The Opel Zafira, the most popular minivan from Opel, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. It was in the spring of 1999 that the first units of the model that would make history came off the production line.
The compact minivan with a length of 4.32 meters, a width of 1.74 meters, and a height of 1.68 meters was designed for low-weight construction. The first generation weighed only 1390 kg when it was launched, at a time when efficiency was as important to Opel as it is today.
With an aerodynamic resistance coefficient (Cx) of 0.33, the Zafira offered the best aerodynamic performance in its class. With a clean design and a long wheelbase, it combined elegance and functionality. Its low center of gravity and ultra-modern DSA (Dynamic SAfety) chassis ensured driving stability and the highest possible safety.
At the time, the Zafira stood out for being the first compact minivan to offer flexible space for up to seven people, without the need to remove the heavy seats. It used an intelligent and patented Flex7 seating system, a unique mechanism that set new standards for onboard flexibility, fully integrated into the interior: in just about 15 seconds, it could be transformed from a seven-seater vehicle into a two-seater, with up to 1700 liters of luggage volume.
Once the headrests were unlocked and folded, the third-row seats were easily folded and stored in suitable recesses on the vehicle floor, creating a completely flat cargo area. The inconvenient removal and storage of unused seats became a thing of the past.The same applied to the second row, which could be folded, pushed forward, and fixed behind the front seats, allowing for better space management. In turn, the front passenger seat could also be folded into a horizontal position, allowing for the loading of objects up to three meters long in the Zafira and, at the same time, accommodating four passengers.
Two years after the launch of the Zafira, Opel decided to bring to the market a sporty seven-seater variant. Thus, the Zafira OPC was born, combining the practical versatility of a compact passenger vehicle with the driving characteristics and performance of a sports car. In numbers, this translated into a 2.0-liter turbo engine with 192 hp and 250 Nm of torque, allowing for a 0 to 100 km/h acceleration in 8.2 seconds and a top speed of 220 km/h. This made the Zafira OPC, launched in the fall of 2001, the fastest minivan in Europe at the time.
In the same year that it launched the sports car Zafira OPC, Opel also debuted a completely different traction unit. In addition to gasoline and diesel engines, Opel introduced the Zafira 1.6 CNG version, powered by compressed natural gas. By significantly reducing emissions compared to conventional gasoline engines, it maintained the full interior configuration variability thanks to the practical arrangement of all components, installing the gas tanks under the floor and, thanks to the “Monovalentplus” concept, allowing the driver to simply switch to gasoline operation when necessary.
Throughout its 25 years, the Zafira was also a pioneer in fuel cell and zero local emissions driving. In 2000, the development of Opel’s hydrogen fuel cells hit the streets through the HydroGen1 concept based on the Zafira.
Its fuel cell provided electricity to a three-phase asynchronous motor with 75 hp and 251 Nm of torque, integrating a reserve battery to cover power peaks. In 2001, a fleet of 20 HydroGen3 units was tested by customers, with increased power to 82 hp and a top speed of 160 km/h.
In the “2004 Fuel Cell Marathon” initiative, two HydroGen3 vehicles traveled almost 10,000 km through European roads, connecting Hammerfest in Norway to Lisbon in Portugal. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, former F1 driver and Opel DTM driver, drove one of the HydroGen3 vehicles. He won the 2005 edition of the Monte Carlo Rally for vehicles with alternative propulsion.
With the second generation of the Zafira, which arrived in 2005, Opel optimized the handling of the second row of seats, which could now be folded in a 40:20:40 ratio, allowing adults to sit comfortably in the individual outer seats.
Later, the range of the compact MPV was reinforced with the Zafira Tourer, which, in addition to its flexible interior, impressed with lounge-like comfort, panoramic sunroof, and innovations such as radar-based cruise control and forward collision alert.
The fourth generation of the popular compact model from Opel emerged in 2020, the Zafira Life, with a distinct visual appearance compared to its predecessors, which led the Rüsselsheim brand to define the new generation of the Zafira as a comfortable ‘multi-purpose vehicle,’ and to offer the model in three different body variants with different lengths: the ‘small’ one measuring 4.60 meters, the ‘medium’ one measuring 4.95 meters, and the ‘large’ one measuring 5.30 meters.
In this way, the Zafira Life caters to a wide range of preferences, covering three market segments and positioning itself as a new reference among ‘multi-seat’ vehicles.
