The company now known as Tatra became an automobile maker in 1897, but its history stretches a bit further back...

In the year 1850, in the small Moravian town of Nesselsdorf, located in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a man by the name of Ignaz Schustala set up a wagon shop. Three year later, in order to expand the business, he formed a partnership with a wealthy businessman Adolf Raschka. Ignaz Schustala & Co. produced quite a few wagons and carriages and prospered for over two decades, until the death of Raschka in 1877. Business then began to decline very quickly, but things were to changed after 1881 with a request from the Stauding-Stramberger Railroad for railway cars. Schustala immediately decided to convert his facilities for railway equipment production. He then, in 1890, brought on an engineer by the name of Hugo von Roslerstamm from another Railway company to serve as technical director. The year following, Schustala died and the company went public and became Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau Fabriks Gesellschaft (Nesselsdorf Wagon Works), managed by von Roslerstamm.