KRAMMER  |  1923-29  |  Austria  :

Krammer was the work of one Viennese craftsman rather than a factory. The marque was built by the Mechanische Werkstätten Rudolf Krammer in Vienna, active from 1923 to 1929, producing high-quality bespoke motorcycles fitted with Persch, Villiers, Anzani and MAG engines, and probably others besides. The workshop sat in the Marchettigasse in the sixth district of the city, and Krammer was not only a repairer but an accomplished frame-builder who made his own lugs, hubs and complete forks.

The path into motorcycle manufacture ran through a series of bought-in power units. Krammer first made his name in the early 1920s by completing the Styrian Persch auxiliary engines into whole machines. From 1925 he began assembling small Villiers two-stroke engines, advertising them and selling them in small series, a process he himself described simply as putting them together. In 1927 he turned his focus to creating individual sports motorcycles, and for these he avoided the JAP units favoured by most of his competitors, using instead overhead-valve engines exclusively from MAG and British Anzani, mostly of around half a litre.

The character of the enterprise was closer to a passion than a business. Erwin Tragatsch, the standard historian of the marques, formed the impression that motorcycle building was for Krammer more of a labour of love than a commercial venture.