In 2024 Opel will offer a 100% electric version of every model in its assortment: for the first time in the history of the brand blitz. This year will also celebrate the anniversary of 125 years old from a manufacturer founded in 1899 in Germany: at that time, the company already envisioned affordable, innovative and forward-looking mobility on four wheels.

“Like Opel 125 years ago, today we are at the beginning of a new era. At that time, the company became a pioneer, entering the automotive era. Today, Opel is a pioneer in electrification, offering individual, emission-free mobility suitable for everyday use. This applies to the all-new Astra Sports Tourer Electric. Like the first Opel, this car also comes from Rüsselsheim. We are proud of this heritage and therefore we will celebrate this anniversary under the sign of electric mobility.”– said Florian Hüttl, CEO of Opel.

Opel: from sewing machines to cars

This is true January 21, 1899 that Wilhelm Opel, the son of the company’s founder Adam Opel, bought his factory from Friedrich Lutzmann: it was then that Opel began producing cars, and since then more than 75 million Opel cars which were produced.

But Opel has not always only produced cars: in fact, it is 1862 year that Adam Opel started his activities in Rüsselsheim with production sewing machinethen bicycles from 1886, Opel quickly became one of Germany’s largest sewing machine manufacturers and the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer by the 1920s.

A new era for cars

It was Adam Opel’s sons who caused a fundamental shift in the family business to motorized transport: the decline of bicycles in the 1890s led the Opel brothers to become interested in automobiles. In 1897, at the first German motor show in Berlin, Fritz and Wilhelm Opel met Friedrich Lutzmann, a master mechanic who had been building cars since 1894.

Although a simple collaboration was initially envisaged, the Opel brothers then offered Lutzmann a attractive buyout offer of his activity. THE January 21, 1899, Wilhelm Opel and Friedrich Lutzmann sign a contract worth 116,887 marks, and Opel regains control of the latter’s car factory. The entire company, employees and cars, are transferred to Rüsselsheim, to the headquarters of Opel, and Lutzmann is appointed as the sales manager of Adam Opel Motorfahrzeug-Fabrik.

The first advertisement for Opel models appeared in the spring of 1899 under the slogan: “Opel cars are the best”. Today, 125 years later, Opel is starting a radical transformation of its company in the Stellantis Group, with 100% electric models such as the new Opel Astra Sports Tourer Electric, which is still produced in Russelsheim.

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