Paul Lewis - 1980 Opel Kadett 1.3 SR

In 1989, as a Serviceman in HM Forces, Paul was posted to Gütersloh in Germany for three years. On arrival, he chose a car that was as close to the Vauxhall Astra GTE Mk1 that he hankered after but within his financial budget.

The car that fitted the bill was the Opel Kadett 1.3 SR with one available at a local dealer which was DM6,000 in white.

When Paul’s three years in Germany were up, he was posted back to Colchester in the UK and so the left-hand-drive Opel had to be sold.

Jump to 30 years later when Paul’s children had grown up, he looked back at the good times in Europe with the Opel and started to scour the internet, only to find there were none available in the UK and they had become increasingly rare.

“By chance, I found a one owner car in Germany that had been in a private collection,” explains Paul. “After some negotiation, a deal was struck, and the car was transported to England. This was during Covid, so I’d only seen the car online.

Although the car was in original condition and showing only 20,000 miles on the clock, it had 40 years of storage dings. What started out as a sympathetic restoration soon got out of hand with new paint, and every panel and part put back on the car being original where possible.

“The car was exactly how I remembered driving one back on the late ‘80s when the Berlin Wall was coming down. Now in 2025, the car has been on many trips and always has a lot of interest.