“the other three people on the trip said it was an OPAL.”
While those folks may have considered the Omega to be a gem of an automobile, I think that it was actually an OPEL.
;-))
The Omega styling was a bit plain but the car itself was pretty good. I ran one to 154 mph on the autobahn with the 3.0 liter V6 and a 5 speed. Very stable at those speeds but still rode well, especially with our prototype electronic shocks. Worked on its cousin, the Cadillac Catera as well. That car was speed limited to 130 mph because the tires fitted to the US model were 130 mph, H rated tires, not V or W. It really ticked off the German engineers that they had to do that.
Cateras were a Caddy targeted to 30 something professional women, not old guys. Old men wouldn’t buy it because it was too small, the very reason women would. It didn’t really sell very well.
Right VDCdriver…it was a typo!
Does everyone recall the slogan that GM used for the Catera?
Some of the ads showed a cartoon-like duck pointing to a Catera, and calling it The Caddy that zigs. I have no idea about the connection between ducks and…zigging…
However, after a year or two, it was decided to downplay that duck in the ads:
As to marketing the car to women, one of their ad ideas was quickly nixed as being inappropriate:
It seems that, just like most other aspects of their business in those days, GM just couldn’t seem to get it right when it came to advertising this car.
Thanks Mustangman…I’ve been waiting for that answer. I am the OP !
Very likely an Opel. It’s the standard plain vanilla business car in Western Europe.
Sorry you lost but that’s life. Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong either. “OP” stands for “Original Poster” or the person that started the whole conversation in the first place. It is used because its quick and safe because sometimes you just can’t tell if a person is male or female anymore. Even if they say they have a husband, that doesn’t mean they are female.
@db4690
If I recall correctly, the Catera engine problem was early timing chain failure. Something about not enough lubrication there.
“early timing chain failure”
How tragic, considering that several years later, GM had chain “issues” on their LY7 V6 . . . high feature V6, I believe. Which was one of their bread and butter engines
I’m not saying that every LY7 had that problem, but it was a known problem . . . there are some GM TSBs that list the part number for the timing chain kit, consisting of the 3 chains, tensioners, etc., in other words, everything needed to do the job. I figure if there’s a GM number for that kit, that’s pretty much admitting a potential problem exists 
My granddaughter had a Saturn LW3 with that 3.0 V6, beautiful engine to look at, very smooth, decent pep even with our emissions controls, but a nightmare to work on. My mechanic wouldn’t work on them anymore because the cost of repairs was so high that people would abandon the car instead of paying for the repairs. It also had 4 catalytic converters that cost $1000 each.
She finally found an old German mechanic who took it on as a challenge. He made the tools necessary to hold everything in place to replace the timing belt and I don’t know what he did to the converters but they became free flowing and it passed NY inspection.
I agree with Opel Omega. I had a 2003 Opel Vectra 2.2L I4 turbo diesel 5 speed M/T (one size smaller that the Omega) rental in Spain. It was a very nice car except for the “haunted” turn signal lever. It was a digital switch with no neutral detent. The only way I could successfully cancel after a lane change was to jerk the steering wheel causing it to self cancel. Engineers fixing things that aren’t broke!
You would think GM could have had learned from the “Cadillac” Cimarron. Cadillac people want a Cadillac, not a re-badged GM crapola econocar. At least the current Cadillacs are more unique and much better performers.
“Cadillac people want a Cadillac, not a re-badged GM crapola econocar.”
I don’t completely agree with you
Yes, the Catera was a re-badged GM car, Opel to be exact
But it was a well-equipped and decent car, totally unlike the Cimarron, which was a rebadged Cavalier
World of difference, my friend
I think the Catera suffered from being related to the Cimmeron, and also from the perception at the time that luxury cars should be larger, much like the Sedan de Ville.
“I think the Catera suffered from being related to the Cimmeron”
Huh?
The Cimarron was a FWD 4 cylinder compact car, while the Catera/Omega was a RWD V-6 powered mid-size car.
Yes, it was “related” in that it bore the Cadillac name, but if we use the same line of reasoning, then full-size Fords would have suffered in their sales figures because they were “related” to the Pinto.
db4690: My comment was aimed at the Cimmeron. I was not thinking of the Catera. I apologize for being somewhat vague.
Most car buyers don’t pay the kind of attention that board members here do. They see a small Cadillac and think of the last one that Cadillac built. The Catera received many good reviews from the automobile press but that seemingly had no impact on the public’s willingness to buy the car. So huh yourself @VDCdriver