Our beloved Curbside Classic Cohort has had a distinctly Latin American flavor lately, thanks largely to the photographic efforts of one Alberto Simon. Alberto appears to be based in Brazil, and there he has snapped two sets of twins in a pair of photographs I would happily frame and put on my wall.
The first of these two photos features a pair of Chevrolet Caravans, the wagon variant of the Brazilian Opala. Based on the 1966 Opel Rekord C, the Opala entered production in 1969 and was sold all the way up until 1992. During this time, the car received numerous facelifts and makeovers to remain fresh as can be seen in the photo above of a late model example. The Opala was available in sedan, wagon and coupe styles and the range used engines derived from the 250 cubic-inch Chevrolet straight six and the Chevy II’s 153 cubic-inch four-cylinder. Alberto’s caption says one of the Caravans is a 4.1/S from the ’80s, while the other is a 2.5 from the ’70s. These “alternate universe” GM products are fascinating and I highly recommend reading our contributor Rubens’ thorough history of the Opala.
Brasilia isn’t just a capital city filled with stunning modernist architecture. It’s also the name Volkswagen do Brasil applied to their Beetle-derived compact, sold from 1973 to 1982. Styling was very squared-off and resembled the 412, while the air-cooled, flat-four engine was borrowed from the Beetle. Robert Kim discussed the Brasilia all the way back in 2013.
To those Curbsiders in Latin America, keep writing and taking photographs!
Related Reading:
Automotive History: Volkswagen Gol – The Difficult Mission to Replace a Legend
CC Global: The Brazilian Dodge Dart/Charger – Genuine Mopar V8 This Time Around
The abilities of countries like Brazil to keep fresh older models for long production runs is something that I wish was emulated in richer countries. This would allow more country specific models to slowly develop to local tastes.
It would also allow the automaker to operate with much less debt. The cost of bringing a new platform to market being so high. This small debt load would allow better chances for survival during the rough times.
Both Australia and Brazil were protected markets. Lack of competition enabled long product cycles.
I don’t think we had particularly long product cycles in Australia. Nameplates tended to go for ages – we still have Falcons here (not much longer) but these are nothing like the facelifted1960’s cars in Latin America. In Australia all cars I can think of last about 6 or 7 years before they are replaced with a totally new generation. Our design rules here – effective since the early 1970’s – have ensured very regular replacements to keep up with safety standards. Frankly, there are almost no similarities with the extraordinarily long product cycles in Brazil. As for being a protected market, that is a rather misleading statement. Australian car makers have been receiving progressively less protection since the early 1980’s which has lead to the complete demise of car manufacturing here. The main reason is wage cost – factory workers here earn considerably more than in the USA or most of Europe making local manufacture uncompetitive. GM said it cost them $3000 more to make a car here than anywhere else. That said, the demise is not altogether a bad thing. For example, GM started full scale production here in 1948 and they never manufactured a single car that did nort receive some form of government subsidy or tax break. Whenever they lost money, Australian tax payers gave them some form of subsidy yet whenever a profit was made it went straight to the USA. Local investment was just enough to keep the show going. No real loss then.
Not to mention lower prices for the consumer while maintaining profitability for the manufacturer!
Car prices in Brazil in the 80s were anything but low. People used to pay over 30,000 dollars in these masked oldstuff from the 60s. Without competition, GM, Volkswagen and Fiat made rivers of money under the protection of the government.
How primitive, not being highly leveraged like More Advanced Nations! Those benighted peoples need to learn our ways…
GM was the master of keeping platforms going for decades here at home. Think X-A body. W Body. Etc.. Not like it kept them from going bankrupt.
Anyway, as others have said, these were protected markets and had their unique issues. And keep in mind, the Brazilian car makers are/were all just subsidiaries of large US and European car makers.
One of the proper critiques of the Roger Smith years was spending massively on things like Hughes Aircraft and EDS. Instead of building a relationship with the union, he spends massively on primitive robots that don’t work to replace them. Debt reduction seemed nowhere on his agenda. The w body cost way too much, but at least it was a actual car they could try to sell.
Keeping older models fresh tends to mean updating cosmetics and maybe making modern amenities available. In many cases, the fundamental flaws of the platform live on, and expose drivers and passengers to problems and risks that have been long resolved in more modern vehicles.
Brazil enjoyed (put up with?) the Volkswagen T2 bus for essentially its entire SIXTY-THREE year run. The T2 was the un-car in so many ways; unsafe, underpowered, unruly, unpredictable, and uncomfortable. A run that long is unacceptable. Even the Brazilian regulators eventually passed enough standards to finally kill it.
The T2 makes your point well with unfixable issues. Not so sure that the world would be worse off if we were on Golf III instead of VII or Corolla IV instead of XI. Debt levels would be lower, car weights would not be so high and less size inflation.
Yep. I’m sure everyone could think of several examples where manufacturers could have skipped a generation (or two) of a certain car, made key, relatively minor updates, and saved themselves fortunes.
Lots of cars have been canned just when the manufacturer finally got them right.
The last generation Rambler American was built in Argentina into the 80’s with the flathead converted to OHV Kaiser engine. In the last years it was built by Renault which is ironical given the Franco-American AMC. It was the car tjat AMC should have been building in the 70’s instead of the Hornet\Gremlin.
I liked the Chevrolet estates. The Opala was a pretty cool car, anyway.
Didn’t Brazil have the VW Amazon too, or am I wrong here?
Yep, search for “VW Parati” in google images for various versions of the Amazon.
VW was really good at what I call the Taco Bell effect; the continual rearranging of the same 7 ingredients.
– Shell
– Meat
– Cheese
– Lettuce
– Onion
– Salsa
– Sour Cream
I actually quite like that later Opala wagon photographed. With the updated nose styling and the alloys, it actually looks like it belongs to the 80’s except for those 60’s throwback rear fender “hips” (which I like). Plus I’m a sucker for 2-door wagons anyway.
VW Brasil had some neat models I would have liked to have seen up here in the great white north. The type 2, Brasilia and sp2 are my picks, especially the later vans with the watercolled ethanol engine. We did get the fox briefly.
In our family we had a 1972 4 door, 4 cylinder Opala; a 1974 coupes SS – 250 Cid Opala and a 1980 Caravan which was born a 4 banger but got a 6 cil. transplant. I know I have some photos of the SS.
I if ever find them I promise to share iit with you guys.
Even though Brazil’s auto market was heavily protected, what happened to the Opala was not necessarily Brazilian specific – the Volvo 100/200 series overlaps almost in identical form the Opala cycle, from the late 60’s to the early 90’s – new fascia, new rear lights, lots of mechanical improvements and so on; some of us in Brazil said the Volvo suffered from the Opalisation syndrome. A similar process happened to Galaxie/LTD/Landau, albeit with more Frankensteinian traits than with either Volvo or Opala and a shorter cycle.