Our vehicles

Towards the end of the 1950s, several versions of the Saurer 6 truck were introduced to army service. The open cab version saw service with the air defense troops, mainly for towing the 4cm Bofors AA gun. In addition to the ten-man gun crew, the truck also carried ammunition and replacement barrels.

After the end of WW2, the M62 Recovery Vehicle was developed in the US to replace the Diamond T969 and Ward LaFrance M1, The Austin Western hydraulic crane installed on the chassis had a hoisting capacity of 20000 lbs, first prototypes were tested in 1952. The Continental R6602 6-cylinder gasoline engine delivered 196 HP from 9.87 liters volume, however fuel consumption was a major concern as with all of the other gasoline engines of the time (approximately one liter per kilometer). A 10-t winch in the front and a 20-t winch in the rear of the vehicle provided excellent recovery performance.

After 1956 the newly formed Austrian army was equipped with only a small number of light tanks, which had been handed over by the departing occupation armies (predominantly the American but also the Soviet forces). For road-transporting these tanks the army had to rely on American heavy transport equipment still dating back to WW2 (M19 with Diamond tractor/trailer and M25 with “Pacific” tractor/trailers), which was targeted for replacement by Austrian-produced systems by the end of the 1950s.

By the mid-1960s, the Austrian army started looking for replacements of the aging Dodge WC series which it had received in 1956 from the departing American occupation forces. High off-road capabilities were required, and the two main Austrian truck manufacturers ÖAF/Gräf&Stift and Steyr-Daimler-Puch developed two very different proposals. While ÖAF/Gräf&Stift “downsized” its heavy truck line and presented the “Husar”, Steyr-Daimler-Puch based its development on the proven and extremely offroad-capable “Haflinger”. The result was the legendary “Pinzgauer”, which won this competition and would end up as one of the backbones of Austrian military transportation for the next five decades. Both of these prototypes were presented by 1966, the ÖAF 2-90 “Husar” had a payload of 3 tons on-road and 2 tons off-road, which was slightly higher than that of the “Pinzgauer”, however the extreme off-road capabilities of the “Pinzgauer’s” central tube frame design left no question which system would be adopted by the army. As ÖAF had performed a complete development for this competition, it was decided to also acquire 136 “Husars” to compensate them for their development effort. These “Husars” saw service with the communication battalions.