Long life sport.
Codenamed the Strolch, the ancestor of all sporty Astras seemed to have been lost forever. But 70 years after its disappearance, the Kadett prototype was rebuilt.
A red car speeds along a country lane: it is particularly sleek, the roof is down and the female passenger’s hair is flowing behind her in the wind. As was common at the time, its radiator grille features Art Deco styling, while the zeppelin on the bonnet represents modernity and innovation. Overall, the images are characterized by a sense of freedom and sportiness. Everything was ready for the big launch: photographs were taken, the brochure was printed and the target group for the vehicle was clearly identified. “As long as there are people on Earth, there will be the desire to enjoy its beauty as a couple. This long-held belief is behind the latest model from Adam Opel AG: the two-seater convertible saloon version of the Opel Kadett.”
The brochure still exists, though nobody knows with any certainty what happened to the car. The dynamic representative of the new Kadett range, known under its code and pet name of Strolch (German for “rascal”), is the ancestor of all sporty Kadett and Astra models, though never went into series production. Its tracks seem to disappear in history, but the Kadett went on to enjoy great success.
Back for good
Passengers in the Kadett two-seater were able to fully enjoy the great outdoors.
Confidential photos from 1938 of the Strolch in testing show the sporty two-seater Kadett with a striking headlight at the front of the radiator.
Compact, family-friendly and affordable, the Kadett was a car for people who drove their own vehicle and for self-confident, modern women. The first of the ten generations of Kadett/Astra released was available as a two- and four-door saloon and as a convertible saloon with a fixed windscreen frame and soft-top roll-down roof. The advert for the car was designed by the great illustrator Bernd Reuters and featured the words: “Driving fun in the dashing Kadett! Its constant endeavour: to be persistently faster than the rest!”
In 1936 the world looked to Berlin, hosts of the Olympic Games in supposedly peaceful times. The European automotive industry, however, looked to Rüsselsheim. With 120,852 vehicles sold, Opel became the largest automotive manufacturer on the continent in 1936, a testament to modern production techniques and the popularity and practicality of its range of cars and commercial vehicles. This was the year that Opel developed the Kadett, a car manufactured using the latest processes and at a price that was easily accessible to the middle class.
Long life sport.
Its ultra-modern construction was borrowed from the larger Opel Olympia, launched in 1935, which was the first European mass production vehicle with a self-supporting body made entirely of steel – a construction principle still followed to this day. The design also marked the beginning of a new era and made the separation of frame and body – a hangover from the days of coach building – a thing of the past. The advantages of the new structure, whereby the bodywork and chassis were one unit, were clear: lighter but with the same dimensions, improved performance with the same engine output, and increased safety with a stronger passenger cell.
Red alert
Modern times in compact car design – indicators showed the car’s planned manoeuvres.
Red glow
Large instruments on the dashboard indicate speed, mileage and oil pressure.
The self-supporting body meant the new model also featured a deformable bodywork structure, which absorbed energy in the event of a collision. The crumple zone was born and during the “marriage” production process, the bodywork was bonded to the pre-mounted drive train and axles.
The success of the new Kadett model inspired its builders. Why not take a risk and alongside the practical people’s car, offer an attractive dream car? In April 1938 the design drawings for a two-seater convertible saloon were recorded as “inspected”, and shortly after the Strolch Kadett two-seater left the Rüsselsheim testing department.
Long life sport.
The prototype featured a firm rear end and high belt line. Its top speed was clocked at 98 km/h, while Opel promised a safe continuous speed of 85 km/h on the motorway for its 23-PS compact car with a 1.1-litre engine. Photos were taken and a hand-drawn brochure produced – then all plans were finally discarded. Too few units, expensive production processes and shortages in steel and rubber put an end to the dream of series production, according to the minutes of a meeting from 1938. The end came abruptly for the attractive and sporty red two-seater, while for the Kadett it came in 1940 after 107,608 units. But both would be brought back to life at a later date.
In 1946, the Kadett production plants were transferred to the Soviet Union as part of reparations, with Rüsselsheim’s Kadett reborn as a “Son of Moscow”, the Moskvitsch 400. With a “new car from a new factory” Opel revived the line in 1962: the first Opel Kadett of the post-war era rolled out of the factory gates in Bochum that year, with further Kadett and Astra generations following. But what about the Strolch?
Back in time
Design drawing 2555339 was discovered in old files completely by chance.
It was quite a while before a combination of chance and research brought the two-seater back to life. At the start of 2008, 70 years after work began on the Kadett two-seater, a series of forgotten photos emerged in the corporate archive. Using these pictures the body was reconstructed, then shortly afterwards plans and a brochure for the car were discovered while clearing an old cellar complex. The promise made in the brochure seven decades previously was honoured by the Kadett and Astra generations that followed: “The new Opel Kadett model, with its special characteristics, is destined to further increase the many fans of the car, which is unique in the sum of its countless advantages.”
