„Bochum, I come from you!“ - Opel Kadett B
He who says A must also say B - so the Kadett A was followed in September 1965 by the Kadett B, also from the still young plant in the heart of the Ruhr region: Bochum. Long before Herbert Grönemeyer's ode to the ‘flower in the Ruhr’, the Beetle rival conquered the streets of Germany and the hearts of motorists. Like many Opel models at the time, it stood for absolute reliability, spaciousness and unpretentiousness, and so the Opel advertising slogan for the Kadett B at the time was quite rightly: ‘Opel Kadett - in short, O.K.’. It was also an all-rounder that was available in almost countless body variants: saloon with 2 or 4 doors, the same for the ‘Caravan’ estate, plus elegant coupés, which at their peak in the late 1960s could be ordered in no fewer than 4 versions, including the legendary ‘Kiemen-Coupé’, named after its gill-like reinforcing ribs in the C-pillar. It was precisely this Kiemen-Coupé that was to appear in the windows of Opel dealerships from November 1967 as the Rallye Kadett, marking the forefather of all GTIs with 60 hp, rally stripes, rev counter and steel sports rims. And the Rallye Kadett was by no means a ‘paper tiger’, as it was able to claim victory in the class up to 1600cc at the Monte-Carlo Rally just a few months after its debut - all respect!
Also in 1967, a luxurious ‘Super Kadett B’ was launched in the form of the Olympia A, bringing the total number of variants to 37 (!). The all-rounder was produced until 1973, from the Bochum plant to the USA, where the Kadett B was sold via the Buick dealer network and became something like the first mass-produced compact model in the USA, always accompanied by striking advertising campaigns with monkeys and elephants....
Over 2.7 million Kadett B and Olympia A models were produced, making the series the most produced Opel model of all time.
Even after it was replaced by the Kadett C, it was impossible to imagine the roads without the ‘B’; in fifth or sixth hand, it made many a novice driver happy, and the last worn-out examples often met their ‘heroic death’ at a ‘Hell Drivers’ show.
See beautiful ‘survivors’ at the 24th RETRO CLASSICS® in Stuttgart and celebrate the 60th birthday of our jubilarian Kadett B, presented by the Alt-Opel-IG and collectors in Hall 7.
