Germany - History

Opel was founded in 1862 in Rüsselsheim and joined the General Motors family of cars and trucks in 1929. Adam Opel founded Opel to manufacture high-quality sewing machines in volume. The company later became a leading producer of bicycles before assuming its current role as one of the world's largest producers of automobiles. Opel's vision has remained constant from the beginning: make technology affordable for everyone. Since start of automobile production in 1899, more than 60 million units have been produced.

In 1989 GM acquired a 50% stake in Saab of Sweden, taking full ownership in 2000. Since 1973 Saab's sales organization is named Saab Deutschland GmbH. Since 2004 the German sales organization is based in Rüsselsheim and works closely together with Adam Opel GmbH.

Since spring 2005, Chevrolet has been continuing its global growth strategy by introducing a new range of small, compact and medium-sized cars.

In 2004 GM appointed Kroymans Corporation B.V. to distribute Cadillac, Corvette and HUMMER in Germany.