It was one of the world's first mass-produced cars with a unitary body structure, after the 1934 Citroën Traction Avant; and it was a mass-production success, made in six-figure numbers.

Opel achieved this even before the war, all while Hitler promised Germany a "Volkswagen" - a 'People's car', which didn't materialize until 1946.

The 1935 Olympia was Germany's first mass-produced car with an advanced all-metal unitary body - even a full monocoque in the case of the closed-roof saloon models.

[1] This for its time revolutionary technology supplanted the previously customary vehicle body, supported on top of a separate load-bearing chassis, reducing the car's weight by up to 180 kilograms (400 lb.)

At 2500 Reichsmark it offered a true four-seater with 1.3-litre, four-cylinder, side-valve, 24 PS (18 kW) engine capable of 100 km/h (62 mph).

It was available in the same versions as its predecessor with the addition of the 6-light LV: Due to World War II, production came to a halt in late 1940.

[7] Externally, the OL 38 looked unchanged to the pre-war car, but the fragile and complex Dubonnet front suspension was replaced by a more conventional control arm and coil spring one.

Giving the Olympia its own name may have distanced it from the Kadett in the Opel showrooms and enabled the manufacturer to charge a premium price, but in other respects the new Olympia did not convincingly fill the gap in the range that had opened up between small family cars and big family cars, the Rekords having grown ever larger with each new generation.

[13] The Olympia's demise cleared the way for the Opel Ascona, produced from August 1970 and introduced to the market in November 1970.

The Ascona filled the gap between the smaller Kadett and the larger Rekord more obviously and, in terms of the sales figures, more persuasively than the Kadett-based Olympia, defining in the German auto-market a new mid-weight family car class where it would be joined by the Ford Taunus TC and, a couple of years later, by the Audi 80 and the Volkswagen Passat.