Great story – in short,”mobility begins in the mind”: That’s what I have learned from the Lohner family history which began in Vienna in 1821. The previously unknown Heinrich Lohner, who, coming from a family of coachbuilders in Mayen, Alsace, fled from Napoleon, into whose army he should have enlisted, to the then peaceful, prosperous Vienna.
So, a highly personal mobility, which was characterized by an objective analysis of the situation and the courage to make a completely new start. Thus, in Vienna, the Lohnner family rose to become the greatest coach builders of the Imperial Danube monarchy.
In 1900, the first electric car in the world, the Lohner-Porsche, was built. Going beyond this, they successfully got involved in aircraft constructionft successfully – Lohner became the biggest propeller manufacturers. They began with electric trolley buses and developed trams.
Right out of the blue, in 1948 the idea came to my grandfather to build scooters, and these were presented to the public a year later. Becoming a legend among these were the Lohner Sissy, the first two-seater moped, and the L125 scooter.
In 2010, I succeeded in re-establishing the Lohner factory, after a 40-year break in our family tradition of vehicle building. It was an experiment to summon up the confidence to tackle such a project, for which I, as an IT man, had absolutely no previous experience. It was probably my ancestors who have inspired me ‘just to have a go’ at building something that looked to the future.
Now these projects are ready for the market: the Lohner Stroler, with which we are establishing a new class of vehicle. And the LEA, an electric scooter, an urban cruiser in a class of its own.