Opel Kadett
Euro · Opel
Opel Kadett: The Compact Car That Built Astra
The Opel Kadett is a long-running compact car nameline produced from the 1930s through the early 1990s, predecessor to today's Astra.
The Kadett name first appeared in 1936 as a small, affordable car for the German market, though production paused during and after World War II before resuming in earnest in 1962 with an all-new model. Across its postwar generations, the Kadett became one of Opel's most important nameplates, competing in the same compact segment that would later define the brand's mainstream identity.
Successive Kadett generations through the 1970s and 1980s brought Opel modern front-wheel-drive engineering, hatchback practicality, and steady sales success across Europe, with the Kadett E of the 1980s winning European Car of the Year honors in 1985 for its aerodynamic design and efficiency.
In 1991 Opel retired the Kadett name in favor of Astra, aligning the compact model's naming with other European markets, but the Kadett's engineering and market position live on directly in every Astra generation since.