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Gräf & Stift 1900-1938 - Front-wheel drive pioneer

Name: Gräf & Stift 28/32 PS 1910
Brand: Gräf & Stift

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Created in 2011

Text:

Roger Gloor

Photos:

Archiv/Pressematerial Retro Classics Stuttgart

Archiv

Archiv/Pressematerial Retro Classics Stuttgart

Archiv

Gräf & Stift Kaiserwagen - on display in the special exhibition "Austria's forgotten automobile brands" at Retro Classics in Stuttgart in March 2013

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Summary

There were around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of them have disappeared. Gräf und Stift is also one of them. Carl Gräf probably designed the first car with front-wheel drive using cardan shafts. Later, the Gräf brothers and their partner Wilhelm Stift devoted themselves to rear-wheel drive cars and produced cars for emperors and archdukes...

Estimated reading time: 3min

Preview (beginning of the article)

In 1896, Carl Gräf founded a locksmith's shop in Vienna and, together with his brothers Franz and Heinrich, devoted himself to the now popular bicycle and soon also to motorcycles and automobiles. In 1898, together with Heinrich Pösendeiner, he designed what was probably the first car with front-wheel drive using cardan shafts. At the time, it was considered logical: front wheels for steering, rear wheels for drive and brakes. The Gräf small car with a De-Dion-Bouton single-cylinder engine, completed in 1900, received the imperial and royal patent certificate "for a drive device for the steering wheels of automobiles".

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