People hardly remember the luxury sedans from Opel. They were called Kapitän or Admiral or Diplomat and they had what it took to compete with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, even though they were significantly cheaper. The two KAD series were the high point in the history of the "big Opels".
From 1934 to 1993
It began with the Opel 6 2 Liter and the Opel Super 6, which benefited from American developments (Opel had been taken over by GM in 1928/1929) and combined them with German engineering skill and thoroughness.
This was followed by the first Admiral and the Kapitän, which even survived the war years.
In the 1950s, it was once again the Kapitän that shook up the competition and ultimately became a bestseller with the P 2.6.
Then, in 1964, came the first generation of the KAD trio, the Kapitän, Admiral and Diplomat. They were more American than their predecessors and they also received (in the case of the Diplomat) a real V8 under the hood.
The second KAD generation, called KAD B, followed in 1969.
These American-influenced saloons were inherited in 1978 by the Senator A, which was actually a Rekord E on steroids.
The Senator B from 1987 was also based on a smaller Opel saloon, the Omega. 1993 marked the end of the big Opels. And with Peugeot/PSA at the helm, there probably won't be any more in the future.
Along the timeline
Author Alexander F. Storz proceeds strictly along the timeline to introduce and describe the various generations of the big Opel. He manages to characterize the environment and designs in a comprehensible way.
And as with many of his other books, Storz not only uses factory photos and photos from car magazines, but also many private photos from his extensive archive to show the different versions and variants. Although the quality of the images may sometimes suffer somewhat as a result, the photos are always impressive and show not only the Opel saloons, but also their competitors and rivals on the market.
Not just sedans
Storz does not stop at describing the Kapitän, Admiral, Diplomat, Senator and Co. He also turns his attention to cars that benefited from the technology of the big Opels. These are mainly the Bitter CD and SC models, of course, as well as the Opel Monza (parallel model to the Senator A).
Studies such as the Opel CD or the Frua Diplomat coupé are not forgotten, nor is the Intermeccanica Indra.
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If you are looking for technical data, equipment details or production figures in tabular form, you have come to the wrong place at Storz. A lot of important information is mentioned somewhere in the text, but a tabular summary is missing, as is an index. This is a pity, especially for such a comprehensive work. So it's up to the diligent reader to work their way through the book page by page and take a close look at the captions, which explain important details.
If you are prepared to do this, you can learn and remember a lot from Storz's book. And it can even be exciting if you are not a pure Opel enthusiast, because after all, these big Opels were a major force in the market and many a Beetle driver probably dreamed of the big Kapitän or Admiral back then.
Bibliographical information
- Title: The Great Opels - Kapitän - Admiral - Diplomat - Monza - Senator
- Author: Alexander F. Storz
- Language: German
- Publisher: Motorbuch Verlag
- Edition: 1st edition April 2019
- Format: Hardcover, 23 x 26.5 cm
- Scope: 224 pages, 350 illustrations
- ISBN: 978-3-613-04140-0
- Price: EUR 29.90
- Buy/order: Online at amazon.de, online at Motorbuch Verlag or in relevant bookstores
