FM Tarbuk & Co.
FM Tarbuk & Co. , later Tarbuk Cars & Cie. was an Austrian vehicle trade and workshop company .
Company history
The company was founded in Vienna in 1920 by the officer Fritz Tarbuk , who initially started importing automobiles as part of the Prowodnik Österreichisch-Ungarische Import-Gesellschaft mbH founded in 1910 by his father-in-law A. Librowicz. In 1920, the general agency of Automobiles Mathis Strasbourg was taken over and in 1926 the company was finally recorded as FM Tarbuk & Co. In 1928 Tarbuk took over the general agency for Horch, Zwickau.
In 1938, the company AUTEG Automobilhandels- und Reparatursgesellschaft mbH , founded by Peter Pflaum in 1932, was taken over. In 1946 Peter Pflaum joined FM Tarbuk & Co. as a partner . Before the Second World War , the general agency for the branch brands DKW , Horch , Audi and Wanderer of the German Auto Union AG as well as Mathis and the commercial vehicle manufacturers Magirus , Vomag and Manderbach were taken over for Austria with the company headquarters in Vienna I. Opernring 11, and the repair shop Vienna X. Davidgasse 90. In the 1930s , Tarbuk expanded his car dealership with workshops in western Austria and Slovakia .
During the Second World War, the Tarbuk large workshops in Vienna and Bratislava worked for the German Wehrmacht.
During the gasoline shortage in World War II, FM Tarbuk & Co. was a leader in converting vehicles to wood gasifiers based on the patent of the Alsatian inventor Georges Imbert .
After the Second World War, FM Tarbuk & Co. took over the general agency for 23 automobile and vehicle manufacturers in Austria, including Škoda , Chrysler , Plymouth , Datsun / Nissan , Rover , Land Rover and Jaguar . After the Austro-Tatra company lost the general agency for Tatra vehicles from Czechoslovakia, Tarbuk took over this agency in 1948.
Starting in 1950, the company built up its market leadership as a dealer and workshop for 48 brands in the automotive, commercial vehicle, two-wheeler, construction machinery and agricultural machinery industries in Austria and neighboring countries with a number of branches and trading companies, for example Fiat , Lancia , Alfa Romeo , Ford , Volvo , Subaru , Mazda , Suzuki , Opel , Chevrolet , Messerschmitt - Fendt , Harley-Davidson .
Since the death of the company founder in 1976, the company has been continued by descendants of the founder's family, Tarbuk and later partner Pflaum. In 1978 the company received the state award and has since been allowed to use the federal coat of arms in business transactions. The company expanded rapidly until the end of the 1980s, eventually employing 1,000 people and counting among the 60 companies with the highest turnover in Austria. In 1992 the group was renamed Tarbuk AG under the leadership of Mario Seiller-Tarbuk .
In the following years, structural changes in the import business, mainly caused by Austria's accession to the EU, and the crisis of the import brands, above all Nissan, created problems for the Tarbuk Group. 1995 and 1996 were the first years in which the group suffered operational losses (and the trend was rising). Therefore, from 1997 onwards, the owners decided to restructure the group with a new board headed by Norbert Frömmer. An austerity program had an impact and profits were made again from 1997 to 2000. The decline of the group began with the termination of the import contracts by Nissan, Saab and Jaguar in 2001. Attempts to make up for the loss of the import business by building up a two-wheeler brand (takeover of BLM) and increased Internet activities (Motorline sales portal, cooperation with YLine ) are unsuccessful. Even the takeover of imports from Ford and Jaguar in Croatia and a Ford dealer in Baden-Württemberg could not stop the decline.
In 2003 - the company was on the verge of insolvency - the restructuring engineer Erhard Grossnigg was finally brought into the company as a partner.
Until 2007, a number of car dealerships and brand workshops in Vienna (Jaguar, Nissan, Saab, Suzuki), Salzburg (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Jaguar, Land Rover), Graz (Opel, Chevrolet, Saab) and in Württemberg (Ford, Volvo), the import and wholesale (MG Rover) as well as the agricultural machinery trade (Deutz Fahr Austria, Austro Diesel) will be economically reorganized and kept in smaller structures.
In 2007–2009, under the direction of the renovator Erhard F. Grossnig, he withdrew from the automotive business. All operational companies in Salzburg (Autoitalia), Vienna (Tarbuk Wien Süd, Saab Wien Oberlaa) as well as the Autozentrum Puntigam in Graz ( TPG Autohandels und Reparatur GmbH ), Tarbuk agricultural, construction and industrial machines were given up, i.e. H. liquidated or given to employees.
Web links
- History of the Tarbuk company in Auto & Wirtschaft (09/2007) ( Memento from February 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Central sheet for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1910, page 503 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 503 )
- ↑ Central sheet for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1926, page 121 (direct link via ZEDHIA on page 121 )
- ↑ Zentralblatt for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1932, page 373 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 373 )
- ↑ Central sheet for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1946, page 333 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 333 )