I read an amusing story recently. A woman had a cat as a pet for many years and allowed him to come and go as he pleased. She found out years later that when she left for work, her loyal cat would stroll down to the nearby school and roam from class to class, getting lots of pats and attention along the way. The faculty and students were so used to seeing this cat that he became somewhat of an unofficial school mascot. The owner’s cherished cat, with whom she would sleep in the same bed each night, had a secret life.
My beloved first car had a secret life, too.
Growing up, I read Australian car magazines religiously. There was a time, however, when I would also purchase British car magazines. Car, What Car, Top Gear, Test Drive, Autocar… whatever I could get my hands on. It prepared me well for my visit to Europe this year because I didn’t see anything unfamiliar. Well, except for this: a convertible version of my first car, a variant I had no idea existed. I must have missed it in the magazines. While Aussie buyers like my parents had a choice between only the sedan and hatchback, European buyers could purchase not just the typical wagon variant but also a convertible. This little kitty was strolling from its suburban home down to the beach to play in the sun.
Designed and built by Bertone in Italy, the Astra Cabriolet maintained the look of the four-door sedan of which I owned an example.
The overall look was much more elegant than the previous Opel Kadett/Vauxhall Astra Cabriolet which, with its roll bar, looked like some cut-rate, third-party conversion. Or an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
My first car.
We received the next two generations of Astra Cabriolet here in Australia but missed out on this one. Although the following generation seemed to be modestly successful for a convertible, the Astra arrived super late in its model cycle (1996, as a replacement for the rebadged Toyota Corolla known as the Nova) and thus was looking a tad dated at launch. Given how brutally style-conscious the convertible segment is, the Astra’s looks would have been a hindrance. The car itself – as much as I loved it – was not regarded as being a class leader at the time of its belated Australian launch. Nor was it considered a class leader in 1991 when it rolled into European showrooms.
Cabriolets used 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 four-cylinder engines, power ranging from 71 to 116 hp. Apparently scuttle shake wasn’t too bad, either. Although not the best handler in its class, I found the Astra to be quite fun-to-drive and I appreciated its zippy 1.8. And yet, I just can’t imagine my first car in convertible form. It’s such a peculiar concept to me. While I wasn’t looking, my trusty little sedan was gallivanting around Europe as a cabriolet.
Photographed in Alexanderplatz, Berlin in September 2018.
I like the proportions on this quite a lot. I wonder how this would have done in the US? I think I like its looks better than the Cavalier we got here.
There was actually a Vauxhall Cavalier convertible too, I
guess it was effectively replaced by the convertible Mk2 Astra/Opel Kadett E which was a size smaller.
I remember them as being a rare sight even when new, the Astra soft tops seemed more popular.
The modern equivalent is the Buick Cascada over here now, I think, which is the Opel Cascada back in the Fatherland. But back then the Astra Convertible was very much an intended competitor to the Golf Cabrio I suppose. I’d imagine all the generations are on the rare side comparatively speaking. I’m pretty sure we rented your generation of Astra at least once in Europe, but never as a sedan, more likely a 5door hatch. It was a decent driver or at least doesn’t stand out in my mind anymore as anything else than that…
I love the correlation you drew between the “secret life” of that cat and the secret life of the Astra convertible you hadn’t known about before checking out those foreign-to-you magazines.
I also identify with pining for / admiring a “hot” version of the car I / you owned, as I had the 2.3L 4-cylinder edition of the ’88 Ford Mustang. I played out many a Walter Mitty-esque fantasy in my head while driving that car.
Very nice summary on this car.
The convertible was quite pretty. Uniquely for this generation Astra the rear wheel arch is rounded at the top rather than trailing off into a flared section to the rear. Did you have the van version Down Under? The clean rear panels gave that a smart look:
Nope, we missed out on the van and wagon as well.
For the following generation, we had the sedan, hatch and convertible but not the wagon or coupe. Funnily enough, I got someone from Airtasker to help me move and she pulled up in a Vauxhall (yes, Vauxhall) Astra wagon. The previous owner had imported it. No idea why. Nice car and all but… why?
We’ve missed out on the sedan since the Astra H series. It wasn’t very big seller in the previous G model and while the 5-door hatch is still quite common (especially in silver) I can’t remember when I last saw a saloon/sedan.
I had a Mancunian colleague in WA whose wife insisted on bringing her MG TF when they emigrated. I imagine the K series overheated every 20 minutes.
There is also a phenomenon of Americans moving to the UK and bringing their entirely mundane car, wheel on wrong side, having to make mods to register it, when they could have just picked up an equivalent for pennies.
I see more than a little Saab 9-3 in the first, third, and last photos.
I’ve never known of this either. My Astra, also a 4-door like yours, was a floppy-feeling car, so I can only imagine a roofless one would be like trying to pilot a mattress. Best looking variation of those Astras I’ve seen, though.
I believe the cat story. My brother’s ex wasn’t a cat person, yet I one day found a cat casually basking on her couch. Transpires that it lived a few doors down with a rowdy family of kids, and on weekends – just weekends – it would come to D’s to hang out. No kids, no dramas. Returned home in the evenings for food, then back again. The owners never knew about the tranquil, roomy, no-child life their animal enjoyed each week. It was a nice animal, too.
But I’m fairly confident the owner’s many young kids thought it was just a scratchy and uncompliant toy.
I didn’t know you had an Astra man. Was yours a 1.6 City or a 1.8 GL? I was always fascinated by the 2.0 GSI but they were ultra rare. Besides, the hatch was uglier. And yet British auto journalists called the sedan ugly, dafuq
I love the cut of that cat’s jib. And I chuckled at “scratchy and uncompliant toy” — most cats are!
Mine was a 1.8GL, which was a tolerably nice car, if rather poorly made. I drove a City, and I can’t recall a more profound difference not just in power but overall refinement between two variants of one car. It felt like a different car altogether. Quite ‘orrid.
The cat with a secret life is a fairly common phenomenon in my experience. We had a cat hanging around our house for a while. It even slept on mums bed once.
We later found out it was coming to our house to obtain respite from a another more dominate cat at its “real” home.
I love cats. Not so excited by Astras.
GM ragtops arent all that rare in NZ there are two sizes Ive spotted recently the Astra and something slightly bigger, sold here new? unlikely lots of things turn up as personal baggage brought in by immigrants, A friend was looking at buying an Astra diesel but the Holden salesman she spoke to about the said they were unreliable rubbish so she flagged the idea, strange as I seem to recall the British police had them as patrol cars hardly the correct use for unreliable rubbish, I suspect the sales man would have liked to sell her a Commodore instead, she bought a Mazda.
The sedan and hatch were sold for just 1 generation here in the states badged as Pontiac Le Mans, which I am sure has received a write up as a curbside classic at some point. As a reader of CAR I knew these existed, but in trips out of the US I never saw 1. About a year ago the British magazine Modern Classics had a comparison test of 3 or 4 of these small cabrios that included the VW and the Ford Escort…IIRC. The VW won of course, but the Vauxhall did quite well.
Being a Ford fan, I would lean more towards the Escort cabrio, but here in the US both the Vauxhall and the Ford would be unicorns.
To me this was the most ungainly of all Astras in terms of the styling; the convertible and wagon were probably the handsomest of the lot. You mentioned the roll bar on the second generation cabriolet model from the eighties; that was the style then among all the hatchback based convertibles, starting with the Mk. 1 Golf. The Escort and Peugeot 205 cabrios had them as well.