General Motors and Opel: An 80-year marriage for better or worse

FRANKFURT: Executives from Opel went to ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday for emergency support as parent company General Motors struggles to stay afloat.

But the two companies' 79-year-old association was not always so desperate.

GM bought Opel in 1929, when the latter was mostly making bicycles, in which it claimed to be the world leader, and sewing machines, the original product produced by Adam Opel when he founded his company in 1862.

Opel began to make automobiles with in 1898 and only eight years later it had produced its 1,000th vehicle, quite an exploit at the time.

The group became the official supplier to Emperor Wilhelm II but its success was built on smaller models available to a wider public.

GM decided to focus on making automobiles under the Opel brand and placed the company at the forefront of its plans for European extension.

Using US methods, it ramped up assembly line production and quickly grew in size. It's small family Kadett car became a best-seller.

When World War II broke out, Opel produced Blitz (lightning) trucks for the German army and was later forced by the occupying Allied powers to switch to making refrigerators.

Auto manufacturing did not really get going again until the 1950s.

Twelve years later, a new Kadett was brought to the market in a bid to compete with the Volkswagen Beetle.
In the early 1970s, Opel held around 20 percent of the German market but was then surpassed by VW when Europe's biggest car maker brought out the Golf.

Opel has still not bounced back and attempts to diversify its product range with the top-shelf Omega or sporty Tigra models went badly.

The company was also beset by problems with the quality of its cars.

In 2001, it began a deep restructuring program and has managed to stay afloat owing to sales of its small Corsa and Astra models.