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44-626: It was founded in the 19th century by Jacob Lohner as Lohner-Werke or simply Lohner as a luxury coachbuilding firm. Around 1900 the firm produced electric-cars, being the first in Austria to do so; the cars were designed by Ferdinand Porsche . During the early 1900s the firm manufactured aircraft, after World War I the company manufactured trams, and after World War II the company began manufacturing scooters and mopeds using engines from Rotax , with which it merged in 1959, forming Lohner Rotax . In 1970 Canadian firm Bombardier Transportation acquired

88-576: A 798 cc parallel twin engine with and for BMW, which was built from 2006 to 2020. Brands using Rotax engines include: As of 2020, all Sea-Doo brand personal watercraft from Bombardier Recreational Products are equipped with four-stroke, supercharged and normally aspirated, three-cylinder Rotax engines of the Advanced Combustion Efficiency (ACE) series. Can-Am Off-Road vehicles from Bombardier Recreational Products are equipped with Rotax engines. The company introduced

132-501: A chassis. The same body design might then be adjusted to suit different brands of chassis. Examples include Salmons & Sons ' Tickford bodies with a patent device to raise or lower a convertible's roof, first used on their 19th-century carriages, or Wingham convertible bodies by Martin Walter . Separate coachbuilt bodies became obsolete when vehicle manufacturers found they could no longer meet their customers' demands by relying on

176-760: A coarser kind. From the beginning of the automobile industry manufacturers offered complete cars assembled in their own factories commonly using entire bodies made by specialist people using different skills. Soon after the start of the twentieth century mass production coachbuilders developed such as Mulliners or Pressed Steel in Great Britain, Fisher Body , Budd , Briggs in the U. S., or Ambi-Budd in Germany. Many other big businesses remain involved. Many coachbuilt chassis would come with all lights, standard instruments and their panel, engine cover, mudguards and running boards and spare wheel(s) There remained

220-475: A controlling share in the company and renamed it Bombardier-Rotax GmbH . Under Bombardier the company became Bombardier Wien Schienenfahrzeuge (BWS), later Bombardier Transportation Austria GmbH . It relocated to a specialised factory in 2007, and now produces only trams. In 1821 German Heinrich Lohner (1786–1855) established a workshop in Vienna, Austria, establishing himself as a wagonmaster. In 1823 he formed

264-557: A four-stroke, four-cylinder, engine: the Rotax 912 , with versions eventually ranging from 80 to over 100 horsepower, followed by a turbocharged 115 horsepower Rotax 914 . Rotax four-stroke engines differ from conventional four-stroke aircraft engines by their unusually small displacement for the amount of horsepower -- compensated for by higher than normal rotational speed (over 5,000 rpm). To reduce propeller-shaft speeds to normal aircraft propeller rotational speeds, (around 2300-2400 rpm)

308-404: A joint venture with master saddlemaker ( Sattlermeister ) Ludwig Laurenzi, Laurenzi & Lohner . After the death of Ludwig Laurenzi in 1863 the company became Jacob Lohner & Co. under Heinrich Lohner's son Jacob Lohner (1821–92). Jacob Lohner transformed his father's craft business into a factory eventually manufacturing between 300 and 500 vehicles per year. The company supplied vehicles to

352-524: A line of motorcycles starting in 1971, powered by Rotax engines. The Can-Am motorcycle operation was outsourced to Armstrong-CCM Motorcycles in 1983, with production ending in 1987. Can-Am resumed motorcycle production with a series of on-road three-wheel motorcycles, starting with the Spyder , using Rotax engines. As of 2020, there are three models: the Ryker uses the 2-cylinder 600 ACE and 3-cylinder 900 ACE,

396-471: A manufacturer, often for luxury or sports cars. Many manufacturers such as Ferrari outsourced all bodywork to coachbuilders such as Pininfarina and Scaglietti . Coachbuilders also made custom bodies for individual customers. The coachbuilder craftsmen who might once have built bespoke or custom bodies continue to build bodies for short runs of specialized commercial vehicles such as luxury motor coaches or recreational vehicles or motor-home bodied upon

440-443: A market for bodies to fit low production, short-run and luxury cars. Custom or bespoke bodies were made and fitted to another manufacturer's rolling chassis by the craftsmen who had previously built bodies for horse-drawn carriages. Bespoke bodies are made of hand-shaped sheet metal, often aluminum alloy. Pressed or hand-shaped the metal panels were fastened to a wooden frame of particularly light but strong types of wood. Later many of

484-524: A number of vehicles. The Lohner Porsche chaise was powered by batteries, with two front wheel electric motors mounted in the wheel hubs. One of his electric vehicles was a popular exhibit at the Exposition Universelle (Paris world fair, 1900). Porsche later developed petrol-engined cars with electric transmissions, some versions of which had additional batteries. Vehicles using the petrol electric transmission with hub motors were sold to

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528-457: A pilot's license). Two-stroke Rotax model numbers approximated the engine's displacement (in cubic centimeters), and the first two digits (from the 277, on) are very roughly similar to the engine's horsepower (e.g.: The Rotax 447 engine displaces 437 cc, and is rated at 40 hp). Subsequent evolutions of the early designs included the two-cylinder, two-stroke Rotax 377 , Rotax 447 , and Rotax 503 , all in production by 1985 (the last of these,

572-649: A rolling chassis provided by an independent manufacturer. A 'conversion' is built inside an existing vehicle body. Many renowned automotive coachbuilders are based in Italy and France . In the Italian language , a coachbuilding company is called a carrozzeria , while in the French language it is called a carrosserie . A British trade association the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers

616-411: A shell or even reduced to an air intake, was or held the visual element identifying the chassis' brand. To let car manufacturers maintain some level of control over the final product their warranties could be voided if coachbuilders fitted unapproved bodies. As well as bespoke bodies the same coachbuilders also made short runs of more-or-less identical bodies to the order of dealers or the manufacturer of

660-504: A simple separate chassis (on which a custom or bespoke body could be built) mounted on leaf springs on beam axles . Unibody or monocoque combined chassis and body structures became standardised during the middle years of the 20th century to provide the rigidity required by improved suspension systems without incurring the heavy weight, and consequent fuel penalty of a truly rigid separate chassis. The improved more supple suspension systems gave vehicles better road-holding and much improved

704-442: Is of paramount importance. The advent of unibody construction, where the car body is unified with and structurally integral to the chassis, made custom coachbuilding uneconomic. Many coachbuilders closed down, were bought by manufacturers, or changed their core business to other activities: Rotax Rotax is the brand name for a range of internal combustion engines developed and manufactured by

748-497: Is the body of an automobile , bus , horse-drawn carriage , or railway carriage . The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs . A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" ( British English ) or "custom body" ( American English ). Prior to the popularization of unibody construction in the 1960s, there were many independent coachbuilders who built bodies on chassis provided by

792-741: The Austrian company BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (until 2016 BRP-Powertrain GmbH & Co. KG), in turn owned by the Canadian Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). Under the Rotax brand, the company is one of the world's largest producers of light piston engines. Rotax four-stroke and advanced two-stroke engines are used in a wide variety of small land, sea and airborne vehicles. Bombardier Recreational Products use them in their own range of such vehicles. Since

836-791: The Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War , and a series of flying-boat patrol aircraft for the Navy, which were later copied by the Italian Macchi aviation firm for the Italian military in World War I. Lohner also produced aircraft for the budding Spanish Air Force . After World War I the company abandoned aircraft production, and shifted its production to the manufacturing of trams , and coachbodies. During

880-658: The Bugatti Type 57 , Cadillac V-16 , Packard Twelve , Ferrari 250 , Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8 , Hispano-Suiza J12 , and all Rolls-Royces produced before World War II. Delahaye had no in-house coachworks, so all its chassis were bodied by independents, who created their designs on the Type 135. For the Delahaye , most were bodied by Chapron , Labourdette, Franay , Saoutchik , Figoni et Falaschi , or Pennock . The practice continued after World War II waning dramatically in

924-664: The Great Depression the factory in Floridsdorf shut down. During the Anschluss with Germany, Lohner produced aircraft wings. The plant was damaged in 1944, and post World War II the company was in public administration until 1949 when it was returned to the control of the Lohner family. In 1949 Lohner began manufacturing scooters and mopeds which were designed by Otto Kauba , a production range that would include

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968-689: The Rotax Max for karting in 1998, and started organizing the Rotax Max Challenge in 2000. Rotax engines designed specifically for light aircraft include both four-stroke and two-stroke models. Current models are: Historical models no longer in production include: The Rotax MAX engine karting engine is a two-stroke engine series, launched in 1997. The company also produces unbranded engines, parts and complete powertrains for original equipment manufacturers (OEM). Uses include motor bikes and scooters, with complete engines including

1012-468: The 1950s and 1960s. Rolls-Royce debuted its first unibody model, their Silver Shadow , in 1965. Independent coachbuilders survived for a time after the mid-20th century, making bodies for the chassis produced by low-production companies such as Rolls-Royce , Ferrari , and Bentley . Producing body dies is extremely expensive (a single door die can run to US$ 40,000), which is usually only considered practical when large numbers are involved—though that

1056-524: The 1990s, Rotax has been the world's dominant supplier of engines for ultralight aircraft and light sport aircraft, and a major producer of engines for other light aircraft. The company was founded in 1920 in Dresden , Germany, as ROTAX-WERK AG. In 1930, it was taken over by Fichtel & Sachs and transferred its operations to Schweinfurt , Germany. Operations were moved to Wels , Austria in 1943, and finally to Gunskirchen , Austria in 1947. In 1959,

1100-640: The 503, was discontinued in 2010-2011, by then the most popular engine it its class, and still widely used as of 2023). Later two-stroke designs included the Rotax 532 (circa 1984) and Rotax 582 , both of which augmented the air-cooling with liquid-cooled cylinder heads. Most Rotax two-stroke engines were rated, recommended, or reported with a TBO (time between overhauls) of about 150-300 hours (compared to 1200-2000 hours for government-certified, conventional, four-stroke, light aircraft engines), though later models improved upon that some. Moving towards more demanding aircraft applications, Rotax, by 1989, developed

1144-494: The Austrian Army, and Bombardier Ski-Doos which were produced under license from 1966 to 1970. In 1970 the company was acquired by Bombardier purchased a majority of shares in the company and renamed it Bombardier-Rotax GmbH . Reorganized later as a division of Bombardier-Rotax named Bombardier Wien Schienenfahrzeuge (BWS). After Bombardier's acquisition of Adtranz in 2001, the company's production plan designated

1188-631: The German army and to the Viennese fire brigade. Porsche left the Lohner company in 1905, and joined Daimler affiliate company Österreichische Daimler Motoren Commanditgesellschaft Bierenz Fischer & Co. ; vehicles were later built using the Lohner Porsche system under the Mercedes brand of Daimler. In 1909, the firm undertook aircraft manufacture, producing reconnaissance aircraft for

1232-421: The Rotax 912 family had the lowest rate of failure of the six most common lines of engines used in registered Experimental/Amateur-Built (E/A-B) aircraft. By 2014, Rotax had produced and sold 50,000 of 912/914 four-stroke engines. Later models increased horsepower, with several variants of the 912 family, and a new 135-horsepower Rotax 915 iS . The Rotax four-stroke aircraft engine line immediately dominated

1276-536: The Spyder F3 and the Spyder RT use the 3-cylinder 1330 ACE. 1000 V-twin 5sp. In the motorcycle world Rotax are particularly known for their single-cylinder engines of comparatively small to medium displacement. Several major motorbike manufacturers, who are otherwise renowned for their proprietary but bigger engines, use Rotax engines in their smaller models. As an example of larger displacements, Rotax developed

1320-545: The Vienna works for carbody production, specialising in Light rail vehicles (LRV). The company moved to a new plant in the Donaustadt district of Vienna in 2007. As of 2012 the company operates as Bombardier Transportation Austria GmbH & Co. KG , and manufactures trams. Coachbuilding A coachbuilder or body-maker is a person or company who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. Coachwork

1364-533: The courts of the royal houses of Norway, Sweden, and Romania, as well as to the Austrian emperor; the company received the distinction k.u.k. Hofwagenlieferant ("Royal carriagemakers "). In 1887 Jacob Lohner's son Ludwig Lohner (1858–1925) took over the company. He decided that self-powered cars were the future, initially working with Béla Egger , and in 1898 hiring Ferdinand Porsche (from Béla Egger 's electricity company). During his employment Porsche designed

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1408-424: The curved woodwork alone called for considerable skill. Making the iron axles, springs and other metal used was the work of the “coach-smith,” one of the most highly paid classes of London workmen. The coating of the interior of the coach with leather and painting, trimming, and decorating the exterior called for specialist tradesmen with a high degree of skill. Building carts and wagons required similar skills, but of

1452-508: The early 1980s, with a pair of single-cylinder, 9.5-horsepower Rotax 185s powering the single-seat Lazair ultralight by 1982. Soon, the 26-horsepower, single-cylinder Rotax 277 became the most widely used engine powering U.S. ultralight aircraft (and remains, for many, the only Rotax engine they can use to adequately power the aircraft and still remain within the FAA -mandated weight limits for ultralight aircraft which can be operated without

1496-522: The emerging category of U.S.-certified " Light Sport Aircraft " (LSAs), powering most of them. One general aviation industry media reporter found that 70-80% of the 66,000 aircraft he'd identified, worldwide, used Rotax four-stroke engines. The 912/914/915 series also powers larger certified aircraft, including the Diamond Katana , and the twin-engined Tecnam P2006T and Leza/ Lockwood Aircam . The Can-Am division of Bombardier Inc. developed

1540-498: The engines use a reduction gearbox . They are also designed to accept motor spirit , with up to 10% ethanol content. These engines were initially given a 600-hour TBO, less than traditional light aircraft engines. But operational experience and modifications to address specific reliability issues over time gradually extended the TBO to 2,000 hours. An independent 2022 statistical study of U.S. government accident data found that

1584-530: The light aircraft class, in 1998 Rotax outsold all other aero engine manufacturers combined. Their four-stroke engines powered most U.S.-certified light sport aircraft when they first appeared around 2004. Over two decades later, Rotax engines remain the most popular line of engines for light sport and ultralight aircraft, and the second-most-popular (after Lycoming Engines ) for U.S. Experimental / Amateur-Built (E/A-B) aircraft. Rotax air-cooled, two-stroke engines began appearing on ultralight aircraft in

1628-577: The majority of Rotax shares were taken over by the Vienna-based Lohner-Werke , a manufacturer of car and railway wagon bodies. In 1970, Lohner-Rotax was bought by the Canadian Bombardier Inc. The former Bombardier branch, Bombardier Recreational Products, now an independent company, uses Rotax engines in its ground vehicles, personal water craft , and snowmobiles . The original application for Rotax engines

1672-734: The more important structural features of the bespoke or custom body such as A, B and C pillars were cast alloy components. Some bodies such as those entirely alloy bodies fitted to some Pierce-Arrow cars contained little or no wood, and were mounted on a conventional steel chassis. The car manufacturer would offer for sale a chassis frame , drivetrain (consisting of an engine, gearbox, differential, axles, and wheels), brakes, suspension, steering system, lighting system, spare wheel(s), front and rear mudguards (vulnerable and so made of pressed steel for strength and easy repair) and (later) bumpers, scuttle (firewall) and dashboard . The very easily damaged honeycomb radiator , later enclosed and protected by

1716-441: The ride experienced by passengers. Larger car dealers or distributors would commonly preorder stock chassis and the bodies they thought most likely to sell and order them for sale off their showroom floor. All luxury vehicles during the automobile's Golden Era before World War II were available as chassis only. For example, when Duesenberg introduced their Model J, it was offered as chassis only, for $ 8,500. Other examples include

1760-515: The trade dealt with the timber, iron, leather, brass and other materials used in their construction. And there were many minor specialists with each of these categories. The “body-makers” produced the body or vehicle itself, while the “carriage-makers” made the stronger timbers beneath and around the body. The timbers used included ash, beech, elm, oak, mahogany, cedar, pine, birch and larch. The tools and processes used were similar to those used in cabinet-making, plus other specific to coach-making. Making

1804-521: The well-known of which was the Lohner L125 . The scooter range included popular models such as the Sissy , L125 and L98, but sales were eventually reduced due to the popularity of the motorcar. Tram production also resumed post World War II. In 1959, the Lohner factory merged with Rotax which had supplied engines for its motorscooters. During the 1960s contracts included hay-loaders, gun carriages for

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1848-402: Was Ski-Doo snowmobiles from Bombardier Recreational Products including two-stroke and four-stroke, turbocharged and naturally aspirated, two- and three-cylinder models. Rotax is one of the world's principal suppliers of aircraft engines for ultralight aircraft , light aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles . Between 1985 and 1995, 60,000 Rotax engines were sold for aircraft propulsion. In

1892-536: Was incorporated in 1630. Some British coachmaking firms operating in the 20th century were established even earlier. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I , Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne 's Guards. Brewster , the oldest in the U.S., was formed in 1810. Coach-building had reached a high degree of specialization in Britain by the middle of the 19th century. Separate branches of

1936-535: Was the path taken by Rolls-Royce and Bentley after 1945 for their own in-house production. Because dies for pressing metal panels are so costly, from the mid 20th century, many vehicles, most notably the Chevrolet Corvette , were clothed with large panels of fiberglass -reinforced resin, which only require inexpensive molds. Glass has since been replaced by more sophisticated materials, if necessary hand-formed. Generally, these replace metal only where weight

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