Now that’s an interesting line, as this Diplomat was actually seriously considered as the basis of the 1976 Cadillac Seville. As the story goes, the big Opel’s body tolerances were too tight for GM to build in NA, although I suspect that may well not be the full story. But the even more interesting line in this short review is the last one:
“Why doesn’t GM import the Diplomat? Simple. It would meet head-on with upper Olds, Buick and Pontiac models and could no more achieve the prestige of a small Mercedes than it does in Europe. But if they gave the Chevy Nova sedan its brakes and rear suspension, hmmm…”
This was in February of 1972, well before GM had committed to build the Seville using the Nova as its basis. And no, they didn’t give it the Diplomat’s DeDion rear suspension and brakes. And although it tried to take Mercedes head on, it never made the slightest dent in Mercedes continued growth in the US.
Now if they had done that ten years earlier, it might have been a different story.
The big Opels were something of an oddity in Europe, as they had always been something of a 7/8th scale GM sedan. The Kapitän and Admiral date back to the 1930’s, and were quite popular in the ’50s, as a local cheaper alternative to a then-still desirable big GM car from the US, as well as a Mercedes. But that all changed rather quickly during the ’60s, when big American cars lost their prestige value, and Mercedes, BMW and then Audi became the status symbols of an ascendant domestic industry. The big Opel’s image drooped.
So for the new generation that arrived in 1969, Opel tried to make it more “European”, with improved chassis dynamics and a new De Dion rear suspension. But in styling it still leaned more to the US than what was being done in Europe then. Handsome, but decidedly American with a Euro touch. The same mostly applied to the interior: well done, quality materials, full instrumentation, but with an American vibe.
The top of the line, the Diplomat came with a Chevy 327 (5.4 L) V8, rated at 230 net DIN PS/227 net hp. It was essentially a 275 (gross) hp 327 Chevy teamed up with the ten THM-350 automatic. That was its trump card, as V8s were still an extreme rarity in Europe; Mercedes’ 3.5 V8 would just be arriving that same year, but at a considerably higher price point. The Diplomat offered a relaxed, torque-rich automatic drive train that was something still quite out of the ordinary, never mind that it utterly ordinary in the US.
This generation of the K-A-D Big Opels was decidedly not a success, and they were not replaced, although the Rekord-based Senator did cover the lower end of their range. Europeans were done with American cars, real or German-built.
But it was clearly a better Chevy, or any other American GM car at the time, in terms of its dynamic capabilities as an all-round sedan. And as such, it would have been interesting had GM chosen to build it in the US, as a better Seville or?
I would imagine part of the reason the Diplomat was not built in the U.S. was it used all of that metric “nonsense” that Detroit didn’t get their heads around until….
If only. I would absolutely love one of the V8 cars although I know where there is a kind of rough 6 cyl Admiral hiding. Nice looking cars, nice size too.
The styling, and general proportions, remind me quite a bit of the AMC Matador.
While the dashboard, and some interior detailing, looks like it may have influenced the design of the 1982 GM J-Body (Cavalier) interior.
I cannot see how this would possibly have been successful here. As daniel m stated, the styling is reminiscent of an amc matador, although I’m also seeing 66 chevy nova. An expensive foreign car with frumpy styling and few other positive attributes would not have been successful. Other than the v8 and impressive brakes and rear suspension, what did it bring to the table? Construction wasn’t up to mercedes quality, steering, controls, fit and finish, and interior quality weren’t up to mercedes standards. Compared with 1972/1973 styling of the a bodies and soon to debut colonnade a bodies, this car looks ancient.
Gm and ford have tried to import or build american versions of European models here and the opel manta and kadett and chevette were mild successes and the 70s capri was a success. Everything else I can think of has been a resounding failure even when the cars were much better than this. It’s pretty easy to see gm executives looking at this and the forthcoming cutlass salon and deciding that the cutlass salon was the way to go.
I’m inclined to agree with you for all of the reasons you mentioned, plus the currency rates which devalued the dollar and increased the value of the Deutschmark. It wasn’t a terrible car and it had a lot of positive attributes, but I can’t see it as selling well in the U.S. of the 1970s.
All of this theory was really mooted by the decline of the US dollar vs the Deutschmark (and other European currencies) that happened in the early-mid-70s. That alone nearly destroyed the American market for European manufacturers of “family” cars. If they didn’t move upmarket, they were toast.
Which is not to say that GM couldn’t have used methods and technologies used by Opel to build cars in the US. But at the time, GM was deep in its period of arrogance and NIH (Not Invented Here) just wouldn’t fly.
I would argue that it wasn’t until the Chrysler L-body cars (Omni/Horizon) that an American manufacturer was willing and able to incorporate design and technology from their European branch successfully and willingly into their American-made cars.
The De Dion suspension was pretty unusual. Only other cars I think of offhand with that feature are the Rover P6, Lancia Aurelia, and Alfa Romeo Alfetta.
At some point in the early 1970s Road & Track wrote that someone at Chrysler had noticed that a Valiant/Dart was about the size of a Mercedes 250 and done some “What if we built a car that size with IRS and OHC?” brainstorming. They concluded that such a car would have to sticker at ~$6K, and no one would buy an American Mercedes for $6K, so that was that.
What happened to Barry Koch? His work was one of the highlights of CC. Haven’t seen it in a couple years.
I like it. Especially the interior which looks spacious and very comfortable. The exterior I suppose does look a little…plain, but that’s only in contrast to the somewhat flamboyant excesses seen on a lot of stuff over here a few years later and nowadays just as often derided, it could just as well be described as “restrained”. In fact I sort of see some foreshadowing of much of the later ’70s and early ’80s very rectlinear Euro-look in everything but the actual body metal sculpture itself such as the grille, lighting, rear valance etc.
I suspect it would have done about as well as any other Opel in the US that wasn’t badged as an Opel. IOW, as a Cadillac a proto-Catara. Which objectively was a dynamically better car than anything in the Cadillac lineup at the time too, when in the late 90s having European dynamics wasn’t just a novelty in the luxury field like the early 70s, but essential in the class. Still zagged right into a brick wall, in no small part because the styling was 5 years behind the American trends, which is for sure the case with the Diplomat. It looks like it would fit right in among American GMs circa 1965/66, right down to the dashboard, but in 72? No way IMO.
That just leaves utilizing the chassis with an Americanized body, and at that point a GM swimming with cash would probably just be better up come up with something similar catered to our shores. GM wasn’t looking for a lifeline in 1972, I know it’s fashionable to criticize them for NIH, and hubris is certainly at play, but it’s not like GM didn’t earn those habits. In the US they knew how to create an IRS in the Corvette, they knew how to make big heavy boats handle quite well(for all the flack collonades get, this was a strength), their engines had some of the best volumetric efficiency in the business, dabbled in fuel injection, and their styling steered the entire industry to follow every 4 years. GM’s flaw wasn’t an inability to build a car like the Diplomat in the US, their flaw was treating those technologies as a permanent upsell, not recognizing the growing foreign competition was offering that standard. So should GM have built the Seville more like the Diplomat from an engineering standpoint, perhaps fully removed from the X body? Yes. Should they have imported and badge engineered the Diplomat to do that? No.
GM already had the basis for a smaller international-sized Cadillac engineered and in production right here in the U.S.: the 1963 Pontiac Lemans! All they had to do was restyle it as a Cadillac, fit it with four wheel disk brakes, rack and pinion steering, and fuel-injection, trim, finish and craft the car to challenge European competitors. Opportunity wasted.
GM should have taken the opportunity to develop the American Chevys together with Opel team, it would help isolating Pontiac, Buick and Olds as an exclusive range of cars with higher level of finishing and engines focused on the internal market and making Chevy and Opel more able to compete with Toyota, Honda and Datsun-Nissan. This way all the costs developing Monza and Manta, Vega and Ascona would be reduced to just two projects instead of four, and the American Chevette may have been a better product if it were developed together with Opel Kadett C instead of adapting a product already done.
I agree from the front, 66 Nova. GM just kept shoveling the same crap out the door, as mentioned above no improvement to the base design and when they did decide to finally start improving the product look out, we got this new diesel and a 4 speed overdrive transmission for you. Still want a gas engine, lets give them TBI fuel injection.
Not seeing a business case for the Diplomat B in the U.S market. To be sold here it would have to be an expensive car, probably too pricey for Buick or Olds. Selling it as a Cadillac wouldn’t work either, as that would mean it would have to trade on style and prestige. I don’t see how this car could be visually modified to fit in with Cadillac’s design language. There’s something inharmonious about the styling of the K-A-D cars that I can’t put my finger on. I don’t know how to explain the retrograde styling, as this car debuted during peak-GM, and its Diplomat A predecessor was one fine looking automobile.
That the Diplomat B handled and stopped better than most American cars from the time is also largely irrelevant. Is that what sold Cadillacs back then? The first generation Seville had dynamics that were downright abysmal. Did anyone care?
A lot of it went down under GMH based their cars on big Opels and the 327 was the big engine option when they went V8 in 68 ten years later they were just building Opels albeit toughened up to suit local conditions but their smaller cars were just Opels/ Vauxhalls in disguise
Hi,
A friend of my granddad had such an Opel here in Germany. Yes, the drivetrain was fine as the brakes and suspension were. But that was it. Big losses on resale value, no comparison to MB, Audi or even VW. And the quality of many parts was very poor. After 4 years the engine rubber bushings were ‘done’, and so the engine turned once while accelerating, resulting in big damage on electric wires, coolant hoses, damaged fan and radiator… Fortunately the car was wrecked soon and replaced by a ford granada. Another cheap choice of that guy.
Even today, GM does not seem to really grasp the idea of using their resources to the fullest potential. And really, that is the biggest sin GM commits. They had a global footprint, and instead of using the best from every different company and merging the ideas across the board, they grudgingly used models developed in a different market only when they had no other option, and even then did not take other parts from other teams that might have been a better fit and used them appropriately. They never cracked the code, so to speak, and it really cost them.
Had GM used the suspension from this on the Seville, it might have worked, and been worth the price of changes versus using the Nova underpinnings. But the Opel as anything but an Opel does not seem to work outside of Europe. Too expensive as a Chevy, not similar to a Buick or Oldsmobile of the era, and not sporty enough for Pontiac, so it was better to leave this one where it was. And conversely, the Nova would not have worked in Europe, and probably been worse than the Opel, saleswise.
The Seville was a great success. It would have been more of a success with the same styling and interior but on this platform. It would have sold to the same people who bought it and maybe , if they had a non vinyl roof, spoke wheelcover version they could have taken a few MB customers. It would have been a better car, but GM didn’t need to make it a better car so they didn’t
Of course in 1972 the Diplomat was a bit outdated, it was half a generation old by then, and was never radical (or even cutting-edge) in the first place.
Bill Mitchell lead an Vauxhall-Opel-Holden interchangeability programme to look at making a range of small, medium and large cars (by non-US size references) for the late sixties, based on common platforms. It didn’t pan out entirely, but there is some resemblance in the Opel KAD cars and the 68-70 Holdens, and the 72 Opel Rekord and Vauxhall Victor shared a lot under the skin.
It is also notable that there were no US cars proposed to use the VOH bodies under consideration
My big question is where were they producing brand new 327ci SBCs for sale in a 1977 vehicle? Why didn’t they use the the 350, DZ302 or Holden 308? Seems like a strange loss leader to keep it in production for…they could have just as easily stuck a 3″,3.25″ or 3.48″ crank in a 400 block and gave that MB 6.3 and 6.9L a better run for their money. Considering the lack of emissions requirements in Germany then they could have used the 25lb heavier than an sbc Buick 455 until ’76 at least in it’s full high compression non-catalyst glory.
I’m a little late to the discussion, but I have to add to it.
I am one of the few who have owned both a Diplomat “B” 5.4S and a Seville. I have had two of the latter, actually, a ’76 and a ’78.
I bought my ’69 Diplomat in 1976 from the original owner who had imported it to Vancouver from Germany. I paid $950 for the car with 115,000 km showing. In dark blue with hubcaps and trim rings, it resembled the example shown above, although mine had a sunroof and high-quality red leather inside. It was equipped with power windows and super-lift automatic levelling rear suspension.
The Opel was vastly superior to the Cadillac; it had better build quality, much more room front and back, excellent brakes, good power (it went an indicated 130-135 mph), and astonishing handling for such a large car.
I had the engine out for a rebuild and discovered nothing very remarkable. It was based on the 327-275 with a “010” block, the “good” heads but with the 1.94 intake valve, and the usual Q-jet. It had the “short-tail” TH400 and an open 2.73 rear gear. The 327 was rebuilt with a warmer cam and driven for a few more years, until a relatively minor accident ended the car’s life. I could not get the parts to fix it.
I’ve owned many cars I should have kept. The Opel was my favourite.
Thanks for your comment and insights into your likely unique experience in owning both of these cars. I erroneously assumed it had the THM-350; I will amend the text.