I have often wondered if our first car sets the pattern for the types of cars we buy over the course of our lives. Or are the choices we make merely the result of circumstances, needs and lifestyle? In compiling a list of the vehicles I have owned in my 48 years of driving, I discovered some definite patterns in my choices. Let’s start by looking at my first car, a tan 1965 Opel Kadett. I think almost every one of these early Kadetts was tan. Sadly, all of the images in this article are from the internet, no images survive of my first car.
I grew up in the tiny town of Painted Post, NY just west of Corning. You may know Corning as the home of Corning Inc, purveyor of Gorilla Glass, Pyrex labware and fiber optic cable. Painted Post was home to Ingersoll Rand, known for air compressors. We lived adjacent to an Ingersoll Rand loading dock. And when I say adjacent, I mean you would reach your hand out the kitchen window and touch the fence surrounding the plant. Union jobs meant lots of new American cars in the parking lots surrounding the plants. But Watkins Glen was only 20 miles away. Races would draw wealthy spectators from the NYC area, arriving in Ferrari, Porches, Lotus and the like. Corning engineers were attracted to exotics like Citroen, Volvo and BMW. So my childhood circumstances exposed me to a wide variety of automobiles and I loved looking at all them.
In 1972, the summer before my 16th birthday, the Corning area was hit with the remnants of Hurricane Agnes. Corning was built at the confluence of three rivers and those rivers were fed by hundreds of small streams. Agnes parked over the southern tier of New York in late June dumping 10 inches of rain over three days. Army Corps of Engineers flood control dikes failed on the morning of the fourth day, flooding most of Painted Post and Corning. Our house was hit with a 10’ wall of water, destroying most of our possessions. We moved to a new home about 10 miles out of town, up in the hills this time. Like many families back then, we had just one car. But I had joined a band as a drummer the previous winter and needed to get into town for rehearsals. My mother, unbeknownst to me, started looking for a car for me to use when I turned 16. As it happened, a friend’s son was selling his 1965 Kadett.
I can’t say I was thrilled owning a 7 year old Kadett. This was not the model everyone remembers. The Kadett B is the one that allowed Opel to quickly rise to the number 2 import brand in the US. No, this was the Kadett A, a funky looking little two door with vestigial fins. Opels of this period had a strong resemblance to GM’s US products and if you squinted, mine looked a bit like a shrunken Chevy II.
My mother paid $250 for this car which was about $150 too much. The front fenders were shot through with rust and it barely ran. Fortunately the bass player in our band knew a mechanic and took my carburetor for a rebuild. In the meantime, I started working with Bondo, a gallon at a time. My new neighbor worked maintenance for the local school district and knew how to paint cars. He offered to paint my car for the cost of the paint. I went down to the local auto parts stored and picked out a beautiful shade of deep metallic green. We got the carburetor installed in early fall.
I had learned to drive using my mom’s 1967 Rebel, automatic of course, so I set about teaching myself how to shift a manual. The Opel had a long whip of a shifter and as a result, you really had to stir that thing to find the right gear. Our new house was sitting on a newly graded lot, so I practiced driving by doing laps around what would become the yard, turning it into an oval dirt track for a time. Always counter clockwise, I never got going fast enough to get out of 2nd but I did learn the intricacies of clutching and braking.
I didn’t get my license until the following summer so the Opel mostly sat in the driveway that winter. Once I started driving, I really grew to appreciate that car. The little 993cc pushrod engine making 46 HP in US trim was considered to be bulletproof. It must have been; I don’t remember ever changing the oil in it.
I became popular with car-less friends in high school and ran what amounted to a free ride share service my senior year, getting to know the back roads that ran through the hills surrounding the Corning area. The car wasn’t particularly fast; top speed observed was about 70 MPH downhill. But handling on the retreaded tires was just fine. I removed the cracked dash pad, but that was about it for interior modifications.
I can’t say that I learned a lot about car repair with the Kadett, I was too busy with the band. This was when garage bands were still somewhat of a novelty. Being under 18 meant that we couldn’t play bars, but there were enough high schools in the area to keep us busy. The car was fairly reliable except for the occasional refusal to start. If that happened at home, I just pointed it down the driveway and got it rolling fast enough to start it by popping the clutch. In town that would require 2 or 3 friends to give me a push.
Somewhere along the way I sourced a 1964 Kadett, tan of course, as a parts car. It was then that I realized I had a fairly rare model. My front clip resembled the Kadett B with squared off headlights while my parts car had the older style round headlight bezels as used on the base Kadett A sedan, which was by far the most common version sold in the US.
Based on pics from the internet, I appears mine was the rather rare L version of the Kadett. The L sedan and the Opel coupe had that upscale front end. In the fall of 1974 I headed off to SUNY Delhi in the Catskills. Freshman could have a car on campus but it was discouraged, in part by the location of the freshman parking lot far removed from campus. The car mostly stayed parked except for trips home. I kept the Opel through my first year of college but decided in the spring it was time for something a little more road worthy. I sold both of the Opels for $200 to a guy with a young family. I often saw them cruising around, all smiles. I’m glad it found a happy home.
Never saw any Opels around N.W. Ohio except for the desirable Opel GT sports car that looked like a baby Corvette. With GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC, and Jeep factories here and discounts to their workers on their vehicles, that’s what people around here bought new and used. Some non-auto people bought VWs. There was no Opel or other foreign brands dealerships here. Foreign brands were all considered to be overpriced, slow, unreliable junk at USA speeds and distances in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In the late-70s my friend had an Opel GT and we noticed that it was common in used car classified ads for them to be described as a “baby Corvette.” We used to joke that a Corvette could be similarly advertised as an “obese Opel GT.”
Good choice for a first car, though how small it must have looked over there in 1972.
Headlight surrounds apart, that revised front is almost the same as the HA Viva.
Yes, that revised front end really shows up the fact that these cars were essentially the same thing under the skin, with some minor exceptions.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/the-corporation-the-story-of-my-father-a-gm-executive-part-3-viva-russelsheim/
I’m about your age and grew up in the Syracuse area. I remember well the strong introduction of the Opel Kadett in Central New York. Pat Bombard Buick – Opel, in Syracuse, aggressively promoted the Kadett on local television and radio. Bombard’s efforts were highly effective as the Kadett soon became a common sight in our region.
Locals seemed to embrace this well-built little car.
I live and grew up just west in Buffalo and I remember Hurricane Agnes. In Buffalo we just got a lot of rain but since the southern tier is in Buffalo’s TV coverage area it was covered constantly.
As for the Opel, my parents first car when married was a two door Opel station wagon. My mom had a 55 BelAir and my dad had a 57 Buick Special. When my mom became pregnant with me in 1960, she quit her teaching job and they traded both their big American sedans for the Opel to economize. My dad taught school in Niagara Falls and it was almost a 40 mile round trip. They figured the Opel would be a good choice for the trip every day. A local Buick dealer was related to us so the Opel was an easy choice. Turns out they both hated the car. Wasn’t reliable at all. At times it wouldn’t start and one time the brakes went out. My dad left the car in front of the house and the mechanic from the dealership one early morning exchanged his Buick for the Opel and drove the Opel to the dealer using the emergency clutch and downshifting…
.A few months later my dad traded the car for a 63 Special. The next 15 20 years would be an unbroken string of Buicks for my family.
I can relate to your story. I bought my first car a 1969 Opel Kadett Rallye in 1972 when I was a junior in high school. I think it was around $700. at Jordan’s used car lot on Western Ave. in Chicago a few blocks from my high school. I learned how to drive stick on the way home using mostly side streets,lol. It was a sporty looking little car. I think the carburetor needed a rebuild too, I would have to push start it sometimes also. I was able to do that myself at times and I weighed about 155 lbs. I also played drums as you did,I had a used set of Slingerland’s my mom bought me when I was around 13 that I still have. This is a picture of how my car looked, it’s the same color too, but mine had a black vinyl top. Thanks for this post, it made me smile.
My first drums were Ludwigs, like Ringo’s. Those were flooded and replaced with a vintage Rogers kit. I sold them to the younger brother of my college roommate who went on to form a Beatles tribute band that made it all the way to Liverpool for some sort of tribute band festival.
Used Kadettes were dirt cheap in the late 1960’s, like Renaults and most other small foreign cars, but VWs. I remember my older sister’s first boyfriend buying a ’64 for around $500 when it was about 4 years old. It turned out to be highly problematic, with lots of mechanical problems. I can’t remember if he got sick of it or wrecked it. All Opels seemed to be rather troublesome, as I recall. I don’t know if this was due to the cars themselves, parts availability, or ignorant mechanics. I can’t believe that service departments of Buick dealerships gave a shit about working on little foreign cars.
The boyfriend’s next car was a rather nice ’62 Comet, which was totalled when it hit a horse in the middle of the highway.
The Kadett A was designed to be extremely light (it weighed quite a bit less than a Beetle) as well very cheap to build. It was mechanically quite simple, but it was also a completely new car when it came out in 1962. The VW had been around for over 20 years by then, with endless improvements to its durability and reliability.
The Kadett was generally ok for 3-4 years or so, bu then things commonly started to go. My dad’s Kadett needed a valve job after 3 years. There may have been other issues too, so he traded it in on a ’68 Dart.
Back then I would not have picked one of these as a cheap used car, sticking strictly to VWs for that task. The Beetle was much more solidly built; the body wasn’t nearly as tinny. And all of its components were more durable and better made.
I hate to use the term, but the early Kadetts really were something of a disposable car. GM made them to a price, and it showed.
Nice; the first Kadett A COAL here. As most of you know, my father bought a ’65 Kadett to commute to work in.
I was a bit stumped initially by Rich’s Kadett L, as I have never seen one in the US and assumed it wasn’t sold here. But some digging around verified that it was, bu undoubtedly in quite small numbers. Americans bought cars like the Kadett because they were cheap (and economical), so a better trimmed L model didn’t make a lot of sense. I suspect dealers didn’t stock them for that reason.
The coupe was quite rare too, although a kid at Towson High I knew picked one up cheap, and I had a memorable ride in it, which included a perfect 360 on a country road when we were out playing hooky one day.
The Coupe came with a higher output engine (54 hp), which upped top speed from 75 to almost 85. It was quite the little buzz bomb.
I found a photo of both Kadetts to give you an idea of how the front ends compared. That’s me on the day of my high school graduation.
Opels have been some of my more reliable cars. My first was a yellow 69 Kadett L wagon sourced in 1985 for free. Automatic but not bad for a high mile reject. $50 got me a 70 Kadett Rallye with a seriously cracked head. Tach and the chrome wheels went on the wagon. It finally failed and life got in the way and the wagon was sold to a guy wanting to return it to its homeland. The next one was another free yellow, this time a Manta. Awesome car for several years. As the only one around who spoke Opel I worked on a few for other people and had a regular customer with a 67 Kadett Rallye 1.1. I had so much fun test driving that car I decided that my next Opel someday would be a 1.1. It also needed to be a 2 door sedan. Yellow as all Opels should be. The story will be continued.
Since it’s mothers day today, i like to add that my moms first car was a Kadett B. In red with black roof (not vinyl, just colour). Before cc i had no idea that the Kadett was such a success in the us. I’m wondering about the bad reliability. The A maybe, because of the reasons Paul mentioned, but the Kadett B was known as solid as a rock over here in europe. Maybe not as solid as beetle, ok, but they were still to be seen on the roads in the 80s and early 90s. I remember seeing them every once in a while back then.
I don’t remember these around at all, but recall the B model becoming mildly popular.by the late 60s.
It would seem that you kept yours long enough to get into a second gallon of Bondo?
Used the second gallon on the 1970 Kadett Rallye I sourced for my then girlfriend. Fun car, similar to the gold one pictured above but more of a copper/orange color.
I like the looks of the dark blue and red / black ones .
When I lived in Guatemala City in 1976 my idiot brother in law had his uncles old ’65 Open two door, said uncle had wrecked it badly , had it halfassedly repaired (the entire front end was bent & it ate tires) and sold it to Oscar .
When I showed up it was just one more of the battered old cars and Motos that showed up every Sunday to have the “American mechanic who can fix anything !” (yeah, right) try to patch them up .
-Nate
I thought Opels were the best thing in the world when I was in my 20s and had very little money I bought a 74 Fiat 28 new, which arguably might be a better car, but i still lusted for an Opel
Fiat 128 wagon that is
I went to Alfred University for a few years so I used to pass through, Corning, Horseheads, Painted Post etc. Horseheads always stuck in my mind because that’s where the Sysco food service trucks came from. The Finger Lakes are also NY’s major wine growing and Bully Hill Winery was a piece of my youth.
I don’t recall seeing many Kadetts other than some B wagons in the early 70s, Most of what was in my area were Mantas or GTs, by the time I was in college in the early 80s all the Opels were rust and the weirdest car was a Saab 95 owned by an engineering grad student.