Friedrich Opel

The Opel brothers (from left to right): Carl , Wilhelm , Heinrich , Fritz and Ludwig

Friedrich Opel as a racing cyclist (1897)

Friedrich Franz "Fritz" Opel (born April 30, 1875 in Rüsselsheim ; † August 30, 1938 in Vienna ) was a German cyclist, engineer , racing car driver and entrepreneur from the Opel family .

Life

Friedrich Opel is the son of Adam and Sophie Opel . From 1894 to 1897 he studied mechanical engineering at the Technikum Mittweida and was chief designer of the German car manufacturer Opel . Together with his brother Wilhelm, he introduced the assembly line to the German automotive industry. In 1927 he received an honorary doctorate from the TU Darmstadt .

His father Adam Opel founded the Opel company in Rüsselsheim in 1862 as a manufacturer of sewing machines, and later expanded the company into a bicycle manufacturer. After his father's death in 1895, his five sons Carl , Wilhelm , Heinrich , Ludwig and Fritz took over the company. In 1898 Friedrich and his brother Wilhelm brought the company into the automotive industry with the purchase of Friedrich Lutzmann's factory in Dessau.

Friedrich Opel was a successful cyclist and won around 180 prizes on the Opel bike alone. One of his greatest triumphs was winning the 620-kilometer long-distance Basel – Cleve trip in 1894. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of automobile sport and an automobile racing driver. Fritz Opel started for his own brand u. a. at the Kaiserpreis-race 1907 , the Grand Prix of France 1908 and the Grand Prix of Belgium 1912 .

Opel died on August 30, 1938 at the age of 63. He is buried in the Opel mausoleum in Rüsselsheim am Main .

Since Friedrich was also called Fritz, he is often confused with his nephew, the racing car driver Fritz von Opel .

Honors

• 1921: Dr. Ing. E. h. of the TH Darmstadt

literature

• Hans Christoph Graf von Seherr-Thoß:  Opel, Fritz (actually Friedrich Franz). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 542 ( digitized version ). (there only genealogical information, the actual article text for all family members is in the online NDB under Opel, Friedrich Karl Adam Georg von )
• Jan-Peter Domschke, Sabine Dorn, Hansgeorg Hofmann, Rosemarie Poch, Marion Stascheit: Mittweida's engineers all over the world . Hochschule Mittweida (ed.): Mittweida 2014, p. 76f.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Opel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Friedrich Opel in the database of Radsportseiten.net
• Short biography of the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences (FH)
• Newspaper article about Friedrich Opel in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .