ÖAF

Österreichische Automobil-Fabrik
Subsidiary of MAN SE
Industry Automotive
Founded 1907
Headquarters Floridsdorf, Austria
Products vehicles
Website Official Website

ÖAF is an initialism for Österreichische Automobil-Fabrik, previously known as Österreichische Austro-Fiat, an Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) car and truck manufacturer.

Austro-Fiat

ÖAF was created by FIAT in 1907 and is now part of the German MAN group. The manufacture of automobiles began in the new plant built for the occasion in Vienna in 1908, while the number was only 50 employees. A truck of 4 tonnes, similar to the Italian Fiat model was manufactured from 1911. It was originally Austro-Fiat, which during the First World War began to develop their own products.

In 1925 the Austro-Fiat brand expired and the company became Osterreichische Automobil Fabrik AG, under the abbreviation ÖAF, with preservation of the trademark filed earlier. Also in 1925, a separate company took over sales of Italian FIAT cars, and Austro-Fiat became affiliated with Austro-Daimler and Puch. The last private car, Type 1001A, was different from the earlier Type 1001, having 34 bhp (25 kW) engines and conventional rear axles.

The latest model Fiat's truck was TS 1924, equipped with a 45 hp (34 kW) Fiat engine. The company began production of other models in Austria, which has enabled the company to begin developing its own models. The most popular submitted in 1925 was the AFN light truck AFN with 1.75 tons of payload. This truck used a 42 hp 4 Cylinder Fiat engine 2850 cc, it also used gimbals and real tires, not solid tires, which allowed for a speed of 65 km/h. In 1928, the AF2 appeared and the following year a bus called the Austro-Fiat-1001. It is from this time that the company discontinued the manufacture of passenger cars to concentrate on commercial vehicles, trucks, vans and buses. This allowed the AFL/AFY to be manufactured from 1930 to 1937.

MAN acquisition

Austrian Army ÖAF-sLKW truck

In 1938, when Austria was annexed by the Third Reich, German MAN obtained the majority of shares owned by Fiat in ÖAF, reducing the Italian firm's share to 15%. ÖAF had begun equipping some of its trucks with diesel engines from MAN in 1934.

After the Second World War, the Floridsdorf factory was in the Russian zone and the plants were used for Russian reparations. In 1955, ÖAF was released from these payments and the factory began producing trucks again. They went to Austria to build military trucks but the Austrian army eventually selected rival Steyr for its famous Pinzgauer. The Tornado was ÖAF' s challenger, best-selling truck in Austria.

In 1970, the company was privatized again; MAN then let it merge with Gräf & Stift, out of which ÖAF Gräf & Stift arose which in 1971 was fully taken over by MAN.

Vehicles

References

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