2012: Opel celebrates 150 years of life [Video]

2012 is a year of celebration for Opel, were it not for the German brand to celebrate 150 years of existence. To mark the moment, those responsible for Opel decided to create a video that portrays, very briefly, the brand's history over the last century and a half.

As you can see in the video below, Opel, before being one of the biggest car manufacturers in Europe, started producing sewing machines in 1862. Who knew… Adam Opel, seeing his business grow, decided to bet on bicycles with the launch, in 1886, from the first Velociped. It was a success… The Rüsselsheim brand, when it found itself, was already selling motorcycles and standing out from the competition.

The year 1899 was marked with the beginning of automobile production, but it was only in 1902 that the first Opel model was introduced, the Lutzmann with a 10/12 hp engine. 22 years later, the era of Laubfrosch and Rakete begins, the former inaugurates the history of Opel's automated assembly line, and the latter reaches in 1928 the world speed record, with a rocket-propelled Opel Rak reaching 238 km /h, something unthinkable at the time.

After installing the financial crisis of 1929, and the coalition with General Motors, the German manufacturer launches, in 1936, the famous Kadett, giving rise to a lineage that lasts until today. Thus, Opel became the largest car manufacturer in Europe, with an annual production of more than 120,000 units.

With World War II, Opel had to suspend all its production, and only after the war is it back to work with the production of several innovative models, such as the Rekord, the Olympia Rekord, the Rekord P1 and the Kapitan. The year, 1971, is also in history, as the year in which Opel number 10,000,000 leaves the assembly line.

In the 1980s, Opel was the first German brand to introduce the exhaust gas catalytic converter, and in 1989, all its models were equipped with this technology as standard. In the second half of the 1990s, the well-known Opel Corsa appears, which was the first European car to be equipped with a three-cylinder engine.

These days, Opel and its British partner, Vauxhall, sell cars in more than 40 countries, have around 40,000 employees and have several factories and engineering centers spread across six European countries. In 2010, they sold more than 1.1 million cars, reaching a market share of 6.2% in Europe.

Congratulations to Opel!

Text: Tiago Luís

Source: AutoReno