(first posted 9/10/2017) Kadett, Ascona, Rekord, Commodore, Admiral, Diplomat. That was Opel’s sedan-ladder in the seventies, a variety unmatched by any other automaker on the European market. And then we’re not even talking about the numerous coupe and wagon variations.
The first step on the ladder was the Kadett. Simply said, the Kadett was Opel’s interpretation of a more modern Volkswagen Beetle. Affordable, basic transportation for the people. Hugely successful in my country for a long uninterrupted period of time.
This generation, the Kadett B, was introduced in 1965. The 1973 two-door sedan at the show is powered by Opel’s 1.1 liter OHV-engine.
There were no less than eight (!) different Kadett B bodies when counting in the number of doors. The two- and four-door sedans were the preferred choice.
For unknown reasons the Kadett Special was only available in Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Oh what an excessive luxury!
According to our eastern neighbors NL either stands for Nur Links (only driving on the left lane, preferably with an underpowered car towing a camper trailer, loaded with domestic potatoes, canned vegetables and deep-frozen homemade meatballs) or Nur Limonade (only a/one soft-drink…that’s pretty much all we spent when we were letting the good times roll on a vacation in their country).
Moving up the ladder now, skipping the Ascona. Here’s a splendid example of the Opel Rekord C, which was introduced in 1966.
A sedan with two or four doors, a wagon with three or five doors, a panel van, a coupe or a convertible (built by Karl Deutsch GmbH). What will your Rekord C pleasure be?
From 1967 onwards the Rekord always had a four-cylinder engine, in that year the Commodore (A) was the new model name for the upgraded Rekord with an inline-six engine.
From the days that the number on the trunk lid equaled the engine displacement. And that it was noteworthy to mention that the car had an automatic transmission, in this case a GM TH180.
And finally, there’s a man among us who can shed a light on these and can enlighten all of us.
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1966-1973 Opel Kadett (B) – It Dethroned The Volkswagen
The first time I saw one of those Rekords (on this website) I assumed initially that it was a Ford Taunus. I still can’t get over how similar the front end is.
Also, I’ve never seen a Dutch car with blue plates before, only black or yellow. Can you enlighten me?
Pre-1978 blue/black plates, post-1978 yellow.
Thanks. I’ve seen lots of black ones, never blue for some reason.
Interesting. As a kid, I didn’t think the Taunus and Rekord looked alike at all.
I thought the Taunus was passable, but the Opels all looked good and got better in the 70s with the Ascona and Manta.
Don’t forget the Kapitän and the Opel Rekord C 6-cyl 2,2l.
And as an über-Kadett B came the Olympia A!
The production of the Olympia A ended in July 1970, the last Kapitän B left the factory in May 1970 (all according to the German Wikipedia sites).
So both of them weren’t really on “Opel’s sedan-ladder” in the seventies. The February 1978 Senator A would be a better candidate.
These cars are in incredibly good condition! This Rekord model has really attractive styling, and the coupe is a real knockout. These cars stood out when introduced for bringing uncluttered high end styling to their middle market segment.
Love those Opels. I wish that we would have received the whole lineup here Stateside.
The last Opel we could get was the 2012-2107 Buick Regal.
Most Americans don’t realize that GM’s heyday in the US in the 1960s paralleled Opel’s heyday around the same time.
From 1965 to the late 70s, Opel made good to great cars that were always excellent values.
I drove an Opel Astra diesel last summer in Greece, very good car. The Cruze felt noticeably inferior in several regards.
The US spec Buick Regal (aka Opel Vectra) on the other hand also drives well. As good as a FWD Audi? I don’t know. But I know I like driving it.
GM will regret selling Opel (which created Kadetts, Mantas, Astras, etc) when they need a good small car again.
The previous generation Regal was an Opel design built here. The 2018 Regal is an Opel Insignia built in Rüsselsheim. The Buick Cascada is also an Opel, built in Poland.
The terms of the sale agreement with PSA includes continuation of existing supply contracts.
…”From 1965 to the late 70s, Opel made good to great cars that were always excellent values”…
In that era? Opel was a poor man’s Mercedes-Benz, as simple as that. Well, at least the Rekord, Commodore, Admiral, Diplomat and Senator. The Kadett and Ascona were a bit too small…
Nice little cars ~ I remember Buick’s halfhearted effort to sell them in the U.S. of A. .
-Nate
It wasn’t all that half-hearted. For several years in the mid 60s, Opel Kadett was the #2 selling import car after VW. They sold very well, until Toyota surpassed them in ’68 or so. Quite a few Buick dealers did well with the Opel.
And the USD/DM exchange rates during the 70s pretty much spelled an end to the Opel in the US market
My shop handled a lot of detailing for local dealers, Miller Buick-Olds sold a good amount of Opels here including Manta coupes and GT’s with a high percentage of burnt orange/bronzish color. They started selling Opel’s in 1957.
Opel U.S. sales figures, from the Standard Catalog of Imported Cars:
1958: 15,686
1959: 39,320
1960: 25,533
1961: ?
1962: ?
1963: ? (no 1963 models were sold in the U.S.)
1964: 14,788
1965: 17,378
1966: 32,033
1967: 51,693
1968: 84,680
1969: 93,520
1970: 86,630
1971: 83,585
1972: 69,407
1973: 68,400
1974: 68,400
1975: 15,118
1976: 10,483
1977: 29,067
1978: 19,222
1979: ?
1980: ?
I’m not sure if these numbers are model year or calendar year. I suspect the latter. The first year the Standard Catalog shows Toyota with a higher sales figure is 1969.
According to the Standard Catalog, 1958 was the first model year Opels were officially sold in the U.S., although small numbers may have been privately imported earlier than this. For the first several years, the Rekord was Opel’s main product in the U.S. Opels were sold through Buick dealers.
As far as I can see, the Standard Catalog does not have Opel sales figures for 1961 and 1962. Sales likely fell sharply from where they had been, however, due to end of the 1958-60 “import boom”. Many European manufacturers had done well in the U.S. during that period due to a depressed economy (resulting in increased demand for small, inexpensive, economical cars) and a relative lack of small cars available from domestic automakers. By 1960, the North American Big Three all had compacts on the market, and by 1962, the U.S. economy had improved. This largely dried up demand for imports, with one major exception (Volkswagen).
According to the Standard Catalog, no Opels were sold in the U.S. during the 1963 model year. Some promotional literature was produced early on indicating that they would be available, and list prices were even published, but GM ultimately decided to withdraw the brand from the market. Opel returned in 1964 with a new strategy, with the Kadett now its main product.
The Standard Catalog shows the same Opel sales figure for both 1973 and 1974. It’s very possible this is a typo, and one of the two years should be something different.
The decline in Opel sales in the early ‘70s was likely due to a combination of increased competition (the Japanese had invaded the U.S. market, and GM & Ford had both introduced small domestic-built cars) and increased prices (due to rising labor costs and an unfavorable exchange rate). By 1974 or 1975, the latter issue in particular had reached crisis levels, prompting GM to withdraw German-built Opels from the U.S. market.
The Opels that were sold in the U.S. from 1976 on weren’t “real” Opels. With the 1973 energy crisis still fresh on everyone’s mind, GM did not want to leave Buick dealers without a small import to sell, so they arranged to sell badge-engineered Isuzus as Opels in the U.S. (At the time, Isuzu was not yet selling vehicles in the U.S. under its own name, although they were supplying Chevrolet with the LUV compact pickup truck.) These did not sell as well as the German-built Opels historically had, and they were dropped after 1979, with some leftovers possibly sold as 1980 models.
Buick and Pontiac added compact cars for 1961, squelching the need for Opel and Vauxhall.
NUMBER TWO IMPORTS FOR THE USA
================================
1955-1956 BMC/Nash Metropolitan
1957-1963 Renault (all Dauphines I assume)
1964-1965 MG (MGB, Midget and 1100)
1966-1968 Opel Kadett B
1969-1974 Toyota
1975-???? Volkswagen
***1958-1960 Opel Olympia 10th to 4th
***1961-1963 no Opels in the top ten
***1964-1965 Opel Kadette A 6th to 5th
***1969-1970 Opel 3rd to 4th, Kadette B and GT
***1970-1974 don’t have the numbers for Opel
***1976 Isuzu Gemini marketed as Opel in the USA
Actually there was the Rekord L-6 model available on the Rekord A and B that came with the 2.6 L ohv six with 100hp from the big cars. The Commodore replaced the L-6 Rekord, and from then on Rekords were four cylinder only.
That Kadett is identical to the one my older brother’s best friend had access to at the time. They used to race my father’s Kadett A against his B. The A had the smaller 1 liter engine, but it weighed less, so it was mostly a toss-up.
Thanks, fixed.
Starting in December 1966, the Rekord C featured a newly developed 2.2-liter six-cylinder engine (alongside the familiar four-cylinder engines). This version was available until the end of the 1968 model year.
Rekord C with this engine are very rare, as the Commodore model, which featured a 2.5-liter six-cylinder engine derived from the Admiral, had beens introduced in parallel in 1967.
The little Cadet B morphed into the HB Vauxhall Viva which we got in 67, it was rebadged and released in Australia as the Holden Torana, we had a two door 68 Viva in the family fleet to replace a 56 Morris Minor good enough car for what it was one resonator was removed for driveway clearance which woke it up quite a lot. It went much better than the 71 Viva Estate In owned years later with a bigger motor and that was likely why.
I think these are both fine-looking cars. I’m drawn to typography (like our fellow contributor, Jim Grey), and I love the script font on the Kadett. That’s pure artistry.
Reminds me of the 60’s Corvette emblems with the huge vertical counters.
Absolutely – great catch. Very Stingray-esque!
the 1966-era Rekord C was chosen by GM do Brasil as the basis 4 the Chevrolet Opala (1969-92) but with a facelift taken from the 68 Chevy II Nova
The Rekord C was designed by Erhard Schnell, who went on to lead the Opel GT, Manta A, Ascona B, first Vectra and Calibra…..one of the great unsung designers….
The Kadett, no other car represents the Dutch life style more then the Kadett does.
Do normal, be normal the typical Dutch Calvinist life style.
You were a dare devil if you’d buy a Toyota Corolla, you”d buy it because you would get more car for your money.
A Peugeot or a Citroën was for the individualist and the real exhibitionist would buy an Alfa or a Lancia.
We would all have money in a savings acoount, a Philips television set and we;d save money for the summer holidays in Spain or a washing machine.
There was no buy now pay later attitude you see today.
Eating Chinese food was a wild thing.
Man, life was simple we did not have to pretend to be rich by driving an Audi or a hughe SUV like today, you just did your thing and nobody bothered.
Nice article – I can remember several Kadett wagons in our Columbus Ohio neighborhood in the mid-60’s.
The way Opel designed, named and made families of models for each “ladder along the time” until the 90’s and the way other GM subsidiaries changed them into other models makes me eager to collect all of them. By now the money it’s only what’s missing 🙂
Ah, the Sloan ladder in full flower. A car for every purse and purpose.
In small town west Michigan, I didn’t see many Opels before the Kadett. I remember seeing a very rusty Rekord P1 in the late 60s. I think the only reason I recognized it as an Opel is some years before I had had a toy Rekord.
By 70, there seemed to be Kadetts everywhere, but by the mid 70s they were on the wane, replaced in the campus parking lots by Datsun 1200s, and in the showroom by the 1900.
I tried on a Manta at the Detroit show in 73. Very nicely finished interior, but the headroom was impossibly tight. I used to laff every time I saw a TV ad for the Manta as the guy in the ad seemed to have at least 6″ of headroom. Thinking back now, the guy in the ad may have been Ron Carey, who went on to star in the “Barney Miller” TV series. Carey stood about 5’4″.
Those aftermarket window defrosters were quite popular here in Michigan. I even saw a VW bug with one installed on the windshield.
These two GTs showed up at the German show at the Gilmore this year. As the owners were presented with their prizes for best in the “other” class (“other” meaning not a VW, Audi, Porsche, BMW or Merc) the show organizers promised them an Opel class if they can induce more Opel owners to bring their cars.
Interesting. Never heard of the Kadett B “Spezial.” Is it known if the car ever got new windows? The window surrounds are neither the same as the “L” Sedan (wider chrome strips on the side windows there) nor the base version (no chrome strips on the side windows there). In general, the rubber surrounds on all the windows seem more dominant than I remember (well, okay, memories can be deceiving).
The body color is rather untypical for a MY ’73 car. The black windscreen wiper arms and the design of the bumper horns, on the other hand, are in keeping with thas model year. The all-silver grille, on the other hand, is not.
Very Spezial.