Opel Kadet

Production period:	1936 to 1940
Class :	motor car
Body versions :	Sedan,convertible
Engines:	Gasoline: 1.1 liters (17 kW)
Length:	3765-3840 mm
Width:	1375 mm
Height:	1455-1545 mm
Wheelbase :	2337-2340 mm
Curb weight :	757 kg

The Opel Kadett was a passenger car from Adam Opel AG with water-cooled 1.1-liter four - cylinder inline engine and rear-wheel drive . This was first built from autumn 1936 - initially together with the predecessor Opel P4  - produced in Rüsselsheim .

The production of the first model of the Opel Kadett / Astra series ended due to the war in May 1940. Only in June 1962 there was again a vehicle of the same name with the cadet A of Opel.

History 

After the Olympics were presented in February 1935 and the Opel P4 in September 1935, presented the technical advisor to the Opel sales director Heinrich Nordhoff (1948 General Director of the Volkswagen factory ) in December 1936, the cadet of the public.

After the Olympics, the cadet had as a second Opel model a self-supporting body with two or four doors. The technology was taken slightly changed: The side-mounted four - cylinder engine came from the P4, while for the independent suspension of the front wheels, a simplified version of the Dubonnet Federknies from the Olympia was adapted; behind there was also a live axle at leaf springs . (Opel applied the "synchronous suspension", that is, both axles are sprung with the same natural frequency ). With hydraulically operated drum brakes , completely instrumented and standard Direction indicator ( Winker ), the two-door and the convertible sedan were offered for the same price of 2100 Reichsmark (RM). From January 1938 was also a four-door model for the price of 2350 RM in the sales program.

For 1795 RM there was from 1938 also a two-door "normal" sedan with the designation KJ 38, without hinged window, hubcaps, bumpers and chrome trim, which was equipped in front with the simpler live axle on leaf springs of the Opel P4. The car was brought in response to the upcoming " KdF car " ( Volkswagen ) on the market, which was not liked by the NS leadership.

Based on the KJ 38, the prototype of a two-seat cadet cabriolet was made with the name Kadett Strolch . The "Cadet" was a great success for Opel: in 1938, he had in his class a market share of 59 percent - to 1940 were 107,608 vehicles of all versions sold.

After the war, the production of the cadet, unlike that of the slightly larger Opel Olympia , could not be resumed, since the production facilities from Rüsselsheim and Berlin as a reparation to Moscow in the plant Moskovsky Zavod Malolitrashnych Avtomobilej (MZMA), which continued to build the cadet from 1946 to 1956 as Moskvich-400 in a barely modified form . During the war Opel had the production facilities of the normal sedan for the production of a four-door to modify, which is why the Moskvich-400 was never built as a car two-door.