Introducing the automobile to Austria-Hungary

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We're not sure how much our Austrian and Hungarian readers know about the motoring past of their respective nations, but most people will know very little about it except that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated while travelling in a Gräf & Stift. We know a bit more, of course, and can think of Austro-Daimler and Lohner-Porsche, the origins of which transport us back to 1898.

We couldn't have told you what the first car ever to appear in Austria-Hungary was, but it's only natural that it should have been a Benz, and so it was. Historians have, for many years, accepted an article published by the Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung (General Automobile Newspaper) in 1911 entitled 'The Oldest Automobile in Austria-Hungary' which concluded that it was a Benz purchased in March 1893 by Eugen von Zardetti, a Swiss painter then domiciled in Austria.

Thus was the 'fact' established for 111 years until Dr. Christian Klösch, a researcher at the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology, stumbled upon an interesting document in the library last year. Perusing an edition of the Neuen Wiener Abendblatt (New Viennese Evening Paper) dated 3rd November 1892, he discovered a passage about 'the first automobile journey of a carriage without horses', naming the pioneering motorist as Julius Jalowetz, a Viennese chemist who travelled all the way to Mannheim to buy his car from Karl Benz directly. When Klösch sought more information, Mercedes-Benz helpfully provided him with a copy of a brochure from early 1893 in which the Benz Patent-Motor-Wagen was praised by Jalowetz.

The brochure also contained a review from Béla Hatschek, an optician in Budapest who later became a maker of false eyes. Hatschek's review, dated 30th January 1893, read: 'It is with great pleasure that I inform you that the "Benz" Patent-Motor-Wagen I purchased has been working flawlessly to my complete satisfaction to this day. I need the car for my trips in Budapest and the surrounding area, and it serves me very well. It will really please me if you secure more business through my recommendation, as I save a great deal on my previous fiacre expenses.'

With this new lead, Klösch did further digging and ultimately discovered from the Budapest City Archives that Hatschek had been awarded a permit for motor-car use on 26th November 1892. Hatschek's name, incidentally, was not unknown to motoring historians. In 1895, the Royal Automobile Club of Hungary published a photograph in its anniversary yearbook of him seated aboard his new Benz Velo in 1895.

There we have it - a major discovery which we hope will do a lot to encourage interest in early horseless carriages in Austria and Hungary. If you live in either of those countries and are the owner of a Victorian car, why not meet with some like-minded enthusiasts and stage a little road run to commemorate the pioneering efforts of Jalowetz and Hatschek?

Words: Zack Stiling; pictures: CE Auto Classic

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