All you need to know about the Hispano-Suiza
Born: 1901 Nationality: Spanish
Spain's first car, a two-cylinder La Cuadra, was the design of Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt, who worked for a Spanish bus maker, Emilio La Cuadra. But after only half a dozen were built, the company hit financial potholes and had to be bailed out by a financier named Castro. Birkigt continued to build cars under the Castro name until 1904, when once again the enterprise had to get the financial equivalent of AA Rescue.
This time the financing was underpinned by Spaniard Damian Mateu, who named his company Hispano-Suiza to reflect the equal importance of the input from himself and the Swiss Birkigt. The full name was Fabrica La Hispano-Suiza de Automobiles of Barcelona.
The company continued to make Castro models under the new name, but the first cars designed under the new regime were shown at the 1906 Paris Salon, both four-cylinder models. Over the subsequent years they added a pair of cars powered by six-cylinder engines. In 1911, a second factory was built, in Paris, because of French demand for the car.
The brand enjoyed important patronage from Spain's King Alfonzo XIII, and in 1912 produced a 60hp model named after him. The car, which had a 3.6-litre engine, could reach 100 km/h.
Birkigt started using overhead camshafts - this substantially improved performance of Hispano-Suiza cars. It also led the French government to ask the firm to design a military aircraft engine which was later described as the best aero engine of the first World War. The V8 powerplant featured particularly in SPAD aircraft - and, because French air ace Georges Guynemer drove a Hispano-Suiza, his stork emblem became part of the company's branding in 1918.
Car production resumed after the war with the H6, first shown at the 1919 Paris Salon. It was powered by a 6.6-litre six which used much of the developments from the aero engine experience, including an all-aluminium cylinder block. Power brakes on all wheels was an innovation which was subsequently licensed by Rolls Royce.
As was the practice then with luxury cars, independent coachbuilders made the bodies on the Hispano-Suiza chassis and running gear. Some of the most beautiful cars of the 1920s and 1930s sported the flying stork motif. A number were raced, mainly by celebrity sportsmen such as Andre Dubonnet. After he won a prestigious race in the Bois de Boulogne in 1921, the 8-litre model he used was renamed the Boulogne.
Mateu died in 1929, but the company continued producing its famous H6, in 6.5- and 8-litre versions until 1934. It also took over Ballot, adding the 4.6-litre Junior to its range.
While it went on past the demise of the H6 models, and became even more powerful as the 11.3-litre T68 bis, the brand ignored the real post-Depression world and as a result car production gradually declined. It ceased altogether with the outbreak of the second World War. The Paris factory had already closed in 1938.
The Hispano-Suiza name was never revived for car production, but from the end of the war the company has produced jet engines, aircraft landing gear, and fighter ejection seats. It also moved into turbine production for trains, ships and power generation. In 1968 it became a division of the French Snecma group.
BEST CAR: By every account, the 6.6-litre H6, which was also built under licence by Skoda in the mid-1920s.
WORST CAR: The 1934 T60RL.
WEIRDEST CAR: None - they all looked gorgeous.