14 Dec 06
Ludwig Lohner, a third-generation coach-maker based near Vienna, gave Ferdinand Porsche his first engineering job. The Lohner-Porsche electrically powered car (1900) was capable of an emissions-free 35mph, and this was followed by the world's first hybrid: the System Mixt, with wheel-mounted motors supplemented by a Daimler or Panhard internal combustion engine. Porsche went to work for Austro-Daimler in 1906, but Lohner continued to innovate, producing four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-braked cars, and then setting up its aircraft division in 1910. Not that it had pulled out of making horse-drawn carriages: the firm built the funeral carriage for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo had sparked off World War I.
During the war, Lohner built versions of German Tauben AI and AII light aircraft, powered by 85bhp Austro-Daimler engines. Its output included Arrow Type B and C two-seaters, spindly gunners and observation craft for the Austro-Hungarian airforce, but its most notable plane was the Type L flying boat. This large amphibious bomber plane, capable of over 60mph, had one Austro-Daimler or Rapp (BMW) engine; two Type Ls were the first aircraft to successfully attack submarines, disabling two in September 1916.
After World War I, the factory in Floridsdorf (an outer district of Vienna) went on to make car body panels, railway carriages and, later, tramways. It merged with Austrian engine-maker Rotax in 1959, and Lohner-Rotax was then bought by Canadian firm Bombardier (which also owns Canadair and Learjet) in 1970. From making two-stroke engines for snowmobiles, karts and motorcycles in the 1980s it moved into four-strokes for specialist machinery, and units for light aircraft again. The current Rotax products include tiny 40bhp two-stroke units for ultra-light and experimental aircraft, and four-strokes giving up to 115bhp for slightly larger planes.
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