1912 Hispano Suiza 15/45HP

The Hispano-Suiza Company has created some of the most elegant, respected, and exquisite automobiles of all time. The designs and custom-built bodies were owned by the most elite and exclusive clientele. Among their most memorable creations were the H6 Series and the J-12. Among their accomplishments was the production of aircraft engines. During the First World War, they produced over 50,000 V-12 engines for aircraft. From 1919 through 1923 Hispano-Suiza produced an eight-cylinder aircraft engine.

The beginning of company Fabrica La Hispano Suiza de Automovils began in 1904 but their existence and experience in the automotive community began six years prior. Emilio de la Cuadra created the La Cuadra Company in 1898 focusing on the production of the electric automobile. Marc Birkigt, a French engineer, joined the Barcelona, Spain-based company shortly after its inception. In the very early 1900s, the La Cuadra Company began production of a gasoline-powered engine that featured a shaft drive instead of a chain, a revolutionary design at the time. Their fortune shortly changed and the company was forced to close. The Fabrica La Hispano-Suiza de Automovils succeeded the Castro Company continuing production in Spain and employing the ingenious designer, Birkigt. The name was later changed to Fabrica La Hispano Suiza de Automovils. The very early engines were four cylinders comprised of a 3.8 and a 7.4-liter capacity. Two six-cylinder engines were introduced shortly after the fours.

In 1911 a factory in Paris was opened to satisfy the demands of their French clientele. A larger factory was built three years later in Bois-Colombes. The production of these facilities focused primarily on the H6B, a large, luxurious, and desirable automobile.

by Dan Vaughan

Alfonso XIII Jaquot Torpedo
Chassis number: 1558

After King Alfonso XIII of Spain showed a proclivity for Hispano-Suiza sports and race cars, this model, produced in Paris in 1912, took his name. King Alfonso XIII had over thirty examples of the Hispano-Suiza.

With a 45-horsepower, 4-cylinder engine, it is capable of over 75 mph of steady driving. This car is believed to have been owned and driven by Charles Nigg and Alphonse Carfogni, early aviation pioneers and test pilots for Avions Voisin.

This Alfonso XIII features a bullet-shaped radiator, which had first been used on a Hispano Suizas entered for the 1912 Grand Prix de France.

LWB Torpedo Sport
Chassis number: 1858

Originality is a priceless commodity in an early automobile, for it is the reference point against which authenticity can be measured. However, unmolested original cars are extraordinarily rare, which is why this 1912 Alfonso XIII Torpedo Sport - just one of only seven known long chassis variants of this iconic model - is such an automotive treasure.

Its paint is the same paint that was applied at the Levallois-Perret (Paris) branch factory of Hispano-Suiza, where Alfonso's production had been based since 1911. The painted radiator underlines the fact that not all cars of this period had polished brass coolers; a painted radiator indicated that the car was a quality product not prone to overheating.

Small details reveal the niceties of contemporary practice: the Stauffeur greasers, bonnet catches, windscreen supports and other items usually seen in a natural brass finish on restored cars have also been painted, evidence that time was not expected to be spent in unnecessary polishing of purely functional components.

If this car's state of preservation is remarkable, equally so is the fact that, preserved for over 80 years by the same family, this car has survived intact through a turbulent period in Spanish history, for the country was engulfed in a bloody civil war from 1936-39 and many vehicles were commandeered by forces on both sides.

Alfonso XIII Sport Roadster
Chassis number: 2110

'Spanish-Swiss' is the literal translation for Hispano-Suiza; and this particular model was named for the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII. Chief engineer Mark Birkigt was the Swiss connection. That his nationality was honored in naming the Barcelona company in 1904 was an act of supreme prescience. Not only would the then 26-year-old Birkigt be responsible for every Hispano-Suiza design for the next three decades, but he would ever after be regarded as among the most talented automobile engineers in history.

Alfonso XIII was Birkigt's patron. Spain's last monarch - whose exile in 1931 heralded in a 44-year-long republican interregnum punctuated by a bitter civil war - began acquiring Hispanos for the Royal garage in 1907, although the 'carriage trade' cars the firm was producing were a bit tame for his taste. Luckily, Birkigt was thinking similarly, and in 1909 designed a long-stroke T-head four-cylinder engine for use in voiturette racing, dominated at that time by French one and two-cylinder cars. In 1910, Hispano won the prestigious Coupe de l'Auto race in Boulogne at a speed of 8 miles per hour faster than the previous year. The victory spelled the end to singles and twins in voiturette competition henceforth and suggested the wisdom of marketing a production version of the winner.