What kind of Opel is this?
11/25/2014
In March 1975 , Opel presented the OSV 40 at the Geneva Motor Show, which at first glance was clearly different from the other vehicles in the model range. The safety vehicle with the designation "OSV 40" had actually already been shown a year earlier at the London ESV Conference in London.
The OSV 40 was designed for a frontal impact speed of 65 km/h. In order to provide safe protection for passengers, the front crumple zone had to be significantly extended.
Opel used the then new Opel Kadett C as a basis, even though it was much more difficult to achieve good occupant protection results with a car in the lower weight class. In addition, the Opel engineers wanted to keep the concept car close to the weight limit of 900 kg.
Opel stated at the time that many of the findings from accident research had already been incorporated into the Kadett C and also pointed out in the press release at the time that the calculations had been carried out using a safety computer program.
While later models were not visually reminiscent of the OSV 40, Vauxhall did produce vehicles that borrowed design cues from the safety vehicle.
