January 21, 1899
In 1898, the five Opel brothers began converting the sewing machine and appliance factory of Adam Opel into an automobile works in Russelheim, Germany. On this day in 1899, they acquired the rights to the Lutzmann automobile, and began production. The Opel-Lutzmann was soon abandoned, and in 1902, Opel introduced its first original car, a 2-cylinder runabout. In the decades that followed, Opel became one of the premier forces in the European automobile industry, modernizing its factories relentlessly and adopting the continuous-motion assembly line before its European competitors. Today, Opel is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors. It produces about a quarter of all German cars, and exports heavily to South America and Africa.
January 21, 1954
General Motors introduced the Firebird XP-21 show car, the world's first gas-turbine powered car. It was named in imitation of the U.S. military's experimental jet-powered aircraft, which had code numbers like XP-59A.
Mr. Earl (designer), Mauri Rose (test driver) & the Firebird
Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia