Opel Kadett (1983) – Clock Round – From the Old Box

The fact that an Opel Kadett of the penultimate generation (also called the D-Kadett) is a rarity these days, has not least to do with the fact that most were completely ridden in about ten years. Every now and then a nice specimen turns up, but in 2022 you can really look for that with a magnifying glass. In 1992 we had one as guest in Klokje Rond which has undoubtedly been gone for quite some time. But hey, he had actually already done his service!

The Kadett was purchased new in early 1983 by the owner who brought it in for a thorough inspection on the doorstep of November 1992. He had made good use of it: the Kadett was equipped with an LPG installation to eat nice kilometers and after just ten years of use it already had 268,000 km on the counter. At least, 68,000, but the owner could tell us that the five-digit clock had already been round twice. He liked the Kadett very much and he was surprised when he entered the Klokje Rond garage with a boiling engine. “This has never happened to me in all these years.” Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm: the cap of the coolant reservoir was not tightened properly.

The judge was not put off by this shock moment and subjected the Kadett to a thorough inspection. It was immediately apparent that the Kadett had had an eventful life. One of the wishbones did not look too fresh anymore and according to the owner that was the result of a collision. That was not the only collision that the Kadett had survived: in 1985 the car experienced no fewer than three collisions in two months. The nose of the Kadett was also clearly not completely original: the black hood and front fenders were of course not on it from the factory. They weren’t put there because of the collisions, all of which had damaged the rear of the car, but because of rust. The rust was unmistakable in the places where you didn’t screw on another body part just like that.

Rust was the D-Kadett’s worst enemy, and this one hadn’t managed to escape it in its nine years of existence. There was a very thick brown crust on the carriage, especially just in front of the left rear wheel. One that you could spot from a distance, although the fact that it was a white car didn’t help either. The bottom was still hard, the judge concluded. No worries in that regard, although it was clear at another point that the Kadett was slowly approaching its end. A hefty oil leak at the engine was a cause for concern, not an unusual finding with a D-Kadett. “I think it’s really time for a successor,” said the owner. Nevertheless, a satisfied mood prevailed, because in his opinion he had been able to eat kilometers cheaply all those years. The Kadett had done what it was bought for.