1922 Hispano Suiza H6B Labourdette Skiff

The marque Hispano-Suiza dates back to the early 1900s, but it earned its reputation for excellence in supplying engines to Allied air aces during World War I. Thereafter, at the Paris Auto Salon of 1919, the marque introduced the H6 to the motoring world, and it was widely acclaimed as the most advanced luxury car of its time.

This Hispano-Suiza H6B Labourdette Tourer was the first Hispano bought by the internationally acknowledged Hispano-Suiza expert Jules 'J.' Hermann, who served as Chairman of the Pebble Beach Concours for nearly 30 years. The car was restored by J. at home over several years before being awarded Best of Show at Pebble Beach in 1972. This historic car is one of eight Hispanos owned by J. over the years, and it remained with him until his death in 2017. The Hispano-Suiza was the most expensive automobile in Europe during the 1920s, and the H6 series, introduced at the Paris Auto Salon in 1919, was generally acknowledged as the most advanced automobile design in the world. Its overhead-cam, 6-cylinder engine was derived from the Mark Birkigt-designed Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine, used by more than half of the airplanes flown during the First World War.

This 1922 Hispano-Suiza H6B originally carried a formal body by Million-Guiet, but the car was rebodied in 1926 or 1927 with this handsome dual-cowl skiff torpedo coachwork by Henri Labourdette, which had been taken from another Hispano-Suiza. Regrettably, the car's history through the next thirty years has been lost. Somehow the car made its way to Sepulveda, California, where Jules Heumann purchased it at a probate sale in 1963. The car had been stored for years in a dilapidated old barn with holes in its roof, and restoring the car was no easy task. Heumann did the work himself over the course of nine years. After his win, Heumann drove this car throughout the United States and Europe. The car is now in the Keller Collection.