With low-mileage cars all the rage we thought we’d join in with this Opel: One of yesterdays workhorses – erhm… which has apparently never worked a day in its life. We challenge you to find one with fewer kilometers.
Ahh, the Opel Kadett D: The quintessential nothing-special car, king of mediocrity, ultimate boredom family container and later banger of the century. And now a classic car. What, really? Well, we’ll get back to that.
Launched in 1979 the Kadett D was all-new for Opel: Front wheel drive, new engines, fresh design in the style of the time – i.e. rather angular. With traditional Opel values it won Car of the Year here in Denmark but was relegated to second by the European jury who preferred the Lancia Delta (there’s one more thing to discuss). In the marketplace it was the other way round by a large margin. Opel went on to build more than two million Kadett D, and in yet another tradition of the marque those millions of Kadetts soldiered on until mainly rust killed them off.
It’s not a bad car, the Kadett D. In fact it is in many ways comparable to the much better remembered and higher regarded VW Golf, debuting a few years earlier and about half a generation ahead of the Kadett D. And the Golf is today widely recognized as a proper classic car.
Shouldn’t the Kadett D be as well?
And then to THIS specific Kadett D. As a 1984-car it’s not what we all love in a fine classic car: First of the first, Series 1, Mk 1, first-generation, whatever you call it. Neither does it as a 1.3 liter deliver on that other fêted characteristic top-of-the-line specification. Nor does in stand out in any other way, in fact – not a single one.
Except the mileage: 18 Swedish miles equals to 180 kilometers or 111 British miles. And we’re not talking thousands here! The seller guarantees the correctness of this incredibly low number, and we in the editorial office do believe that the Swedish system actually does monitor the mileage through the mandatory annual roadworthiness checks, so that they should indeed be able to document the claimed mileage properly.
And that is why this unassuming Kadett D wins our Prime Find of the Week laurels: It might not look like anything special – but in fact it is just that. And the price of 50,000 Swedish Kroner (currently equating to approximately 4,850 EUR or 4,250 GBP) seems spot on. Get it while you can!
See the full ad with more photos here: 1984 Opel Kadett 1.3DL Caravan – 18 mil
And getting back to whether this is indeed a classic car. There has been much discussion as to whether a car needs to be exotic in order to fully qualify as a classic car. Or can the plain, the ordinary and yesterdays everyday heros in fact become proper classics too? There can be no debating that they are certainly a large part of our automotive history – automotive culture even. But is that enough? Let us know what you think…
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk