Discovering Opels

After 117 years, I’m finally getting around to figuring out Opel…

I enjoyed speaking with Rich Taylor last month about his long involvement in the hobby and automotive journalism. I found it fascinating that he originally started working for Car and Driver because he won a car from them! Even more surprising was the fact that the car was an Opel GT! Now that’s a name that—if you’re an American—you don’t hear very often, if at all. And yet, just a few weeks later, lo and behold, I open the business section of my newspaper (yes, I am one of the 17 people left in America who still reads an “Ol’ Timey” printed newspaper everyday!) and there was the headline that General Motors had sold all of Opel and Vauxhall to France’s Groupe PSA (owners of Peugeot and Citroën). Reading about the sale made me realize that—other than my vague familiarity with the quirky Opel GT—I really knew next to nothing about Opel.