Opel celebrates its 150th anniversary with a moving video

I imagine very few companies get the chance to celebrate no less than their 150th anniversary. Because of this, at Opel they did not want to let a single day more than necessary pass before starting the celebrations, and before beginning, there is nothing better than looking back from the founding of the company by Adam Opel himself on 21 January 1862 up to the arrival of its most recent creations, such as the Ampera.

As you can see in the video at the end of this very post, 150 years is a lot of history. In the case of Opel, everything began with the manufacture of sewing machines, a line of work they abandoned shortly afterwards to start building bicycle wheels, before two of Adam Opel’s sons formed an alliance with Friedrich Lutzmann and began producing the company’s first vehicles in 1902rst.

After this, we move on to 1924, when Opel proclaimed itself the first German company to use the automatic assembly line for the manufacture of its vehicles. Years later, specifically in 1928, they built a vehicle capable of breaking the top speed record then in existence, reaching a surprising 238 km/h. A year later they built the Opel-Sander RAK1, the first rocket capable of flying with a non-military crew on board.

Up to this point, this was the glorious run of an independent Opel, since with the arrival of the global economic crisis General Motors took control of the German company in 1929, turning it into a wholly owned subsidiary in 1931. In 1936, Opel rose to become the largest car manufacturer in Europe, thanks to an annual production of around 120,000 units.

Unfortunately, from here on we are plunged into the Second World War and everything that entailed. So much so that it was not until 1971 that Opel produced its 10 millionth unit, steadily increasing its output year after year until it finally reached the production of its 50 millionth unit already in 1999.

Today, Opel and its English sister brand Vauxhall sell their production in more than 40 countries, employ around 40,500 people and operate engineering facilities in six European countries. In 2010, Opel/Vauxhall achieved a European market share of 6.2%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RjYrF8_NzdQ

Via | carscoop