Hillman

Founded as the Auto Machinery company by William Hillman in Coventry for the manufacture of bicycles, he enlisted the help of John Kemp Starley (who would go on to found Rover) to help get the fledgling operation off the ground.

Such was the demand for bicycles at that time that Starley would soon leave to set up his own business, while Hillman’s company would go from strength to strength, soon making him a millionaire. It was almost inevitable that Hillman would join so many other cycle manufacturers into the world of automobile manufacture.

The 1907 Hillman-Coatalen (named after the designer), featured a powerful for the time 24 horsepower engine. Confident that it would quickly garner race track success, the car was entered into that year’s Tourist Trophy. It would crash, but not before it had put in a stellar performance that had not gone unnoticed.

Coatealen would leave Hillman and join Singer, his departure leaving a vacuum in the design area, and subsequent Hillman’s were much more staid than the original iteration. In 1913 came the 9 horsepower, which would survive the war and continue to be a top seller well into the 1920’s.

In 1926 Hillman released the 14 horsepower, then in 1928 Hillman unveiled the incredibly expensive 2.6 litre Straight Eight model; new from the ground up, it was unashamedly built to appeal to the well heeled. Production problems would delay the release by a year, and the timing couldn’t have been more wrong, the depression years being just around the corner.

Rootes came to the rescue in 1928, and in the ensuing years their designs started to influence Hillman. The Wizard appeared in 1929 and was available with either a 2.1 or 2.8 litre engine, then 1932 saw the introduction of the Minx, the first in a long line of models that was to last until 1970.