost always installed on the firewall, and the brake pedal has A very short shaft drives the unit. This is almost a common thing.

On the other hand, cleaning fluid reservoirs can be located in various places, but it is not uncommon to find them in the front, tuck them into fenders, or tuck them into various small corners.

The reason is simple: brakes are very important. So why not reduce the chance of problems by keeping the actuation lever short and protecting the brake booster from minor damage by placing the brake booster away from injury and close to the firewall?

The cleaning fluid can be hung anywhere, because, let us be realistic, no one is stranded because of the rupture of the cleaning fluid storage tank. I mean, I bet someone has it, but that story may involve a lot of bat guano or some other unlikely standard.

So, the inexplicable Opel GT is why Opel chose to swap the positions of these two common parts? Why do they want the brake booster to lean so far and need that crazy long actuation lever to operate it? Why do they think they need cleaning fluid so close to the firewall?

What is the idea here? All this seems to be much more complicated than doing it in the established way, and I really don’t see any actual space issues-it seems that they really have room to exchange the location of the cleaning fluid and the brake booster without any difficulty. Really, they don't need that long brake pedal lever.

Just to bring the point home, this is an Opel GT brake booster with a lever attached to the pedal next to the same-era Mercedes-Benz 200 device. Please note that because Mercedes is installed on the firewall, the pedal assembly can almost match the booster, which is beautiful and tidy.

I just don’t understand why Opel’s engineers decided to arrange it this way. In terms of experience, this approach is not like this that can save any money or make anything better. Small accidents are worse, and maintenance is more complicated-if there is any arcane benefit here, I will lose it.

This is of course the reason why I like it.

I would love to hear anyone's guess as to why this is happening. As a bonus, here is a video showing GT’s very cumbersome, fully mechanical roll-off and turn-off of the headlights, as well as my silly laugh: