The 2024 Summer Olympics will kick off in Paris. In the sporting disciplines, cars play only a secondary role, for example as escort vehicles in the marathon or cycling road races. For the rest, Formula 1 is not yet an Olympic sport.
But let's take a look at the links between the Olympic Games and car manufacturers. Most of the time as official sponsors, with sometimes unusual vehicles. There is no known brand of car called the Olympia, but there was a model designated as such.
The Opel Olympia was the first mass-produced German car with a self-supporting body made entirely of sheet steel. The successor to the 1.3-litre Opel, which remained in the Opel range until October 1935, was named after the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Until October 1940, when the Reich government ordered Opel to cease production of civilian vehicles, 168,875 Olympia cars were produced. After the end of the Second World War, production of a revised model resumed in December 1947. Later, various "Olympia Rekord" models were produced, as well as the Opel Olympia A, a sort of luxury Kadett, between 1967 and 1970.
Opel Olympia (1947) Toyota was one of the first official vehicle sponsors of the 1964 Olympic Games. Eight years later, the event became regional again: BMW supported the 1972 Games on home soil. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, BMW took the start with two experimental electrically powered vehicles.
The converted BMW 1602s served as a means of transport for the org.