Opel Blitz

Opel Blitz (German for "lightning") was the name given to various light and middle-weight truck series built by the German Opel automobile manufacturer between 1930 and 1975. The original logo for this truck, two stripes arranged loosely like a lightning symbol in the form of a horizontally stretched letter "Z", still appears in the current Opel logo.

After the end of the war, with the Brandenburg plant dismantled and transported to the Soviet Union, and 47% of the buildings in Rüsselsheim destroyed, former Opel employees began to rebuild the Rüsselsheim plant. The first postwar Blitz was completed on 15 July 1946 in the presence of United States Army General Geoffrey Keyes and other local leaders and press reporters.

The first post-war designed Blitz in 1952 was a modern rounded design, reminiscent of the contemporary Chevrolet Advance Design truck. The new 1.75 ton truck was offered with a van and pickup body. The new model retained the pre-war chassis with the straight-six petrol engine. Opel remained the market leader for light trucks despite strong competition especially by the newly designed 1955 Mercedes-Benz L 319 model and the Ford FK series, as well as Hanomag and Borgward vans. A coach version was built by the Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke from 1953 to 1956. The 1.75 to model was a very popular fire engine (LF8-TS), typically equipped with an engine driven pump mounted at the front bumper and a second, portable pump in the back of the truck. The portable pump was powered by a 34 hp Volkswagen engine and weighed about 400 lbs. Firetruck conversions were made by companies such as Ziegler, Metz and Rosenbauer.