Multicar
Encyclopedia
Waltershausen
Waltershausen is a city in the district of Gotha, Thuringia, Germany.The town has a population of 11475 .-Sister cities: Bruay-sur-l'Escaut, France Korbach, Germany Wolbrom, Poland Hanau, Germany -External links:*...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Multicar is the only brand that has survived from the East German vehicle industry.
History
In 1920 the present company was founded as the ADE works (named after Arthur Ade). It produced agricultural equipment, trailers and clutches. After the Second World War, production was resumed in 1946 under the name "Gerätebau Waltershausen".In 1948 the company was renamed VEB Fahrzeugwerk Waltershausen, a name it retained until its privatization in 1991. In 1956 production began on the DK 3 diesel cart (also known as the Diesel Ant, ants being hard-working). This had been developed in the Ludwigsfelde works and was actually an Electrocar
Electrocar
Electrocar, Electrocart is an electric vehicle, typically a small cart with an electrical driving gear and a storage battery.In the United Kingdom, similar small electric vehicles were known as electric drays....
with a diesel engine. Two years later, the first Multicar, the M 21, was produced. By 1964, 14,000 units had left the factory in Waltershausen. For the following ten years the M22 left the production line, with 42,500 vehicles built. Until 1978, its successor, the M24, was produced with 25,600 vehicles leaving the factory, 48% of which were exported. The M25 was a major export; 70% went to the Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
states and the West. Its production was continued in 1991 with the Modell 91, which had a VW engine. Approximately 100,000 units were produced.
In 1991, the state-owned factory was privatized, becoming Hako-Werke GmbH (Hako Works, Hako being short for Hans Koch & Son). The crucial driving force behind the turnaround - and after reunification - was the former director of materials management at Multicar, Manfred Windus, who was honored in 1993 as manager of the year. From 1993 to 2009, the M26 was produced. In 1998 Hako-Werke bought the shares held by Deutsche Beteiligungsgesellschaft (an equity fund) and thus became the majority shareholder. The products TREMO and UX100 were moved to Waltershausen. In 2001 production began on a new series, FUMO (short for FUnction and MObility). Since 2004, in cooperation with Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, the Specialty Vehicle Mungo
Mungo ESK
The Mungo ESK is an air-transportable, armoured multirole transport vehicle of the German Army for its Airmobile Operations Division and Division Special Operations....
has been produced for use in the Bundeswehr
Bundeswehr
The Bundeswehr consists of the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities...
. The manager Walter Botschatzki was awarded the Order of Merit First Class in 2005 by the German Federal President Horst Köhler
Horst Köhler
Horst Köhler is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. He was President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU and the CSU, and the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Assembly on...
.
The current products M27, FUMO and the particularly narrow TREMO Carrier are equipped with engines that meet all of the Euro-5 emission standards
European emission standards
European emission standards define the acceptable limits for exhaust emissions of new vehicles sold in EU member states. The emission standards are defined in a series of European Union directives staging the progressive introduction of increasingly stringent standards.Currently, emissions of...
. Currently, seven vehicles are produced a day.