The
Hispano-Suiza was born into the automotive Golden Age. That era spanned nearly three decades from the late twenties to the mid-fifties. It was during that time that the motor car developed as it liked. It was as deep in ostentation and refinement as those that could afford to buy one. And today, as then, it is these fine vehicles that demand the biggest prices.
Duesenberg,
Isotta Fraschini,
Bentley,
Mercedes SS and
Hispano-Suiza. The
Duesenberg from America and
Hispano-Suiza from Europe came from very different car-cultures, yet, in many ways they were similar. Both arrived to offer ostentation, luxury and racetrack-proved performance with a silver lining.
Emilio La Cuadra
Hispano-Suiza's beginnings were in 1899 when a Spanish army captain, Emilio La Cuadra, formed a company to manufacture motor cars. Emilio may well have been a good military officer, but to say he didn't quite make it in civilian life would be an understatement. Within a year he was in dire financial straits and was forced to sell out to the firm of Castro y Cia. The new management tottered along for five years with little knowledge of what they were about, but much to the surprise of everyone - not least to themselves - they produced the Castro, a creditable but mundane 20 horsepower car. The effort must have bled the company dry, for its management also ran into serious difficulties. The company was reorganised from top to bottom with 26-year-old Swiss born Marc Birgikt as factory manager.
Birgikt was a brilliant engineer and before long he had taken out patents on an original
engine and chassis design which was to become the basis for the Hispano-Suiza (which literally translated means 'Spanish Swiss'). The first Hispano appeared in chassis form at the 1905 Madrid car show. Birgikt's creation was a magnificent piece of engineering and it caught the eye of His Most Catholic Majesty King Alfonso XIII, the last Spanish monarch until King Carlos dusted off the cobwebs in 1975. Alfonso bought the car and from then on Hispano became official transportation for the First Family in the land. With Royal Patronage behind him Birgikt was assured of a bright future and the firm of La Hispano-Suiza Fabrica de Autmoviles, under new management for only 12 months, became very successful.
Built to Order
Like the bodies of nearly all the great cars being produced at the time, Hispano-Suiza coachwork was built to order. The Barcelona factory did build 'production' bodies of its own design, but these were few and far between. Normal practice was to supply just the chassis,
engine, running boards, mudguards and the bonnet from the firewall forward, and leave the
bodywork to the coach-builders. Bodies were supplied by such firms as Park Ward, Hibberd and Darrin, Mulliner and Kellner and a lot more. In 1909 Hispano obtained permission to call one of its models after the Royal Patron. Designated the T-15 Alfonso XIII and powered by a 3.6 litre four cylinder T-head (side valve)
engine, its bore was 80mm while the stroke was an incredible 170mm. The stroke was long in relation to the bore, because of the many Spanish hills. The designer wanted the car to have a maximum of 'slogging' power.
The Hispano-Suiza Alfonso
The Alfonso first appeared in 1912 and was a direct descendant of the Coupe de L'Auto racing cars. It was common practice for car manufacturers to enter their designs in competition events and Hispano conformed. Wins on the track meant increased business in the showroom and Birgikt's superb engineering brought Hispano many victories. The cars were beautiful and they proved their durability under extreme conditions. A new model, the Hispano-Suiza Alfonso Deluxe had been announced in 1914. Though the
engine had the same dimensions as the earlier one the T-head was discarded in favour of one with hemispherical combustion chambers, a single overhead camshaft and dual-plug ignition.
The company was shrewdly aware of its growing prestige in the eyes of the motoring public and it in time opened a factory in Paris. Probably because of French influence in all things fashionable during the early part of the twentieth century, it was not long before a major part of Hispano-Suiza production was centred in the French capital. Though it was possible to sell every car built, Hispanos were produced in very limited numbers. Birgikt refused to compromise on quality, and - like Henry Royce - he sought perfection for his product rather than mass-produced quantity. But limited production schedules, no matter how perfect the finished article, do not make unlimited profits, and Hispano would surely not have survived had the company not diversified into other areas. The mainstay of the company was its fine buses and trucks, and industrial equipment for other engineering concerns. Many Hispano products were built under licence in other countries.
The First World War
The First World War established the Hispano legend for ever. At the beginning of the air war German aircraft with their reliable Mercedes engines reigned supreme. The Allies realised all could be lost if they could not fight back and they frantically looked around for engines to match the enemy's. Rolls-Royce, Packard and Sunbeam, fine aero
engine designers all tried their luck against the Germans, but their rotary designs seemed unable to compete reliably with the in-line Mercedes. The 'Boche' appeared invincible. But Hispano-Suiza had been developing aero engines for some time and it was this company which built the
engine which was to be the best power plant of the war. After rigorous testing the French government ordered 800 units from Hispano's French factories in December 1915 and again in January 1916. To hasten production some of the components were supplied by Allied manufacturers. The Wright Martin Aircraft Co. produced Hispano's
engine under licence upon America's entry in the war.
Hispano's
engine didn't come a moment too soon, and the Germans, by now blase about their supremacy of the skies, were shocked to find the Hispano-powered Nieuports and Spads beating them at their own game. Pilots in the Allies' fledgling airforces enthused over the Hispano power plant - and no aircraft
engine since can beat the number of aces who flew to immortality behind it. Hispano-powered aircraft made aces of Guynemer, Rickenbacker, Bishop, Thompson and many more. The
engine became legend; the most famous tale of all relating to the disappearance of Georges Guynemer, who according to popular belief, was not shot down but flew high into a cloudless sky until he vanished from view. Neither Guynemer nor his plane have ever been found - it was Hispano-powered.
The H.6 Series Hispano-Suiza
With the war's end Hispano turned back to making motor-cars and in 1919 announced the now immortal H.6 series. Powered by a 6.6 litre, 50HC six cylinder
engine designed by Hispano in France, the new H.6 showed that four years of war had not dulled the company's creative edge. It also introduced the famous Flying Stork mascot. Jutting gracefully forward from the
radiator cap, its wings caught in a downward curve, the Stork gives the car a look of perpetual motion. The mascot was inspired by the emblem painted on the fuselages of the aircraft in Georges Guynemer's squadron, and was a fitting tribute from the company whose engines immortalised the flyers.
The six cylinder
engine from the H.6 was a masterpiece of design. It owed much to an aircraft ancestry, for the block was alloy with nitride steel liners screwed in, while the engine's water passages were enamelled to prevent corrosion. It was no lightweight though. weighing 320kg. Hispano counteracted the weight by providing braking on all four wheels - a very unusual feature in 1919. All other makfes made do with braking on two wheels only. In fact, it wasn't until 1925 that Rolls-Royce chose to follow Hispano's lead, adapting the design to suit their needs. The H.6 was well ahead of its time, and is regarded by enthusiasts now as "the most glamorous and exciting of 1920s luxury cars".
The Absolutely Square V12 Engine
The six-cylinder
engine was replaced in 1931 by an enormous pushrod V.12 which displaced 9424cm and had a bore and stroke of 100 x 100 making it absolutely square. Shortly after the stroke was lengthened to 120mm giving a whopping d isplacement of 11,300cm3. The cars weighed 1820kg and finally they cost the earth - even in those far off days. The chassis alone was priced at nearly £3,000. Small wonder, with the 1930s bread queues growing steadily longer that sales of the cars hardly sparkled. In 1933, to make the cars more attractive for what was left of the buying public, Hispano began offering lower-priced cars with engines of 3 and 5 litres with less flamboyant coachwork. Although improvements to the running gear continued to be made, the cars themselves remained little changed for the next six years by which time the world was struggling in the grips of the Second World War.
By now however, a lot of steam had gone out of the company. As with many other producers of specialist cars, the end was in sight. Hispano simply could not compete on the same terms with the sophisticated and reliable mass-produced cars giving the public what they wanted at a fraction of Hispano's price. Money was short, belts were being tightened. Marc Birgikt died in
1953 at the age of seventy-five. He worked until the end, designing aircraft landing gear, railway engines and producing armaments. With his death the Hispano-Suiza company died too, because Birgikt was Hispano-Suiza. Actual car production terminated in France in 1938 after 2,600 cars had left the factory, while the Barcelona works continued until 1944.
In forty years the Spanish factory produced about 6,000 vehicles most of these being the cheaper units more suited to the Spanish whose financial fortunes were on a much lower plane than those of France. In fact, it is the French Hispanos that are the more sought-after by collectors simply because they were the cars with the bigger engines, greater mechanical sophistication and coachbuilt bodies. It is true to say that very few of the "exotic" Hispanos were ever produced in Spain, though a couple of the V12s were assembled at Barcelona.
Also see: The History of Hispano-Suiza
