OBJECT FILE
Archduke Franz Ferdinand's car (Gräf & Stift Double Phaeton)
FOLLOWHeeresgeschichtliches Museum, Arsenal, Vienna, Austria
THE OBJECT
A Gräf & Stift double phaeton built in Vienna and bought by Count Franz von Harrach on 15 December 1910. Harrach lent it for the Archduke's visit to Sarajevo, and on 28 June 1914 Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot by Gavrilo Princip while riding in it, with Harrach in the car. The car is in the permanent collection of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Museum of Military History) in Vienna, where it has stood unused since 1914.
REPORTED ACTIVITY
The legend that later owners met violent deaths and that the car killed thirteen people traces to Frank Edwards's Stranger Than Science (1959), and was revived by the Weekly World News in 1981. The historian Mike Dash calls it 'certifiable rubbish': the car never left the museum, carries no crash damage, and none of the victims can be identified. A British visitor noticed that its plate, A III 118, can be read as 'Armistice 11-11-18', a coincidence Dash does not dispute.
WHERE IT IS NOW
On public display — kept by Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Museum of Military History). Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Arsenal, Vienna, Austria.
PROVENANCE · 2 ENTRIES
TRACE ON THE MAP →1910 – 1914
Count Franz von Harrach
Vienna, Austria · not placed on the map
Lent by Harrach for the Sarajevo visit; the assassination was on 28 June 1914 at Sarajevo.
Source: Wikipedia, Gräf & Stift (bought by Count Franz von Harrach on 15 December 1910); Mike Dash, Smithsonian Magazine (2013) ('owned not by the Austro-Hungarian state but by Count Franz von Harrach')
1914 — CURRENT LOCATION
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Arsenal, Vienna, Austria
Year-level. How the car passed from Harrach to the museum is not in the sources used.
Source: Mike Dash, Smithsonian Magazine (2013) (on permanent display); Wikipedia, Gräf & Stift ('sitting in the museum, unused, since 1914')
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS · 0
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