Sea of opportunity

Electrification has opened up car-making and designer turned industrialist Henrik Fisker has grabbed the opportunity with both hands

- Georg Kacher

SPIES IN RAINCOATS. MOZART. Wiener schnitzel. Habsburg palaces. Fancy pastries. Vienna is known for a lot of things. But the great driving roads rarely get mentioned. Not roads within the city limits of the Austrian capital itself, of course, but just outside.

In fact, it is surrounded by them, making it an illuminating location for our first drive in the first car from Fisker Inc. To the south and east, some fantastic roads head out towards Lake Neusiedl and the Hungarian border, slicing through the Pannonian Plain, where strong winds, unsealed surfaces, and occasional flooding are common challenges. Or a 200-kilometre loop through the lightly populated forest district and the wine country north-east of Vienna, where steep climbs and narrow valleys alternate with lush rolling hills and vast billowing fields.

But we are focusing on a stunning mix of great driving roads to the north and west of the city. One of our drives takes us out to Krems on the S5 dual carriageway, heading towards the Czech border. But the most interesting, challenging, and ultimatel evealing trip is on a shorter but much twistier route. The legendary Höhenstrasse meanders skywards from the outskirts of the capital to the nearby Kahlenberg, from where it follows the Danube upstream before abruptly curving south to the Tulbingerkogel summit. Descending in a series of hairpins via the Exelberg, where the first motor races were staged between 1899 and 1910, the tight loop comes full circle only about an hour later.

Why Austria at all for a car that bears the name of a Danish car designer turned businessman who now lives in the US? Because it is built in Graz, by Magna.