Reborn Calibra stillborn

OPEL has revealed that it did consider resurrecting the Calibra nameplate as a possible alternative to Cascada.

The car maker’s international marketing manager, Siyon Karmona, said the Calibra nameplate was briefly mooted but never seriously considered for the vehicle that eventually has become the Cascada.

“The Calibra was a coupe and this (Cascada convertible) is a totally different concept,” he said, adding that even if Opel did elect to develop a coupe, the Calibra name was too connected with the past to have been exhumed for the future.

Opel made almost 240,000 Calibras in Germany and (for a time) Finland, from 1989 to 1997.

Based on the Vectra A platform, it was sold as the Holden Calibra in Australia from 1991 to 1998, but the sleek aerodynamic three-door coupe struggled to find customers in a market that was rapidly moving away from such cars and into the burgeoning compact SUV segment.

Still on the subject of Cascada, it is believed that “Moonlight Roadster” was also in the running as a nameplate.

Opel sold its first straight-six engine in a convertible of that name for a few years in Europe from 1933.