Team-BHP - Unidentified Vintage beauty spotted at a Jaipur Hotel. EDIT : It's an Opel Olympia

- - Unidentified Vintage beauty spotted at a Jaipur Hotel. EDIT : It's an Opel Olympia (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/post-war/88608-unidentified-vintage-beauty-spotted-jaipur-hotel-edit-its-opel-olympia.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 2063338)

Hope you guys enjoy the pics. 100 bucks says the first reply will correctly identify this car :)

That is an Opel Olympia from the 1940s (probably post war) parked on display at the Neemrana fort hotel.

Thanks GTO for posting the pictures of a now rare car.
Thanks Karl for instantly identifying it.
These were sold as CBU's in the 1940's in our country alongwith the many other makes and models from the U.K., U.S., France and so on.This is perhaps the only car that represented Germany in our showrooms and markets, then. The Tata Mercedes Benz another Indo-German brand trucks came only in 1956.
Incidentally, the late Thespian Prithvi Raj Kapoor owned an Opel Olympia. The old car in a dilapidated condition is still parked in the Prithvi Theatres backyard in Mumbai, this Theatre now being owned and managed by his son, Shashi Kapoor and his family members.The first family in our filmdom is quite possessive and sentimental about this car.
In one interview Raj Kapoor had said that in the initial days of his career in the 1940's his father told him to struggle and not to rely on the family wealth.Hence, Raj Kapoor would travel by bus to his workplace. He would while travelling by bus see his father, Prithvi Raj overtake the bus in the Opel Olympia he owned then.

I remember seeing a picture of this car in another thread earlier.
Opels were very popular in India, and sold well upto WW II. After the war a few did come in, but most in Goa. Opels thereafter were rarely seen, with the exception of the 1968 Rekord of which there were quite a number.
Before WW II the most common Opels seen in India were this Olympia and the P4. Few of other models were seen, I have a rare 1938 Admiral, probably the only one left.
But there were many other German makes present in India with dealership networks and a huge presence. Adler, DKW, Wanderer, Mercedes-Benz, Hansa, Hanomag were all here. I do not know who sold Horsh and Maybach's in India.
Survival rate of Adler, Mercedes, DKW is relatively good, of the others only a few numbers survive.

Cheers harit