Austria as top automobile nation

Having Austria as one of europes top automobile industry. With the companies being: Steyr (should be Automobile giant like VW), Austro Daimler, Puch, Lohner and ÖAF. With Puch being the smallest of the three, and concentrates on Motorcycles, ATVs and Snowmobiles or Offroad Vehicles. ÖAF is basicly like OTL Magna Steyr, and builds Cars for other companies, they also make expensive luxury cars on their own, when they bought the Gräf&Stift brand.
How would this be possible ? automobile industry ? maybe the governerment supporting the Automobile industry in a crisis ? Expanding Austrian cars in Asia/America ?

NOTE: It doesnt have to be OTL Austria, it can also be a surving Austria-Hungary or a Greater Germany, however the Austrian companies should be dominating.
 
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Anderman

Donor
Well if this Austria is Austria-Hungary then you have to add Skoda to your list of brands/companies.
 
I imagine that, without a surviving Austria-Hungary or at least an Austria that still holds most of Cisleithania, the best they could get to would be something along the lines of Sweden. Austria is probably just too small otherwise.
 

Deleted member 1487

Having Austria as one of europes top automobile industry. With the companies being: Steyr (should be Automobile giant like VW), Austro Daimler, Puch, Lohner and ÖAF. With Puch being the smallest of the three, and concentrates on Motorcycles, ATVs and Snowmobiles or Offroad Vehicles. ÖAF is basicly like OTL Magna Steyr, and builds Cars for other companies, they also make expensive luxury cars on their own, when they bought the Gräf&Stift brand.
How would this be possible ? automobile industry ? maybe the governerment supporting the Automobile industry in a crisis ? Expanding Austrian cars in Asia/America ?

NOTE: It doesnt have to be OTL Austria, it can also be a surving Austria-Hungary or a Greater Germany, however the Austrian companies should be dominating.
What time frame are we talking about? Without the World War Germany is the nation that is set to have Europe's largest automobile output and there is no conceivable way for the Germans to be beat by the Austro-Hungarians short of Germany being annexed into Austria somehow. Russia is set to boom and become a European China in the 1930's without a world war.
Austria though had some serious advanced industry in Austria proper and Bohemia. There was major potential there that was never realized under the Habsburgs and for a few changes Austria could have been one of the top manufacturing centers of Europe, including in automotive industry output.


Austria though could get in the top three if the following happens:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=186559
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_von_Koerber
http://books.google.com/books?id=EJ...CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=koerber canals&f=false

Have Koeber's economic plan actually be implemented in 1907. It would cause a massive boost to the economic development of Austria and could preempt WW1.

WW1 would have to not happen for Austria to economically develop.
These two things together would help get Austria on track to jump on the automobile bandwagon in the 1930's and 1940's. Skoda and Daimler would be major manufacturers for trucks and cars for the army initially and eventually for consumers. Austria had the fastest growing economy in Europe right before WW1 and if the war is avoided, coupled with Koerber's plan being carried out, Austria would grow by leaps and bounds in the 1920's as the plan finishes and the push for greater government involvement in infrastructure projects spills into Hungary and beyond. Galicia had oil and Romania was getting big in the oil market, not to mention Russia having tons of oil. Strengthen economic ties by opening Austrian canals to Russia raw materials and Austria's consumer economy is going to explode, as it was the third largest population in Europe and was growing quicker than Germany. It was also the second biggest nation in Europe by square miles and had lots of potential to increase its agriculture output by adopting tractors and modernizing its agriculture.

In fact the market for tractors in Galicia and Hungary are going to be a massive factor in developing an automotive industry in Austria. The first boost to the fledgling automobile manufacture would be the need for an Austrian Caterpillar; the army would need the Empire to massively reform before it could stimulate demand by purchasing lots of trucks. I think this would come in 1917 if Franz Ferdinand is alive and set to take the throne, because he was determined to break the back of the Hungarian nobility by ordering universal manhood suffrage in Hungary, which would mean that the 5% of the population that could vote would not long have a lock on domestic and Empire politics/spending. The violence would be short because half of the population of Hungary wouldn't fight for the Magyar nobility, nor would over 2/3rd's of the Empire's military, as it was mostly Austrian and hostile to Hungary, even the Hungarian officers!

So by the 1920's Austro-Hungarian military and agriculture demands for trucks and tractors would be a huge boost to the economy and the automotive industry. Russia would still dwarf Austria in industrial output because of its shear size, access to raw materials and labor, and available capital. Germany too would produce too much for Austria to overtake her.
France though was stagnant in population and her economy was much larger in 1914 than Austria, but it wasn't growing really and Russia was helping sucking up her investment capital.

Britain would be an interesting wild card. OTL she was Austria's 2nd largest trade partner, though far behind Germany. I doubt she would be that large in manufacturing by the 1950's if Austria-Hungary was still around (and probably much larger economically), but had Europe's largest supply of investment capital by far. In 1914 Austria wasn't on Britain's radar, but if her economy started to pick up, then British money would start flowing in as would the interest in starting to pry her away from Germany politically. Germany was Austria's number 1 investor, but Germany did not have nearly as much investment capital as Britain and in 1914 most of German capital was already committed, while Britain was still pretty liquid.

So I could well see the British getting into the Austrian economy and helping finance her economic boom in the late 1910's and 1920's. This could have an interesting effect of politics later on.

So as a long-winded answer to your question WW1 and conservative economic policies doomed Austria, though there was tremendous potential for expansion IOTL.

Have the Austrian bureaucracy follow through with pre-war infrastructure plans instead of sabotaging them and have WW1 be avoided. Austria's future is very bright then. The Hungarian issue would be solved by Franz Ferdinand, which would open up the coffers to military spending, which means greater motorization, as would the demand for tractors for agriculture. The resulting displaced farm workers would mean more labor for factories and greater urbanization in Austria-Hungary. By the 1940's, provided there is no war in Europe, Austria-Hungary is still muddling on politically and is probably in some debt nationally, but would be a major European economy on the verge of passing up France economically because of the expansion of her industry and the increases in population. The French would be far richer per capita, but Austria-Hungary as a whole would be wealthier after a long awaited economic boom period in the late 1910's and 1920's, which would probably carry through the hard times of the 1930's if the boom-bust cycle is followed into the 1940's and further expansion.

Austrian auto manufacture would be substantial, though probably less luxury, though certainly some, and more mass manufacturing for export to the Balkans, Russia, Italy, and probably France, which IMHO would focus more on luxury goods to corner that market (IIRC the French auto industry was on that path in 1914).
 
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