Yugoslavian 6-cylinder Opel you've probably never heard of
Yes, it's a Senator, but an interesting story behind it
Back in the 70's and 80's, Zastava used to make licenced FIATs and the Yugo/Zastava brand is probably the most recognizable name when it comes to cars from Yugoslavia. But actually, in those golden years, there were a dozen of factories manufacturing cars - from simple CKD kits up to a full scale process with locally built parts.
One of those was IDA-Opel (Industrija Delova Automobila) from Kikinda (today's Serbia), which started as a small iron foundry for local needs. Back in 1969, the Kikinda foundry signed an agreement with Adam Opel AG to manufacture iron castings and moldings for diverse Opel models.
After some 8 years of successful cooperation, in 1977, a joint-venture deal was sealed - between General Motors and Kikinda foundry, to create the above mentioned IDA-Opel, in which GM held 49% stake, while the rest was funded by Kikinda and the state behind it. Some 78.5 million USD was invested in the new factory, which delivered its first parts to Opel in 1979.
As a part of this deal, exporting parts to Opel allowed IDA to import almost finished Opels in Yugoslavia and finish them locally as a domestic product. Although those were CKD kits, the truth is that a lot of iron parts in those Opels (as with all the others in Europe) came from IDA-Opel iron foundry.
Yugoslavian Ascona
Between 1977 and 1992, almost 38,700 cars were produced in Kikinda, as part of this deal. The models being produced were - Kadett, Rekord, Ascona, Senator, Corsa, Vectra, Commodore and Omega. All of them were identical to the Ruesselsheim ones, except for having an IDA badge on the grill.
Kadett D with an IDA badge
But one of them wasn't identical to the bone. In 1983, the then restyled Opel Senator was allowed to be assembled in Kikinda as well, on the lines of previously assembled Commodore. It had a 2.5 litre inline-6 for the Yugoslavian market - and a unusual name - Opel Kikinda. Yes, we called it Kikinda, solely for the domestic market. It will probably remain the unsolved mistery of the socialist Yugoslavia to who's mind could this come across - but there it was. I mean, when you're Italian, you can give a car any name and it would sound nice - or English (Interceptor, Sovereign...), but Serbo-Croatian isn't really the language to use when naming a car.
Opel Kikinda 2.5 E in all it glory
The Kikinda 2.5 E was actually out of any price league that an average Yugoslav could afford. It cost some 9.6 million dinars, in comparison you could have a locally made Renault 25 GTX for 7 million, or Opel Rekord for some 5.6 million to start with. Zastava 101 - a quite usefull hatchback in the 80's could be yours for a million, so this was almost 10 times that.
It was a very rare car back then and I am not familiar there is one still rolling anywhere here. It was way too expensive and it remains a collectible rarity today, if anything then because of its name - if you manage to find one alive in the first place.
Starting with the 1992, IDA Kikinda deal with GM was dead, because of the war and the foundry was later sold on to CIMOS Slovenia.
Thanks for reading.
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Comments (6)
Great topic! I thought I was the only one who found that Western cars were locally built in ex-Yugoslavia in the 80s and early 90s.
Do you know if a specific model could've been ordered with all the trim levels and engine options the German built cars had or just entry levels. All the IDA Kadetts E I've seen around the net are LS.
We had a Vectra A when I was a kid (not IDA, German built) and I am very interested to find out more information about the IDA variant but there is absolutely nothing as far as my searching went.
Greetings from Bulgaria!
Thank you, I appreciate it. I'll try to dig some more, stay tuned.
As for the specs of IDA Opels, it's almost impossible to find info on that, but I think options were available as those were actually Ruesselsheim bulit cars with little...
Read moreIt'was the best ex-Yu automotive
It sure was.
Interesting history on a pretty obscure model!
Thank you!