by Ross Finlay (09 May 04)

In a previous article about Porsche's four-wheel drive heritage, we identified one of the first cars of this type designed by Ferdinand Porsche as being the Lohner-Porsche he personally delivered to the customer who'd ordered it, E W Hart of Luton, in 1901.

Other similar cars built by the Viennese company had two-wheel drive. After comparing photographs of various Lohners and almost but not quite tossing a coin, we came to the conclusion that Mr Hart's car really did have power to all four wheels.

Fortunately, a reader who knew the details of the Hart car confirmed its specification, and we were able to run a rather pompous footnote: "A knowledgeable reader assures us that Mr Hart's car was indeed four-wheel drive."

A still more knowledgeable reader - Andreas Stieniczka - has been in touch from Germany to say that, although we were right, it was by the narrowest of margins. As far as the company's passenger car range was concerned, the Hart machine was "an absolute one-off design". 

Lohner's other cars, while still fitted with hub motors, were either front-driven or rear-driven. It's the wide hubs (on all four wheels on the Hart car) which show which end took the power, although some contemporary photographs are rather confusing here.

Andreas points out that Hart's car was "a giant", which needed 1.8 tonnes of batteries to drive the four electric motors, and cost no less than 15,000 Austrian crowns, a very large sum in 1901. Not long before taking delivery of the giant, Hart had bought a standard 2WD model for just 7950.

Lohner built rear-drive double-decker buses for Berlin as well as front-drive fire engines which were bought by the city authorities of Vienna and Frankfurt, and by the London Fire Brigade. However, it did turn to four-wheel drive for the bus market, although it never again, after the Hart order, produced a four-wheel drive passenger car.

Jacob Lohner started as a coachbuilder and, in addition to his electrically powered vehicles, he was commissioned to produce coaches for the Austrian emperor, as well as for the kings of Norway, Sweden and Romania. The versatile company also went into the aeroplane industry.

Andreas Stieniczka closes by saying that Lohner also built the funeral coach for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose murder in Sarajevo was the event which sparked off World War I.

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