The story
Founded by Josef Werndl on Apr 16, 1864.1
The company, initially known as Josef und Franz Werndl and Company was founded in 1864 as a rifle manufacturer. The company began producing bicycles in 1894. It grew rapidly during the First World War, by the end of which it employed 14,000 people. Steyr automobiles were made after 1918. In September 1917 Steyr recruited Hans Ledwinka, now remembered as one of the great automotive engineers of the twentieth century, but then relatively unknown, to the position of "Chefkonstrukteur", to lead the creation of their automobile manufacturing business.
The first Steyr car, the six cylinder Type II "12/40" appeared in 1920. It spawned sports versions with a list of international achievements. The 1.5L six Type XII of the late twenties won international motor press acclaim.
The company changed its name to Steyr-Werke AG in 1926. In 1934, Steyr merged with Austro-Daimler-Puch to form Steyr-Daimler-Puch. The range produced in these years mainly consisted of very modern designs, sporting partially or complete unit construction bodies in streamlined livery, from the one-litre Steyr 50 to the 2.3 L Steyr 220 "six".
During World War II, when Austria was part of the Third Reich, Steyr-Daimler-Puch's Generaldirektor Georg Meindl de became one of the first German industrialists to suggest the use of slave labour from concentration camps to boost manpower at Steyr. The request was approved and prisoners were brought by guarded train from the Mauthausen-Gusen camp complex 30km away in Gusen. Later, on 5 January 1942, Meindl wrote a letter to SS Gruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner recommending a new 'satellite' prison camp be constructed to house prisoners nearer the Steyr factory complex, explaining how this would reduce the time and loss of prisoners in transit to and from work while also reducing security and transport overhead costs.
This was approved and prisoners were used for facilities construction (bomb shelters, etc.), and to supplant manufacturing labor. This practice was not yet common at other larger German companies, though others followed suit including Mercedes-Benz and MAN. The vehicle range was for military use, including the Steyr RSO Raupenschlepper Ost with an air-cooled 3.5 L V8 engine designed by Ferdinand Porsche, who worked for the company at that time. War-time production there included small arms, assault rifles, machine guns, and aircraft engines.
After the war, Steyr-Daimler-Puch built diesel engined trucks and buses, small and heavy tractors and resumed passenger car production. First, Steyr assembled the FIAT 1100E, then put their own engine in a Fiat 1400, renaming the car the "Steyr 2000". From 1957 through to the early 1970s it produced the tiny Puch 500 under license from FIAT, again with an engine of Austrian design.
Most prominent was its range of off-road cars, from the two-cylinder Haflinger and the 4 x 4 or 6 x 6 Pinzgauer, the Fiat Panda 4x4 (999 cc) to the Mercedes-Puch G. SDP was the initial designer and manufacturer of these utility vehicles. The Haflinger was produced from 1959 to 1974, the Pinzgauer from 1971 to 2000, and the Puch G (also known as Mercedes G-Class) from 1979.
The company's Puch division produced a line of motorcycles, mopeds, and motor scooters marketed in the United States through Sears Roebuck including the Puch 250 SGS which was delivered in a cardboard crate box to the customer's home. The Austro-Daimler branch built heavy tractors and trucks for the imperial Austrian army (before 1915). The main Steyr civil agricultural tractor production started in 1947.
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After the war Steyr-Daimler-Puch resumed manufacturing bicycles and mopeds, gradually establishing distributors in several countries to manage their sales. Steyr made bicycles for sale for other retailers, most notably Sears. In the mid-1970s "Steyr-Daimler-Puch America" was incorporated in Connecticut to manage importation and distribution of bicycles and mopeds. Puch Austro-Daimler bicycles remained in production at Graz in Austria until the motorcycle and bicycle fabrication portions of the company there were sold in the mid 1987 to Piaggio & C. S.p.A. of Italy.
From Wikipedia’s article on Steyr-Daimler-Puch, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4