Opel Kadett Superboss at 30: Ciro drives it (video)

The Cars.co.za Superboss is known internally as “Project 1”. When we embarked on the SentiMETAL heritage project, the aim was to purchase, restore and maintain a fleet of South African specials - cars that were developed and only ever sold in South Africa. The vision was to help preserve South Africa’s rich motoring heritage.

This Kadett Superboss is the first car we ever took on. We purchased it in 2017 and over the years Ciro has watched with much delight as the restoration progressed.

When we found our Superboss, it was in terrible shape. But it had all the right credentials, and matching numbers, to make restoring it worthwhile. And so, over the next few years, the car was stripped down to the metal.

Our Superboss specialist painstakingly brought the car back to life, down to recreating the warning stickers printed in Afrikaans in the engine bay. If it sounds good just reading this, it looks and feels even better in the metal.

And so when the Lockdown eased and we could travel again, Ciro put a plan in motion to film our Superboss in its natural habitat: a racetrack. Off he went to JHB, met up with the crew and braved the dark cold winter mornings in JHB to make use of the best light at the track.

The result is this film. We don’t want to spoil it for you, but in summary, Ciro says he can’t think of any other car he's driven, before or since, that brought him this much joy. His colleagues have driven it, and driven it hard, and regaled him with tales of how it comes alive on a track. But nothing could have prepared Ciro- for how fun this car would be to drive.