Looking through my hard drive of photos from this summer's Speedhunters World Tour, I spotted photos of this Opel Kadett wagon (or touring, however you prefer to call it) that I forgot to publish previously on the site.

When I first spotted this car on the roadside of Nurburg Germany, Rod and I were being shown around Nurburgring Nordschleife's outer access roads by our esteemed veteran  motorsports photographer, John Brooks. As I sank into the comfort of our Hybrid Lexus RX330's leather seats and soaked up the air conditioning, I carefully watched the dark green German trees surrounding us, hoping to catch a quick glimpse of the track through the thick of the trees.

You see, Nordschleife is not like most racetracks you'll see; it's not gated up with tire barriers going all around it. Nurburgring's new configuration of their Grand Prix Circuit is like that... but not Nordschleife. No, Nurburgring's North Course is as raw as a race track could be... it cuts into the deep and dense forested areas surrounding the small German towns of Nurburg and Adenau, zigging and zagging uphill and downhill, with graffiti covering the black paved roads of the circuit. I was just awestruck. Ahh, Nurburgring... it's unbelievable. It's the home of German car culture, as far as I'm concerned. The whole area surrounding the track just feels alive with the rich heritage of the legendary racers that once raced there, as well as excitement and enthusiasm from modern day visitors hoping to try their skill at mastering the extensively long road course that is Nordschleife. This is one of the most amazing places I've ever been, and I remain thankful that I was given the opportunity to experience such a place.

On the roadsides surrounding Nurburgring Nordschleife, there always seem to be small packs of car enthusiasts gathered. It's very common to see packs of BMW 3 and 5 series, Porsches, Lotuses, Audis, Benzes, you name it... most of the time, the cars I've seen around Nurburgring seem to be high end performance cars, some of which are mildly tuned. It's a bit different than the car culture in Japan or Southern California, where it's commonplace to see highly modified, personalized cars roving around the streets, and most people don't even give them a second look. Since seeing modified, personalized cars on German streets seemed to be a rarer occurrence, I was immediately drawn to a small group of modified Opels parked on the roadside. "Hey Rod! John! Slow down real quick, look at that car!" I blurted out loudly and suddenly, nearly making our senior colleague jump out of the driver's seat of the car.

"Okay, okay young boy, calm down... would you like me to stop?" Sir Brooks responded, with the slightest touch of sarcastic demeanor jokingly mixed into the note of his British gentleman accent... He smiled as he peered at me from the rearview mirror, "Mr Chong, I think the young boy wants us to stop for a moment," John commented laughingly.

As we pulled over just past the cars, I excitedly questioned Rod, "Damn, I don't even know what kind of cars those are... but that wagon looks tight! Look how it sits - do you know what type of car that is?"

"Looks to me like an Opel Kadett, m8..." Rod calmly responded, "but let's have a closer look. Should we say hello to them?"

This is all my eyes were focused on as I jumped out of the RX330 with my camera in hand. (I must have looked like such a typical Asian tourist the whole time I was in Germany; I was taking pictures of everything!) Putting on a friendly smile, I approached the stern group of German guys gathered around their Opels and interrupted their conversation.

The owner of the car was a young guy named Oliver Haurand. He explained that his car was done up ringtourer style - apparently, in the areas surrounding Nurburg, there are many car enthusiasts who have built up their car for the sole purpose of running it on the ring. Cooooool!

I was admiring the multi-piece Gotti wheels on the car, with rivets circling the outer lip, which perfectly stuck past the tires. Rod jokingly mentioned, "I bet you like the offset on this car, Antonio..."

"Hell the F yeah I do. I'm so happy to see stretched tires and wide wheels running around in Germany!" came my overly enthusiastic response.

Rod tells me that in Europe, many of the traditional performance car owners tend to look down on Opels. It's not considered a cool marque apparently, from what he tells me. However, I don't care about what some rich snobby people might think... I think that it's possible to enjoy customizing a car no matter what your budget is like.

I think it's really cool that people customize and build up Opels! We certainly don't see cars like this rolling around in the USA. I really like the Italian Gotti wheels that the car sits on. Oliver told us they were 15x9 inch wheels, wrapped in 195/50/R15 tires... hell yeah! That's a great amount of stretch. Love it!

I think the fact that the car's raked to the front slightly also looks cool - especially since it's a wagon (touring), you definitely don't want the rear to be lower than the front.

Super mean looking, even when it's not too clean. I think the overall aesthetic of the car is clean, but on the day we saw this car, it was raining off and on all day, so Oliver's dark Kadett wagon got a little dirty as he was driving it in the rain. Nevertheless, I think it looks very cool! Mostly because of the stance and wheels.

Here's the engine bay. Pretty simple really, looks like he just has a strut bar, intake, headers, and some coilover suspension. The engine is a 2.0 liter 16 valve DOHC 4cylinder engine that makes 190ps. Since I always seem to think of everything in Toyota engine terms, I'm assuming this engine is sort of like the Opel equivalent of the 3SGE that one might find in normally aspirated Celicas. Okay, I got it...

The interior isn't super clean, but who cares? Oliver doesn't. It's a Ringtourer car - it wasn't meant for car shows; it was meant to be driven at its limit around the 'Ring. When we asked Oliver whether or not he was going to the Recaro Days car show at Nurburgring the upcoming weekend, he kind of scoffed and told us, "you know... most of our friends hate those kinds of show cars."

Seems like a common thread with the Southern Cali canyon runners I know. Those guys are all about driving, and they think all the HIN car builders are lame. So I guess there are some common things about German and Southern Californian car culture after all!

Finally, here's a shot of the interesting white roll cage. I'm not sure how structurally useful a cage like this might be as far as safety is concerned (look at the hoop in front of the rear fenderwells), but if the cage was just used to stiffen the chassis in general so it will handle better on the Ring, then I understand the need for caging up the back. When I asked Oliver about it, he said "Oh! The cage? That was added by the previous owner of the car. I'm going to change it..."

-Antonio Alvendia

MORE Nurburgring stories on Speedhunters