Opel Senator A / Opel Monza – Facelift Friday

For those who have no active memories of the 70s and 80s, the Opel range of the time is as incredible as it is incomprehensible. Predecessors of the current Insignia, which itself is now also in doubt, can be found in the form of the Vectra and the Ascona. The last Vectra (with the Signum) was in fact also the successor of the Omega. That in turn was the successor to a whole series of large models. The Rekord was the volume model in that respect for a long time, the six-cylinder Commodore was slightly larger and at the very top of the ladder we found the Senator from 1978.

Chrome

The Senator A was a large, luxurious sedan and carried it out with a hefty load of chrome. Square headlight units, often equipped with real wipers, are assisted in this car by a striking, shiny cube grille. It was short-sighted about an extended version of the Rekord, but with that we do this car a bit too short. Take a good look at that side window, which is clearly different with its extra window after the rear door. The head and ass are also unique for this model, if we don’t count coupé brother Monza. That Monza looked almost the same from the front and the back and that remained the case after the facelift.

heck blend

That facelift brought a whole new nose in 1982, in which we already clearly see which way the Opel design would go. The slightly more rounded headlights and the hood that was extended far down would later return, for example, on the Kadett E. The grille was somewhat smaller, the amount of chrome was somewhat limited. The latter is partly due to the plastic shield bumpers, which replace a set of traditional chromed ones. The approach to the rear seems like a knee-jerk to a tuning trend from those years. The rear lights were allowed to remain, but were connected by what the Germans so beautifully call a ‘Heckblende’. This created a visually continuous whole and the license plate was referred to the bumper.

Incidentally, there is something strange going on with the car in Photo 5 (above). This Senator, a pre-facelift ‘A1’, has the reversing lights at the top of the taillights instead of at the bottom. This doesn’t seem accurate as in all other photos of both the A1 and A2 they are under the chrome strip. Moreover, there is more to this car, because a fuel cap is missing and the right mirror does not appear to be original. We have used the photo because of a lack of alternatives, but with this caveat.