Adam Opel AG - Acquisition by General Motors: 1929

Acquisition by General Motors: 1929

In March 1929 Opel formalized its contacts with the U.S. automobile industry when General Motors (GM) purchased 80 percent of the company's stock for $26 million. Two years later GM acquired the remaining 20 percent of the company from the Opel family. In 1932 Opel increased its geographic reach when it opened manufacturing facilities in China, Japan, South America, and India.

The company also continued to expand its model lines. In 1931 Opel rolled out a new line of trucks, called Blitz, after a contest was conducted to find a name. Four years later, the company introduced its Olympia model at the Berlin car show. Using techniques developed for airplanes, this car had a detachable autobody, which could be separated from its engine block. Two other models added in the next few years, the Kadett and the Kapitan, designed for use on the newly constructed Autobahn, contained this feature.

In 1935 Opel opened a second factory, in Brandenburg, in eastern Germany. Two years later, the company, having stood for years as the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles, ended production of bikes; Opel had produced 2.6 million bicycles in just over 50 years. With Germany's launch of World War II, and Opel's main plant, in Rüsselsheim, which had produced over one million cars, was converted to wartime use, making cockpit covers and fuselages for fighter planes. During the war, Opel, as did many German factories, made use of slave labor to keep its production lines running. In August 1944, Allied bombers destroyed Opel's Brandenburg factory entirely. A year later the facility on the Main was targeted and more than half of it was destroyed. At war's end, Opel, along with the rest of the country, was in ruins.

By May 1945, Opel workers had begun to clear rubble from the factory, and within a brief period the first machines were running. The company soon learned, however, that its facility at Brandenburg would be demolished, not returned to use. In addition, Opel was compelled to sacrifice its entire Kadett production line to the Soviet Union as part of Germany's war reparations. Consequently, the Soviet model Moskwitsch 400 was a renamed 1947 Opel Kadett.

Because Germany needed trucks for reconstruction, Opel resurrected its old Blitz model, turning it out with the sixcylinder engine previously used for the prewar Kapitan luxury car. In December 1947, the company began automobile production once again. Opel's old partner, General Motors, resumed management of the firm the next year, as German currency reform stabilized the economy and enabled citizens to once again consider the purchase of a car. To take advantage of this new situation, Opel marketed the Kapitan, at a price of DM 10,000.