BETTER PARTSThe pre-war Volkswagen
Rüsselsheim, Germany, 24 October 2016
The year is 1936: the Olympic Games held in Berlin and somewhere in Stuttgart to run the first attempts of a spherical "Volkswagen". However, the motorization of people obsessed about the question all German car companies, since Brown's leaders accelerate this goal, including the abolition of car tax. Opel can score with the cheap P4. His successor is presented in 1936 and introduces a name that is a legend. Cadet.
The VW Royal unveiled the Cadet
The cloth of the Cadet pulls 80 years ago, then technical adviser of the Opel Sales Manager Heinrich Nordhoff. That's right, Those Nordhoff, who is responsible for the rise of the VW Group after the war. He brings the expertise of mass production by the General Motors subsidiary Opel. The 3.81 meter Cadet cause things to use that now very familiar to us. As a modular system: the suspension with leaf-sprung rear axle comes from the greater Olympia, visually resembles the cadet. The Cadet of the P4 inherits the side valve cast iron four-cylinder with 23 HP. Almost 100 km/h which is smallest Opel quickly, was more than adequate.
Command receiver
In other areas, the first Cadet is very modern: he has a self-supporting body that is, at the time made Europe's largest press plant in Rüsselsheim, Germany. To have the Opel sedan as "Convertible limousine" is, the prices start from 2,100 Reichsmark. For this the customer receives as standard, some which is today rather curious us: A hydraulic Vierradbremse, direction indicator or a dust-proof, accessible from inside luggage. The press is fond: the Cadet react just as nimble, agile and obedient "to all commands of the rider" as you would expect from karierremachenden cadets, writes the "Kölnische Zeitung" pretty smart.
Of Hesse in the Soviet Union
The success of the Cadet is not long in coming: In 1938 he holds a 59 percent market share in its class and is lifted. Parallel, Opel brings a stripped-down version for only 1,785 reichsmarks, the KdF-Wagen, like the VW Beetle initially means to respond to. This costs only 990 mark subsidized, realistically, the KdF-Wagen just below the level of the spar-Cadet would be. Opel builds exact 107.608 copies until the end of war in June 1940 by the cadet. But both the car and the name live on. in 1947, the Soviets dismantle the Cadet manufacturing plants in Rüsselsheim, Germany, the car as a four-door car continue build until 1954 under the name "Moskvich 400". Until 1962, Opel built a cadet again: a new work is the model, which in just three years, almost 650,000 vehicles by the band roll. The famous name is buried with the end of the Kadett E in 1991. The future is called Astra, a name that carries the Cadet as a virtually identical version of Vauxhall in England since 1980. Today, Opel Kadett and Opel Astra of the band ran over 24 million. (rh)