This Is It

8/40  (1928)[pic]

1910's

In 1862, Adam Opel turned his craftsman's business into an industrial concern. The sewing machine and the bicycle were radically new inventions and that was how Opel began - building revolutionary machines.

At the close of the century, another revolutionary machine made its appearance - the car. In 1899, before the 20th century had even begun, Opel had acquired a car factory. | |

|Kraftfahrzeug 15  (1940)[pic] |

|The factory was in the state of Anhalt, Germany, and it belonged to one Friedrich Lutzmann. The Opel brothers (Adam's sons)|

|worked in partnership with Lutzmann for two years while they built up the production of automobiles in Rüsselsheim. |

|In 1901, Opel separated from Lutzmann and in 1902 they began producing French Darracq models under licence and selling them|

|under the brand name Opel-Darracq. |

|At the same time, the Opel brothers were working on their own designs to make cars more reliable and affordable. In the |

|autumn of 1902, their first design, the 10/12 hp model, made its debut at the Hamburg Motor Show. |

|P 1200  (1959)[pic] |

|In order to promote the "motorization of the people" effectively, the company expanded its line of products in 1901 to |

|include motorcycles. The first Opel trucks were being produced as early as 1899. |

|As successes in the following years proved, the young automobile company was on the right track. By 1906, these newcomers |

|on the automobile market had already built their one-thousandth vehicle, and their business was developing fast. |

|The big breakthrough occurred in the year 1909 with the...