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For decades, Austria’s entire automotive industry was perched on one automaker: Steyr-Puch.
Called Magna-Steyr today, the company’s history is a latticework of mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs. It traces its roots to a rifle factory and sawmill both founded in Steyr, Austria, in 1864. It began making bicycles in 1894 and built its first car in 1918. It became known as Steyr-Werke in 1926 and merged with Austro-Daimler-Puchwerke in 1934 to become Steyr-Daimler-Puch.
Steyr-Daimler-Puch grew into an industrial empire that designed and manufactured a dizzying variety of products including weapons, bicycles, mopeds, trucks, tractors, buses, automotive components and, of course, cars. It divested most of these businesses in the late 1980s and early 1990s and it merged with Canada’s Magna in 2001 to become a global leader in contract-manufacturing: making other companies' cars to order.
Its story is rarely told. In 2019, Magna-Steyr is best known as the historic home of the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, and for now building the all-new 2019 Toyota Supra and BMW Z4. These key, high-profile products are the tip of the iceberg; the rest of it is stashed away in its official museum.
Located 10 minutes away from Graz airport, the Puch museum is open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There is a €5 (about £4.40/$5.50) entry fee that must be paid in cash. Join us for a look at some of the highlights in the collection:
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“Is this place open?”
An eerie silence echoes through the museum. Many of the cars are dusty, sitting on flat tires and/or beached on a blown-out air suspension. Gravel slowly absorbs the oil that leaks through dried gaskets and run-of-the-mill garden rope keeps visitors away from the cars. Walking through the Puch museum almost feels like trespassing into an abandoned warehouse full of automotive treasures.
There are some recurring themes. Over the decades, Steyr-Puch has regularly worked with Fiat, Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler and, later, DaimlerChrysler. The company has also helped many automakers develop four-wheel drive systems. Most of its projects are displayed in the museum.
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Steyr Type 50 (1936)
Had it reached mass production, the Steyr Type 50 would have competed in the same universally-accessible arena as the Volkswagen Beetle. The Austrian firm began developing the Type 50 in 1934 because it anticipated that an automaker or a government would ask it for a turn-key people’s car on short notice. The request never came and the Type 50 remained at the prototype stage.
It looks a lot like the Beetle when viewed from certain angles but the resemblance is coincidental. The two cars share no components. The Type 50 uses a front-mounted, water-cooled four-cylinder engine.
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Steyr-Puch 500 (1957)
Steyr-Puch purchased a license to build the 500 from Fiat in order to offer Austrians a cheap economy car without developing one from scratch. The firm didn’t settle on making a straight copy of Italy’s people’s car, however. Its road testers identified several flaws with the 500 that engineers fixed before production began.
Steyr’s version of the 500 ditched the Fiat’s 13.5hp, 479cc straight-two engine in favor of a 493cc flat-twin rated at a more usable 16hp. The twin shifted through a fully synchronized four-speed manual transmission that was smoother and easier to operate. Designed and manufactured in Austria, the model-specific powertrain made Steyr’s 500 more usable on Austrian mountain roads.
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Steyr-Puch 500 (1957)
Steyr-Puch also made several visual changes to the 500 like fitting bigger rear lights and adding several brand-specific trim pieces. And while Italians sun-bathing on the Adriatic coast enjoyed the 500’s folding roof, running to the store for spätzle in the middle of January wasn’t anyone’s idea of la dolce vita so Steyr made its 500 available with a full metal roof. It also tweaked the roof line to carve out additional headroom for the rear occupants.
Steyr’s 500 was, by most means of measurements, better than Fiat’s. The company built 60,000 examples of it between 1957 and 1975. Fiat banned Steyr from selling the car outside of Austria but a handful of examples made it to Germany and Finland, among other countries.
The Austrian-built variant of the 126 – the car that replaced the 500 – received an evolution of the flat-twin but production didn’t last long due to a lack of demand. Steyr’s 126 looked just like Fiat’s with the exception of minor details like brand-specific badges.
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Steyr-Puch Haflinger (1959)
Sometimes called the Austrian Jeep, the Steyr-Puch Haflinger was developed primarily to give Austria's army an alternative to the aging Willys Jeeps it used in the years following World War Two. While the Jeep was an off-roader, and a good one at that, the Haflinger was designed specifically for mountainous terrain. Its high approach and departure angles allowed it to go far off the beaten path without getting stuck.
Compact and light, the Haflinger came with a 643cc flat-twin engine mounted in the rear and four-wheel drive so it had a formative influence on the Syncro technology later fitted to Volkswagen’s T3. It was popular as a military vehicle but Steyr-Puch also made civilian variants, including some with a closed cab. This 1969 example pictured was used as a fire-fighting vehicle.
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Puch Roadster S prototype (1959)
Steyr-Puch asked Italian coachbuilder Vignale to help it design a small, sporty convertible tentatively called Roadster S. The unmistakably Italian-styled body hid mechanical components plucked from Austria’s parts bin. Steyr-Puch didn’t have an engine big enough to power a sports car so it fused a pair of 500-sourced air-cooled flat-twins into a 985cc flat-four that made 45hp, though later prototypes benefited from a 56hp 1.3-liter.
The Haflinger gave its drum brakes to the project. The Roadster S never went into production.
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Steyr-Puch 650 TR (1964)
Like Abarth, Steyr-Puch believed the Fiat 500 could and should be turned into a performance car. It made and raced several high-performance variants of its 500. The 650 TR released in 1964 offered 27hp from a 660cc evolution of the flat-twin while the 650 TR II introduced a year later put 41hp under the driver’s right foot in its most powerful configuration.
The TR models raced in the Monte-Carlo Rally during the 1960s but never won; the example pictured here finished 17th in 1965.
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Puch 230G prototype (1978)
Steyr-Puch helped Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler-Benz develop the G-Class. The project began in 1972 with a simple design brief. It outlined a Land Rover-like off-roader that could effortlessly tame the Alps while delivering an acceptable amount of on-board comfort and the high level of reliability Mercedes was known for.
Both companies saw the tie-up as a win-win. Steyr needed to replace the Haflinger (hence why the G was code-named Haflinger 2, or H2, during its development) and Mercedes wanted to enter the 4x4 market with something less rudimentary than the Unimog. Early on, the two partners agreed the vehicle needed to be simple to build and repair. It also had to look current for at least a decade. Neither company expected the G would live for nearly 40 years, ultimately receive a 604hp V12 engine and become favored chariot of the LA celebrity set.
Steyr began manufacturing the humble G in Graz in 1979. While the model wore Mercedes’ three-pointed star more often than not, it was marketed as a Puch in Austria, Switzerland and select Eastern European countries. The example pictured above is the ninth G prototype made. It’s a four-door soft-top, a configuration never offered to the public.
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Volkswagen T3 Syncro (1984)
In the 1970s, a small group of intrepid engineers quietly made a four-wheel drive version of Volkswagen’s T2 and tested it privately in the Sahara Desert. Then CEO Toni Schmücker was impressed by the prototype’s off-road prowess but he refused to give it the proverbial green light for production. He knew the vastly more modern T3 was nearly ready for production so spending money on updating an aging design was categorically ruled out.
Volkswagen’s executive team must have liked what they saw. They contacted Steyr-Puch to develop a four-wheel drive system named Syncro for the T3. The system sent 100% of the engine’s power to the rear wheels under normal driving conditions but it channeled torque to the viscous-coupled front differential when it detected the rear axle began to slip. It was a solution that saved fuel without compromising traction.
Volkswagen manufactured the T3 in Hannover, Germany between 1979 and 1990. Steyr-Puch began making the van in 1984 and it continued until 1992, two years after the front-engined T4 made its debut. The sought-after Limited Last Edition model was notably made in Graz.
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Hydrogen-powered Volkswagen Golf (1980s)
Puch began experimenting with alternative powertrains well before government regulations around the world forced automakers to build cleaner cars. In the 1980s, it developed a hydrogen fuel cell and installed it in the back of a second-generation Volkswagen Golf.
The components that made up the drivetrain were so big that the Golf became a two-seater and they added a huge amount of weight. While the technology worked as-intended, it clearly wasn’t ready for mass production.
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Puch Panda 4x4 prototype (1991)
The Fiat Panda 4x4’s four-wheel drive system came from Puch. While the Italians were content selling a more rugged Panda, the Austrians saw a tremendous amount of potential in the go-anywhere city car. Puch experimented with the idea of turning it into an open-top beach cruiser that could have picked up where cars like the Citroën Mehari, the Mini Moke and the Renault Rodeo left off.
Mechanically, the prototype was identical to the Fiat Panda 4x4. Power came from a 1.1-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 55hp. It could have sold relatively well but it never made it past the prototype stage.
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Puch Panda 4x4 prototype (1991)
The second Fiat Panda 4x4-based prototype that Puch made was a more hardcore off-roader developed for the Italian army. The company knew that making trucks for the military was a lucrative business; it had sold thousands of Gs to the armed forces in dozens of countries since 1979, so it attempted to turn the Panda into a modern version of the original Jeep.
Starting with a Panda 4x4, it installed a soft top, a model-specific front end made with more durable metal parts, wheel arch extensions and a fold-down windshield. Again, the off-roader remained at the prototype stage.
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Treser Cabrio (1991)
German coachbuilder Treser enlisted Puch’s help to turn the second-generation Volkswagen Polo into a tuner-friendly two-seater convertible. The conversion process involved replacing nearly every body panel and fitting a two-piece removable hardtop. Users could either take only the roof panel off for a targa-like experience or remove the entire top for full convertible motoring.
The Cabrio was sold through Volkswagen dealers, where buyers were asked to choose between a 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 55hp and a 1.6-liter with 75hp on tap. Approximately 290 examples of the Polo were converted into a Cabrio between 1991 and 1993.
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Alfa Romeo 164 Q4 (1994)
Alfa Romeo followed rivals Audi and Mercedes-Benz into all-wheel drive territory when it released the 164 Q4 in 1993. The model was equipped with an all-wheel drive system named Viscomatic that Alfa developed jointly with Steyr-Puch. It was one the most advanced systems of its kind available in the early 1990s.
Viscomatic processed sensor-generated data like the amount of power requested by the driver, the car’s speed, the steering angle and the slip difference between the two axles to adjust the front-rear torque split almost instantly. This technology finally gave the 164 the handling it deserved.
Alfa Romeo made about 1400 examples of the 164 Q4 between 1994 and 1996. In 2019, it stands out as one of the rarest and most desirable variants of the 164.
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Chrysler Voyager (1995)
Chrysler and Steyr-Puch formed a joint-venture named EuroStar in 1990 to manufacture vehicles for the European market. The second, third and fourth generation variants of the Chrysler minivan were made in a new, purpose-built factory located on the outskirts of Graz. The Austrian-built vans sometimes proudly wore a “Made in Austria” sticker on the rear hatch.
DaimlerChrysler purchased Puch’s stake in EuroStar in 1998 and later made the PT Cruiser in the factory, though production didn’t last long; Austrian-built PT Cruisers were far too expensive. The firm sold the entire operation to Magna-Steyr in 2002.
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Pontiac Aztek (2000)
Magna takes absolutely no credit for the Pontiac Aztek’s design. However, its engineers joined forces with General Motors to develop the on-demand all-wheel drive system that was available at an extra cost on the Aztek and the Buick Rendezvous it shared its platform with. Called Versatrak, the system channeled the engine’s power to the front wheels in normal driving conditions and only engaged the rear axle when additional traction was needed.
On paper, it worked a lot like the Syncro system fitted to the Volkswagen T3 decades earlier. Steyr built two assembly plants (one in Mexico and one in the United States) to supply GM with Versatek parts, including the rear axle.
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Lincoln Blackwood (2001)
Lincoln made the controversial Blackwood in Missouri alongside the Ford F-150 that it was based on. While the two trucks shared many parts under the sheet metal, Magna-Steyr re-engineered much of the running gear to make the Blackwood lower, wider and a little bit lighter than the F-150. Its rear suspension was developed by Magna, too.
Magna also designed the Blackwood’s closed cargo box and manufactured it in a Kansas City-area factory. The issues that the supplier ran into during the development process forced Lincoln to delay the Blackwood’s launch and created tensions between Magna and Ford. At the time, insiders revealed properly applying the fake wood finish on the side of the cargo box was challenging.
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BMW Hydrogen 7 (2005)
Steyr-Puch helped the European Space Agency (ESA) build fuel lines and double-walled hydrogen tanks for the Ariane rocket. The lessons it learned during the project put Magna-Steyr in the ideal position to design the tanks that BMW fitted to the experimental Hydrogen 7 it made from 2005 to 2007.
The Hydrogen 7 was an innovative prototype. While hydrogen-powered cars made in 2019 use the element to generate electricity, the 7 Series was equipped with a modified, 6.0-liter V12 engine that could burn either hydrogen or gasoline. BMW called the model production-ready but it only made 100 examples in order to gather data about the drivetrain.
The technology packed into the Hydrogen 7 never reached mass production. As of 2019, BMW has joined the ranks of automakers who believe hydrogen is more promising as a replacement for the internal combustion engine, not as a solution that can prolong its life. Its hydrogen-powered prototypes are all equipped with a fuel cell that generates electricity instead of a 12-cylinder engine.
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Chrysler 300 Touring (2005)
Magna-Steyr continued building cars for DaimlerChrysler after it took over the EuroStar project. It notably manufactured a Touring variant of the Chrysler 300 that wasn’t available on the American market. The 300 Touring was a Dodge Magnum fitted with the 300’s front end. Chrysler executives argued the brand needed a station wagon to better compete against BMW and Audi on their home turf, where wagons remained (and remain) very popular.
The Touring conversion also included suspension tweaks and European buyers could order the car with a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6 not available in the United States. The 300 Touring was made in the same facility as the four-door 300 and the second-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee, among other models.
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Saab 9-3 Convertible all-wheel drive prototype (2009)
In an unprecedented move, Saab asked Magna-Steyr to build the convertible version of the second-generation 9-3 starting in 2003. It was available only with front-wheel drive and the Swedish firm had no interest in offering the model with all-wheel drive because it argued the motorists who bought a drop-top didn’t plan to use it in the snow.
Magna-Steyr nonetheless wedded its two main areas of expertise when it made a single all-wheel drive 9-3 Convertible prototype in 2009. It could have been ahead of its time; several companies offer all-wheel drive convertibles in 2019. Saab already had significant problems to solve, and its contract with Magna-Steyr ended in 2009, so it decided expanding the 9-3 portfolio with what would have certainly been a slow-selling configuration wasn’t worth the investment. The 9-3's other body styles were available with all-wheel drive, however.
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