How it almost came to an Opel Modena ...
04/17/2019
When the OpelRekord was to be given a successor with a new name in the 1980s, good advice was expensive. And this was sought externally.
Horst W. Herke, Chairman of the Opel Board of Management at the time, told the story in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport in 1986:
" We had commissioned an agency to find a name. Out of twelve suggestions, three favorites emerged - Omega, Modena and Antara. Modena was ruled out for understandable reasons, Antara, an artificial name, was not specific enough. Omega has a positive aura, is easy to pronounce in different languages and harmonizes well with Opel."
Well, it could have been "Modena". Under "understandable" reasons, Herke probably meant that Modena is close to Maranello (Ferrari) and is also the city of Maserati.
"Antara" was later recycled again and pasted onto a small SUV.
The record-breaking successor, however, was called "Omega". I wonder what would have become of it if they had called it the Opel Modena back then?
But there would probably never have been a Ferrari 360 Modena after that ...
