1918 Opel 14/38PS

The Opel Automobile Company is a German Company founded by Adam Opel in the early 1860s as a sewing machine manufacturer, adding bicycle manufacturing a few decades later before producing its first automobile in 1899. Opel's widow Sophie and their two eldest sons formed a partnership with a locksmith named Friedrich Lutzmann who had been working on automobile designs. Sixty-five motor cars were delivered in 1899, then twenty-four in 1900 and thirty in 1901. With the project being unsuccessful, the partnership dissolved and Opel signed a new licensing agreement in 1901 with the French Automobiles Darracq France to manufacture vehicles under the brand name Opel Darracq. The Darracq chassis and two-cylinder engines were fitted with Opel bodies, with the first examples shown in 1902 at the Hamburg Motor Show. Production lasted for a few years before dissolving in 1907. Production resumed in 1909 with the Opel 4/8 PS and continued until a fire virtually destroyed the factory in 1911. A new one was built with more modern machinery and within a decade, the German company had flourished. They became the first German car manufacturer to incorporate a mass-production assembly line in the construction of their automobiles. By 1929, General Motors had taken a majority stake in the company and then full control in 1931. By this point in history, they had pioneered the automobile assembly line in Germany and was its largest automobile exporter and manufacturer in Germany.

The Opel 14/38 PS was a luxury model built during the Nickel Era and offered in a variety of different body styles. Its four-cylinder engine had an aluminum alloy block with cast iron heads, and the four-speed manual transmission used a leather cone clutch. Drum brakes on the rear wheels provided the stopping power. The top speed was achieved in the neighborhood of 70 km/h.

by Daniel Vaughan | May 2020