The Opel Ascona was a mid-sized

Mid-size car

A mid-size car is the North American/Australian standard for an automobile with a size equal to or greater than that of a compact...

 car

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 produced by Opel

Opel

Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...

. It had three generations produced from 1970 to 1988. In motorsport, the Ascona 400 rally car driven by Walter Röhrl

Walter Röhrl

Walter Röhrl is a German rally and auto racing driver, with victories for Fiat, Opel, Lancia and Audi as well as Porsche, Ford and BMW.-Career:...

 won the World Rally Championship

World Rally Championship

The World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system. The series currently consists of 13...

 drivers' title in the 1982 season

1982 World Rally Championship season

The 1982 World Rally Championship season was the tenth season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile World Rally Championship . The season consisted of 12 rallies. By this time, the schedule format had become generally stable, with only one or two changes to venues year to year...

.

The Ascona took its name from the lakeside resort of that name

Ascona

Ascona is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore.The town is a popular tourist destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the Ascona Jazz Festival....

 in Ticino

Ticino

Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, and already in the 1950s a special edition of the Opel Rekord P1 was sold as an Opel Ascona in Switzerland, where the name was again used in 1968 for a locally adapted version of the Opel Kadett B into which the manufacturers had persuaded a 1.7-litre engine borrowed from the larger Rekord model of the time.