Bojan Vrbnjak
If you happen to be old well over 100 years, here is a real specialty or a treat for you namely Opel Patentmotorwagen from “System Lutzmann”. It is the first car of the manufacturer from the German city Rüsselsheim, which was produced between 1899 and 1901.
Looking back - very far back
If we go back to the beginning of the story previous millennium and the penultimate century, we can also go a few years further into the past. A year to be exact 1862, when it's Adam Opel founded his company for sewing machines. After more than 20 years later, years 1886, decided to expand the activity to bikes and devote themselves to the world of transport. Coincidentally, it was the very year that the other two German gentlemen, Gottlieb Daimler in Carl benz, almost simultaneously patented and produced the first real car.
All Opel he didn't seem to be interested in that at first, because he didn't really believe in it a new mode of transportation, which he viewed as “entertainment for the rich". However, his sons took a different view and when Adam was years old 1895 died of typhus, they took over the business and began planning their entry into motorized transport. This first happened with the acquisition of the company Lutzmann, which was in business for only one year, and then from 1899 with the production of their first car.
Birth of the Patentmotorwagen
First Opel (at that time without the lightning logo) was created on the basis The Lutzmanns experience and patents, it was based on existing models, which were later nicknamed Opel-Lutzmann. The Opel Patentmotorwagen “System Lutzmann” is also a very complex mark. It was a kind of vehicle vis-a-vis. So a car in which the passengers sit in front of the driver on the bench with their backs facing the direction of travel. Solution summarized by horse carriages, to which most of the cars of that time were still very similar.
Motor he could boast of one cylinder and volume slightly more than 1,5 liter, and was mounted at the rear in a horizontal position and had maximum power 3,5 BAM at speed only 650 rpm per minute. The drive was on the rear wheel, they also had gearboxes, and the maximum speed was 20 km/h. So the first Opel was not exactly lightning fast. He wasn't very fast even for that time.
But the lack of high-speed fun wasn't its biggest problem Patentmotorwagna. The car simply had too many "childhood diseases" and as a result it was quite expensive unreliable. Because of this, the relationship with to the Lutzmanns and the Opel brothers had to stop production in 1901 after only 65 examples had been built up to that point.
And how did it go?
Fortunately company history it did not end with this failure, but continued from 1902 with a new treaty. This time with a French company darracq. To the same company, which is expected to conclude a further contract with the licensed production of the future company soon after Alfa Romeo.
Exactly 120 years later, after several changes in the parent company, Opel is now part of the automotive giant stellantis. To date, they have sold more than 75 million cars. The development is also interesting. While on the first 10 million the car waited until the flight 1971, the number doubled in just eight years. Their model Record D it simply sold very well.
Ta exponential growth brought Opel to the limit in 1999 50 million vehicles. We can say that a third of all were produced Opel produced in just 25 years - around one million vehicles per year. And at this rate, the company could hit a cap in the next two decades 100 million vehicles with lightning logo.
