Carl von Opel

Georg Adolf Carl von Opel (1869 to 1927) was a German bank specialist and industrialist from the Opel family, and one of the founders of the Opel automobile company. His father Adam Opel had started the family firm in Russelsheim in 1862 making sewing machines, and it later added bicycles. After Adam died in 1895 the company passed to his widow Sophie and two of his sons. In 1898 Carl and his brothers Wilhelm and Fritz took Opel into the car business by buying the small Lutzmann automobile factory at Dessau. He was ennobled in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in January 1918, a year after his brothers Wilhelm and Heinrich, and was made a privy councillor the same year. The small Opel Karl car built from 2015 was named as a tribute to him and the family line of Opel founders.