The Kadett Rallye 1.9 was the European analog to the Chevelle SS396 or Nova SS. The formula was essentially the same: drop a larger (but in civilized tune) engine into a smaller and lighter car, and melt the pavement with the rear wheels. A lot of fun for very little money ($2475, $20k adjusted). Handling wasn’t exactly improved with the heavier motor up front, but it got the job done. The Kadett Rallye 1.9 was a trend-setter; essentially the first of its kind; a cheap European muscle car.
R&T notes that the Kadett had somewhat improbably become the #2 selling import, thanks (presumably) to its large network of Buick dealers and its rep for being “pretty reliable”. The Rallye 1.1 that had appeared just a year earlier was also fun to drive, but the 1.9 amped things up considerably.
The origins and specs of the Opel Cam-In-Head (CIH) engine family is examined; this engine was mostly designed in Detroit, and was made in both four and six cylinder versions.
It’s also noted that for 1968, the Kadett got a new rear suspension, with coil springs replacing the semi-elliptic leaf springs. It was better located, and supposedly made the Kadett less tippy at the limits. Bob Lutz quickly dispelled the engineers’ assertion that it was tip-proof. But R&T found “no tendency for it to chatter or lift its inside wheel unduly early in the cornering process and would put it in the category of ‘well-located live axles'”. Bob presumably took it a bit further than that. Actually, he did a J-Test, pulling the handbrake and turning the wheel hard.
Overall, the Rallye’s handling was not exactly brilliant, displaying the front-heaviness and sluggishness of domestic cars. The Kadett’s front suspension geometry with a transverse leaf spring and control arms was a bit less than stellar. Cheap, but it was showing its limitations.
The Rallye got through the 1/4 mile in 18.3 sec. and at 74 mph; not at all bad for a cheap import. And of course it always felt like it was doing about 20 mph faster than it was. The 1900 was deemed to be very noisy. And its 20-23 mpg fuel economy was not exactly anything to brag about.
The brakes (disc front) were deemed up to the performance potential of the Rallye.
It was not yet apparent at the time of this test that the Rallye was an important trend-setter in the US. Turns out that lots of Americans were eager to have small, cheap but zippy cars, and it rather opened a bit of a floodgate in that regard. Within a couple of years, sporty versions of subcompacts and small sporty coupes (think Capri and Celica) were hot numbers. In fact the Capri ousted the Kadett as the #2 selling import just a couple of years later.
If genuine muscle cars like 454 Chevelles and Hemi ‘Cudas were quickly fading from the scene, there were 7/8 scale import versions to be had. Not quite as fast, but they were fun to drive and the image was right. And of course GM sold a lot of Vega GTs too.
One of my best finds ever was this Rallye 1.9 that showed up one day not far from our house. I did a full CC on it here. It didn’t stay here long; a buyer from Germany repatriated it.
Memories of an old girlfriend from my Erie days who almost had one. Since she couldn’t drive a stick and had no interest in learning how, she bought a new Kadett two door and had the dealer duplicate the paint job.
With the 3.67:1 final drive ratio the engine was doing 3540 rpm at 60 mph. Like a lot of cars from this era, a five-speed with overdrive on the top gear would have made a world of difference for interstate driving.
Proves the myth of all German cars being high geared for speed limit less Autobann driving. Most cheap non Italian cars did not get the 5th gear untill the early 80s when they became standard on Jap imports.
My experience is German cars don’t have particularly tall gearing. My Golf clocks 2000 RPM at 100 km/h. My Acura TL did 1700 RPM at the same speed.
The benefit is no waiting for power when passing on the highway because the motor churns out like 250 lb/ft at 2000 RPM. Hills are hardly noticed.
The cam in head engine always seemed to me kind of a solution looking for a problem. The lower hood line and cam chain were certainly benefits but the OHV setup on the Toyota 2TC worked just fine.
I have never seen one of these in Canada. I don’t even know if they were sold here.
The cutaway engine picture looks a lot like the 22R-E in my 4Runner and motorhome. Easy, no shim valve adjustment. Just a screwdriver, wrench, and feeler gauges get it done.
Hi,
The Opel Kadett is a great car. Was it produced in a station wagon?
Gary
Yes.
Great performance for the day .The 76-78 Capri got similar from a 2.8 ltr V6 thanks to the EPA.
Neighbors (from my childhood days) had a Kadett wagon. Was a “67” I believe.
It was indeed….
“Passing exposure time” is a smart measurement. Makes more sense than 0-60.
In Europe, the mini muscle car trend was well under way in 1968 with the likes of the Ford Escort Twin Cam (making its debut in spring 1968), Lotus Cortina (the Mk1 variant hailed from 1963) and the Kadett Rallye’s English cousin, the Vauxhall Viva GT (also released in spring ’68).
The lattermost had the properly located front and rear suspension set ups that made its way to the Kadett (Opel and Vauxhall were somehow run as distinct, separate entities in those days) while running Vauxhall’s then new slant four belt driven SOHC mill.
Added spice would come the next year with the launch of the Ford Capri Mk1, which gave birth to a new market segment of affordable coupes.
Great car, the solid lifter 1.9 in the pre ’70 cars were fairly decent runners. I do wish that the Rallye versions were hotted up a bit more.Technical correction, they do have lower and upper control arms in the front. The transverse leaf acts on the lowers.
Quite right; I blew that.
It’s a very nice-looking little car. Little rwd cars with a largish engines don’t exist any more, which is a pity, as even ordinary-suspended one are inevitably fun.
But that CIH engine was always a bit of a dud, at least as a four. They really are noisy, and it’s not a pleasant sound. And they’re thirsty: 20-23 mpg is plain poor in such a light car. In this country, in the heavier application but still 2-litre-sized car (Torana), 16 US mpg was your lot.
This engine also always seemed to over-boast on power output, when compared to performance, and a few checks roughly confirm this. This Kadett has a near-identical power/weight ratio as a Chev Spark (!), yet the latter does 0-60 in 10.8 vs 12.1.
Here’s some amusing CC trivia. I’ve never driven (or seen) a Kadett, but I have driven this floorpan around several times, a few of those with a straight six installed. You see, the Kadett and Vauxhall Viva were apparently partly developed together, and the floorpan is common. That Viva and its floorpan came here, then got (some) different styling, and was sold as a Torana: and in some versions, the front was stretched and a big six installed. In hottest form, it had 202ci of cast iron and 200hp wobbling out front, all on a basic unit designed for volume sales in the 1.1-1.3 litre European class. It was raced with great success by the very brave – and crashed off the road by everyone else!
What hp rating were you using for your comparison? The 102 hp rating given here is gross; the net is about 90 (90 DN PS). I suspect the Spark doesn’t have wheel spin issues like the front heavy Kadett did in a full throttle acceleration run.
FWIW, the Germans were pretty…ah…Germanic about their DIN hp ratings. I trust that it really truly did make 90 DIN PS.
As to its noise, it’s a curious thing, because we’ve had several comparisons and/or reviews here of the Opel 1900 (Ascona) and/or Manta, and all them noted what a relatively smooth-running engine this was. Of course, that was back in the pre-balance shaft era when 2 liter fours invariably were rough, but the Opel unit was considered less so, quite commonly. The Kadett A/B was a tin box; I well remember how noisey they were even with the little four.
The Kadett was 100% designed/engineered in Germany; when Vauxhall wanted a version, they took the Kadett and made a few changes/updates, and converted its engine “metrics” to UK style, etc.
I’m unable to say about the power rating, because whilst the gross rating was also given as 102 bhp locally, the net rating given in this country (by ’77) was 81bhp, and that’s with leaded fuel, which seems a bit off in the other direction. I know only that the performance always fell short of what the power suggested.
As for the performance disparity, the Spark’s front-drive, and weight transfer alone surely makes IT the one likelier to spin the wheels. The first four gears are actually taller in the Spark, albeit with a 5% lower final drive than the Opel, so tomato-tomato in that. Anyway, we’re talking a 12-13%-odd disparity in times, which isn’t nothing, and is a real-world noticeable amount (and sure, not life and death, but a 10.8 car is really a bit slow, whereas a 12.1 jobbie starts to feel properly so).
I didn’t say the engine wasn’t smooth, but it sure as shinola was harsh-sounding, and that sort of noise transfers through. What’s more, it’s got a comparatively high-rev torque peak for the time, meaning that the thrash would be more easily recalled by the tester revving the damn lump to get anywhere.
As for the platform, go argue with Vauxpedia, which I think’s a pretty good site: they say the two share the basic platform.
And as to the metricated pushrod enginesand 100% Germanity, one presumes – he sniffs, sniffily – that you have forgotten the slanted belt-driven OHC from Vauxhall, which the German arm had nothing to do with (quite possibly because it was even worse than the foisted-upon-them Detroit CIH for raucousness, for lack of go, and for fuel-use enthusiasm: we got that one in yet another Torana version, as well as the Bedford CF vans).
I don’t have the numbers at hand, but $2500 for the ” tarted up ” Kadett seems awfully close to what Lincoln-Mercury dealers charged for a Capri…though I may be thinking of the earliest 1600 versions. Considering the Capri had a smaller engine (iftalking about the 1600) but a slightly better suspension, I can see why the Manta/Ancona that replaced this car had to be such an improvement.
Had the Capri been available in 1968 I would definitely have chosen the Ford product over this GM product.
It would make for an interesting comparison.
Yes, the early Capri was very much a surprisingly low priced affair, and a useful amount below this; $2,295 in 1970. A 1972 with the 2.0 was only then crossing the $2.5k mark, at $2,528. Their initial success is not hard to understand with this context in mind.
I still drive my 1970 Kadett Rallye 1.9 to the Reno car show each August. I bought her new and have since restored her back to show condition. It’s quite a time machine for me.
Did the Detroit CIH design override any projects Opel themselves had similar to how Ford US imposed the Taunus P4/Redwing with V4 and all onto Ford Germany at the expensive of their own Kadett-like project with Glas-influenced OHC engine?
Speaking of Ford, one cannot mention Cam-in-Block without bringing up the Ford CVH and although they were said to have been influenced by Honda’s CVCC and allegedly considered Twin-Cams before ruling it out on grounds of cost. The Opel CIH must have played some role at Ford whilst developing the CVH.
Were there any other companies that developed CIH engines besides GM and Ford?