The older cars in this category are usually well maintained, because this loving care is usually necessary to keep a car for a long time. That every rule has exceptions, proves this pretty darn Opel Rekord.
Good maintenance is the preservation of your car. That makes perfect sense and it is also what appears almost every week in our Klokje Rond stories, underlined with an example that can be both positive and negative.
The real gems of this category are of course the cars that the Netherlands loves most: everyday types that are suddenly seriously rare many decades after their birth. Keeping a bread-and-butter car from Opel, Ford or Volkswagen on the road for many decades requires a caring owner.
At least, you would think so. This 1974 Opel Rekord did not last thanks to, but despite its owner. He has owned the original Dutch Opel since 2016 and doesn’t seem to care about it since. There is still air in the tires and the car seems complete, but we are done with that. The car is very dirty all around, is firmly put together in particular at the front left and is already well past its latest MOT date.
So the question is whether this Opel still has a future. A pity, because it is a nice version of the legendary large model from Rüsselsheim. The dirty yellow Opel Rekord D is a three-door ‘Caravan’ (station wagon), the most obscure and extinct body style of the bunch. According to the RDW, it is also a so-called 2000 S, a good two liters from the second half of this model’s career. With 100 hp, this was the most powerful engine in the range. Would the copy in this car still start?