Steyr-Puch

Steyr-Daimler-Puch was an Austrian group with works in Steyr and Graz. It came about in 1934, when the Steyr-Werke merged with the Austro-Daimler-Puchwerke; the oldest root of the house is a rifle factory of 1830. Almost everything with wheels was built there: passenger cars such as the Steyr 50, lorries, tractors, motorcycles of the Puch marque and off-road vehicles such as the Haflinger and the Pinzgauer.

What counts for this archive is a contract with Fiat. From 1957 the Steyr-Puch 500 was built at the Puch works in Graz. From the outside it is a Fiat 500 — body and chassis came from Turin. Underneath sits Austrian engineering: an air-cooled two-cylinder boxer engine designed by Erich Ledwinka, and from the very beginning a fully synchronised gearbox. Over the years the displacement grew from 493 to 660 cm³, the output from 16 to 34 hp.

A whole range came of it: 500, 500 D, 500 DL, 500 S, the more powerful 650 T, 650 TR and 650 TR II, plus the estate cars 700 C and 700 E. The 500 was built until 1973; after that a Fiat 126 with a Puch boxer engine followed in Graz until 1975. Altogether just under 60’000 vehicles were built.

The group itself no longer exists. From 1987 it was broken up: in 1990 the lorry division went to MAN, in 1998 the rest to Magna and others.