Alexander Leutner & Co.

The Alexander Leutner & Co. (full name in Russian. Велосипедная фабрика " Россия " Александра Лейтнера и Ко, bicycle factory " Rossiya" Alexander Leutner & Co.) was the first manufacturer of bicycles and motorcycles in the Russian Empire. The company also built other cars and was until 1915 in Riga.

History

The company was originally founded by the German Baltic businessman Alexander Leutner ( 1864-1923 ). In 1896 or 1897 it became a limited company whose shares of Leutner, two Rigans merchants and three professors of the Riga Polytechnic were held.

Over time, the A. Leutner & Co. grew to the largest bicycle manufacturer in the Russian Empire. 1907, the annual output was at 5,000 bicycles.

The company had to increase 130 employees who were out with Taylorist methods productivity.

In 1915 the now war-related factory was dismantled and reconstructed in Kharkov in Ukraine again in order to protect them from the clutches of the army of the German Empire.

Production

A. Leutner & Co. produced under the brand name " Rossiya" bikes under the name Rossiya / Fafnir motor - bikes and motorcycles. The motors innovations came from the German manufacturer Fafnir. As of 1907, the company also created a series of three-wheelers and automobiles, as of 1912, the first truck rolled off the assembly line. Many of these vehicles emerged as licensed replicas of foreign brands, such as Clément- Bayard, Cudell, De Dion -Bouton, Fafnir, Hildebrand and Wolf Müller, Ultra-Mobile and Werner.

During the First World War and firearms were part of the product range.