Opel: From a Sewing Workshop to an Electric Stellantis Brand

Opel at a glance

Adam Opel and the first cars

Adam Opel started building sewing equipment in Rüsselsheim in 1862. In 1886 he added high-wheel bicycles, which soon outsold his first product; production moved from a converted cowshed into a larger building in 1888. Adam Opel died in 1895. His widow Sophie and their two eldest sons then turned to cars. In 1899 they built the first Opel Patent Motor Car with the engineer Friedrich Lutzmann.

The first cars sold slowly: 11 in 1899, 24 in 1900 and 30 in 1901. A licence agreement with the Darracq company of France followed, and in 1902 the company showed a car of its own design at the Hamburg Motor Show. Series production of fully Opel-designed cars began in 1906.

Opel history by era

1909–1928: the Doktorwagen, the fire and the assembly line

The 4/8 PS of 1909, nicknamed "Doktorwagen", cost 3,950 marks, about half the price of luxury cars. Country doctors valued its reliability on unpaved roads, as the old 1cars text notes. In 1911 a fire destroyed the factory, which was rebuilt with modern equipment. According to the old text, the firm was Germany's largest carmaker three years later.

In the early 1920s it became the first German carmaker to use an assembly line. Its first product was the two-seat 4 PS "Laubfrosch" (tree frog) of 1924, painted only in green. It cost 3,900 marks at first, but by the 1930s the price had fallen to 1,930 marks, a cut of 51 % by our calculation. In 1928 the company held 37.5 % of the German market and was the country's largest car exporter. That year Fritz von Opel drove the RAK2 rocket car to 238 km/h at the Avus track in Berlin.

1929–1945: General Motors and mass production

General Motors bought 80 % of Opel in March 1929 and the rest in 1931. In 1935 the small P4 helped the brand become the first German carmaker to build more than 100,000 vehicles in a year. The same year, the Olympia became the first German mass-produced car with a self-supporting all-steel body. In 1937 the company built 130,267 cars, which made Rüsselsheim Europe's largest car factory. The Opel Kadett and the six-cylinder Kapitän followed.

Car production stopped by government order in October 1940, and the plants built trucks such as the Blitz. Opel has acknowledged that forced labourers worked in its factories during the war. After 1945 the Brandenburg truck plant was dismantled as war reparations, together with the Kadett tooling, and almost half of Rüsselsheim lay in ruins.

1946–1979: Rekord, Kadett, GT and Manta

The first post-war Blitz truck left Rüsselsheim on 15 July 1946. The Kapitän returned in 1952 and the Rekord name in 1953. From 1958 to 1975, the cars were also sold in the United States through Buick dealers. A new plant in Bochum opened in 1962 to build the new Kadett, and Kaiserslautern followed in 1966 for engines and parts.

The GT sports car of 1968 and the Ascona and Manta of 1970 gave the brand a sporty image. In 1979 the new Kadett became Opel's first front-wheel-drive car.

1980–2008: Corsa, Astra and the long GM years

The Corsa arrived in 1982 from a new factory in Zaragoza, Spain. The Rekord 2.3 TD of March 1984 was Opel's first turbocharged car. The Opel Vectra replaced the Ascona in 1988, and the Calibra coupé followed. After German reunification, a plant in Eisenach opened in 1990. The Opel Astra replaced the Kadett name in 1991, and the Zafira compact MPV arrived in 1999. That year was also the company's last profitable year for almost two decades.

2009–today: crisis, PSA and Stellantis

In 2009 General Motors agreed to sell 55 % of Opel to a consortium led by Magna, but the deal was cancelled. On 29 February 2012 Opel and PSA Peugeot Citroën formed an alliance, and GM took a 7 % stake in PSA, sold again in 2013. Bochum closed in December 2014, and Opel left China in 2015. PSA agreed to buy Opel and Vauxhall in March 2017 and completed the deal in August 2017. In 2018 the brand made an operating profit of 859 million EUR, its first since 1999.

On 16 January 2021 Opel became part of Stellantis. In July 2021 it set 2028 as the year from which its European range would be fully electric. The Frontera name returned in 2024 on a small crossover, and Opel has announced a Formula E entry for the 2026–27 season.

Landmark models

The crossover era is represented by the Opel Mokka, now also offered as a battery-electric car. Opel's electric models are listed in the 1cars electric car section.

Rallying, rockets and engineering firsts

The best-known racing success came in rallying. Walter Röhrl won the 1982 World Rally Championship drivers' title in the Ascona 400. The Calibra won the International Touring Car Championship in 1996, and an Astra won the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2003.

Engineering firsts came early. The Opel-Rennbahn test track opened in 1920, the assembly line followed in the 1920s, and the Olympia's unibody arrived in 1935. In 1928–1929 Fritz von Opel's rocket experiments produced the RAK2 car, the RAK3 rail vehicle at 256 km/h and an early rocket-powered aircraft flight.

Owners, plants and production today

Rüsselsheim remains the headquarters, with about 13,000 employees. Other European plants are Kaiserslautern (from 1966), Zaragoza (1982), Eisenach (1990), Szentgotthárd in Hungary (1990) and Gliwice in Poland (1998). Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port site belongs to the same business. General Motors ownership lasted 88 years, by our calculation the longest ownership in its history. The story of its former parent is told in the history of General Motors.

The current line-up

In 2024 the range included the Rocks electric quadricycle and the Corsa, Astra, Mokka, Frontera and Grandland. People carriers were the Combo Life and Zafira Life, and the vans were the Combo, Vivaro and Movano. Most models share Stellantis platforms with Peugeot and Citroën, and most are offered with an electric drive. Every current and past model is in the Opel catalogue.

The company in numbers

From the 65 cars of 1899–1901 to the 130,267 cars of 1937, annual output grew about 4,300 times by our calculation, using the 30 cars of 1901. Compared with 1937, the 1.2 million vehicles of 2016 were about nine times as many. To set an Opel against a rival, use the 1cars comparison tool.

Which Opel to choose: classics and modern cars

For classic buyers, the GT and the Manta are the most rewarding Opels, with simple rear-wheel-drive technology. A Kadett or Rekord is a cheaper way into older German cars. For a modern family car, the current Astra or Corsa suits most people, while the electric Mokka or Corsa makes sense if you can charge at home.

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