X-Nico

14 unusual facts about Opel


Adel al-Zubeidi

He was killed on November 8, 2005, by three gunmen driving in either an Opel or a "government vehicle" outside Adil, a Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad.

Englos

There is an Opel car dealer across the road from the shopping centre.

F25 manual transmission

The Getrag F25 manual transmission was fitted to many vehicles in the European Opel production line up including the Opel Calibra.

GM Delta platform

The new platform is being mainly engineered by GM's German subsidiary Opel in Rüsselsheim.

GM Gamma platform

The first version of the platform was issued in autumn 2000 with the introduction of Opel Corsa C and was a development of the earlier GM4200 platform used in previous Corsa models, developed by Opel in Germany.

GM Zeta platform

Development was started in late 1999 by Holden of Australia in order to replace the aging V-body platform underpinning the Commodore VT-VZ models after sister division Opel announced that the Opel Omega (on which the Commodore was based) would be discontinued.

Isthmian League

The sponsors after Rothmans to the present day have been: Michael Lawrie (1977–78), Berger (1978–82), Servowarm (1982–85), Vauxhall-Opel (1985–90), Vauxhall (1990–91), Diadora (1991–95), ICIS (1995–97) and Ryman (1997–present).

Janne Aikala

In the evening, after closing his shop, Patjas moved the cardboard box and the body to his to the back of his Opel and sought a quiet spot where he could abandon the body.

Max Valier

For von Opel, these were publicity stunts for the Opel company, and for Valier, a way of further raising interest in rocketry amongst the general population.

Opel Master Cup

The Opel Master Cup was association football tournament that mainly featured teams sponsored by car manufacturer Opel.

Opel-RAK

The Lippisch Ente a rocket-powered glider was produced on June 11, 1928, piloted by Fritz Stamer, but is not usually considered part of the series.

SC Opel Rüsselsheim

Apart from its association with the company Opel, the clubs most notable achievement has been playing in Germany's second division from 1965 to 1972.

Tony Fall

After he stopped driving, he became founder of the British Dealer Opel Team (DOT) as well as the self-willed but successful director of the Opel Motorsport Team in Germany, for which Walter Röhrl won the World Rally Championship for Drivers in 1982 with an Opel Ascona 400.

Zuhir al-Qaisi

On 9 March 2012, al-Qaisi was killed in a missile strike by IDF aircraft, while driving his Opel car in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood west of Gaza.


1997 German Formula Three season

Opel Team BSR driver Nick Heidfeld won the championship title after a title battle with Benetton RTL Junior's Timo Scheider.

Asdrúbal Fontes Bayardo

In the 1960s he was a concessionaire for General Motors in Pan de Azúcar, San Carlos and Maldonado, and was a director on the board of a company producing Opel-based pick-up trucks in Pan de Azucar under the name of "Marina".

Automotive industry in Germany

During the 1970s and early 1980s, General Motors integrated Opel with the British Vauxhall brand so that designs were shared with the only difference being the names.

Corvette leaf spring

Many small European cars such as the Opel GT,Fiat 128, the Yugo, and the Triumph Motor Company small chassis cars (Herald, Vitesse, Spitfire, GT6) used transverse steel springs in similar fashion.

Economy of Spain

Apart from its domestic brand SEAT, which is the major contributor to the automotive sector of the country, and Santana Motor, many suppliers and foreign car and truck makers – like Volkswagen, Nissan, Daimler Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Renault, GM/Opel, PSA Peugeot/Citroën, Iveco,... etc.

Einheits-PKW der Wehrmacht

Several manufacturers were therefore charged with production, each supposedly following the same standardized plans: BMW (Werk Eisenach), Hanomag, Stoewer, Opel (Werk Brandenburg), Ford Germany and Auto Union (Horch and Wanderer).

General Motors Europe

Magna stated that their plans for Opel included attracting GM or third-party carmakers to build their cars and electric vehicles in Antwerp.

German Formula Three Championship

Despite the fact that F3 is still an open formula for which any chassis builder or engine tuner can supply a product provided that it meets the technical regulations, most championships have just one de facto choice of chassis supplier – usually Dallara – and two or three popular engine suppliers – usually Mugen-Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Spiess-Opel, or TOM's-Toyota.

GM Family II engine

It was developed by an international team of engineers and technicians from Opel's International Technical Development Center in Rüsselsheim, Germany, GM Powertrain in Pontiac, Michigan, and Saab in Södertälje, Sweden.

GM Korea

The end of the same year, GM Daewoo introduced the Winstorm, its first proper sport utility vehicle (SUV), which was, as the Lacetti, sold worldwide under different marques and names including Opel, Chevrolet, GMC and Holden, and previously Saturn before the demise of that brand in 2010.

Hour record

Sam Whittingham went 79.13 km (49.17 mi) in 1998, then broke his own record in 2004 when he cycled 84.22 km (52.33 mi) on the GM/Opel test track in Dudenhofen, Germany.

Imaad Wasif

The record featured minimal, acoustic songs with psychedelic influences, reminiscent of Skip Spence’s Oar and Syd Barrett’s Opel, and was recorded by Mark Nevers in Nashville, TN.

John Lorenzo Young

He was educated at the Communal College of Boulogne, under Professor Opel at Wiesbaden, in 1842 at the Civil Engineering College in Putney, and at King's College London from 1843 to 1845, where John Howard Clark (later Sir John Howard Clark, editor of The Register and who conducted its Geoffry Crabthorn column) was a fellow student.

Jürgen Alzen

Uwe Alzen holds the lap record there at 8:09, about 10 seconds faster than the factory cars of Opel and Audi from the DTM, as well as the BMW M3 V8 GTR of Schnitzer Motorsport.

Kristianopel

The Greek suffix '-opel' was given to give the town a cosmopolitan ring similar to Constantinople.

Lotus Elise

General Motors offered to partner/fund the project, in return for a badged and GM-engined version of the car for their European brands, Opel and Vauxhall.

Marketing co-operation

Opel and Mango have established a pan-European marketing co-operation around the Tigra TwinTop campaign "Every street is a catwalk" with a focus on communication.

MK-Motorsport

MK-Motorsport was engaged as a team: 3rd total rank at the 24 hours race at Nürburgring out of 200 participants, sole victory of a completely private team against the work teams of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Opel and Ford in the DTM.

Opel 1.2 litre

The unbeatable value for money that the Opel P4 offered will have been a cause for concern to supporters of the government sponsored Volkswagen programme which was already well advanced and which was a personal pet project of the country’s political leadership at the time.

Opel Antara

GM in the United States and Canada introduced the Opel Antara as part of the Saturn division under the name "Saturn Vue" in 2007 for the 2008 model year.

Opel Ascona

The Ascona took its name from the lakeside resort of that name in Ticino, Switzerland, and already in the 1950s a special edition of the Opel Rekord P1 was sold as an Opel Ascona in Switzerland, where the name was again used in 1968 for a locally adapted version of the Opel Kadett B into which the manufacturers had persuaded a 1.7-litre engine borrowed from the larger Rekord model of the time.

Opel Astra 200t S

Both engine and chassis was produced in limited numbers (350 only) at Opel's Hungarian factory at Szentgotthárd and at Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Opel Eisenach

The well publicized bankruptcy of General Motors, its parent company, placed Opel's future ownership and indeed its survival in question for several months during 2009, and this also impacted the Eisenach facility where, at times, production was halted.

Opel GT

Since GM's Saturn division already shared models with Opel, the GT is in fact Opel's version of the Saturn Sky.

Opel Performance Center

since 2007 Opel Corsa D OPC - a version of the Opel Corsa D three-door hatchback which has a 1.6-liter turbo engine with 141 kW (192 hp).

since 2011 Opel Corsa D OPC Nürburgring Edition - a version of the Opel Corsa D three-door hatchback which has a 1.6-liter turbo engine with 155 kW (210 hp).

since 2009 Opel Insignia OPC - a version of the Opel Insignia five-door liftback, four-door saloon and five-door station wagon (Sports Tourer) which has a 2.8-liter V6 turbo engine with 239 kW (325 hp) and standard all-wheel drive.

Opel Rekord Series E

Until 1986 the Opel Rekord was assembled by General Motors's South African subsidiary in Port Elizabeth, but as a result of an an international sanctions regime General Motors were not permitted to invest further after 1986.

Opelwerk Brandenburg

Between 1940 and 1943 the chassis of standard medium passenger car, a all-wheel drive vehicle for military purpose, which had been originally developed by Horch (Auto Union) in Zwickau, was also assembled under licence at the Opel Brandenburg plant.

The Opelwerk Brandenburg (Opel's manufacturing plant at Brandenburg an der Havel) was built, with impressive speed, in 1935 on the initiative of the government in order to ensure supplies of Opel trucks for the army.

Rüsselsheim massacre

On the night of August 25, the British RAF sent 116 Lancasters into Russelsheim in order to attack the Opel Plant on a bombing mission, dropping 674 2,000-lb bombs and more than 400,000 incendiaries on the city, destroying the plant and damaging the railtracks, more by far any previous air raid in World War II.

SC Opel Rüsselsheim

The SC Opel Rüsselsheim is a German association football club from the city of Rüsselsheim, Hesse.

Spouge

In 2002 Caribbean Records Inc released a CD entitled Vintage Spouge with hits on it such as Gimme Music by Mike Grosvenor, Any Day Now by Richard Stoute and a cover of Sam Cooke's You Send Me, sung by spouge creator Jackie Opel.