Who keeps it?
One look at this Opel Astra Station Wagon is enough to instantly transport you back to the Netherlands in the 1990s. That’s exactly how you saw the Astra passing by in droves. Now we are dealing with a brave survivor, who will hopefully keep his yellow license plate.
The first Opel Astra succeeded wonderfully in succeeding the extremely popular Kadett E; just like the Kadett, you traditionally saw the Astra on almost every street corner. However, what the Astra F also imitated its predecessor in was that it changed from a permanent part of the street scene into an (almost suddenly) almost extinct car in our country. After all, the first Astra was, just like the last Kadett, a car that mainly did its thing as an unemotional utensil and was then often unsuspectingly discarded. If they didn’t go to the scrap yard, they went to a more eastern location to have the last bits of life squeezed out of them. As far as we are concerned, this Astra Station Wagon should be spared that fate.
Why? Well, not least because it is actually a piece of Dutch cultural heritage. Anyone who is now in their 30s has probably once sat in the backseat of such an Astra as a child. For years it was pretty much the family car in our country. This is also a nice typical Astra, with its dark blue paint color, turquoise piping and trendy hubcaps. The interior is also completely a child of its time. After all, in the 90s it was very normal to go wild with a fabric with a rather eye-catching motif and that is no different here.
It’s all part of the Young version, which made the Astra look extra ‘fresh’. Opel praised this popular version as follows at the time: “In addition to its high standard equipment, this refreshing young version of the Astra offers even more extras for a modest additional price. You can count on, for example, exterior mirrors adjustable from the inside in the color of the body, tinted glass , a height-adjustable driver’s seat, turquoise striping in the bumpers and protective strips, special hubcaps, ‘Primavera’ upholstery and an anthracite-colored dashboard. For those who have even more wishes, a transparent sliding/tilting roof is available at an additional cost. In short, the Astra Young has very mature equipment!”
Almost thirty years ago, someone was seduced by all this beauty and was allowed to take the HH-VS-23 to its first home. He then stayed there until – believe it or not – just two weeks ago. Yes, this Astra belonged to the same owner from January 1994 to October 2023. Very little was driven in all those years, because the odometer only shows 42,712; only about 1,400 kilometers per year. Those kilometers are also fairly evenly distributed over the years, as we see in the NAP report. Things only went a little faster in the first few years. Now such an existence does not necessarily have to be favorable for a car, but it is certainly special. Unfortunately, despite that quiet existence, the car has had a dent here and there and, strangely enough, the gear shift cover is quite worn. Things that an enthusiast would certainly like to tackle to turn this into a very special survivor who simply remains part of the Dutch street scene. With an asking price of €1,795, you can certainly get in for not a lot of money.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl