He was the chauffeur for Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, after being drafted for military duty.
This was at a point in his life (age 27) when he was already making cars, significantly, the Lonher Porsche hybrid, and he'd been racing that in 1900... so the Archduke has some pull in the personnel dept... to get a race car driver as his Chauffer!
Jacob Lohner & Co in Vienna, Austria produced electric cars from 1898 to 1906. Ferdinand Porsche, one of Lohner´s employees developed a drive system based on fitting an electric motor to each front wheel without transmissions (hub mounted). Vehicles of this type were known as Lohner-Porsches
Lohner produced a number of hybrid petrol- electric cars. That is, with a gasoline US engine driving a generator to produce the electricity to drive the electric motors.
While the Lohner-Porsche technology was reliable, it was not competitive with conventional petrol-engined cars. Production costs where higher. Production of Hybrid cars seized in 1906 although Lohner produced Lohner-Stoll trolley buses for several years on. Above is a recreation, and is named "Semper Vivus" and is currently on display at the Porshe museum in Stuttgart http://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/pressreleases/pcna/?lang=none&pool=international-de&id=2011-04-26 between May 10 2011 and June 13 2011
photos I've posted before http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=lohner
