Hispano-Suiza

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Hispano-Suiza is a supplier to the aviation industry based in Colombes near Paris, which belongs to the French conglomerate SAFRAN .

The company's history has its origins in the Spanish automobile manufacturer of the same name, which was founded in Barcelona in 1904 with the leading participation of the Swiss designer Marc Birkigt . After the Second World War , the company was nationalized as ENASA ( Empresa Nacional de Autocamiones SA ) and began producing Pegaso vehicles from 1946 .

In its French subsidiary Bois-Colombes , Hispano-Suiza manufactured not only automobiles but also aircraft engines from 1914 onwards . The work, from 1923 an independent subsidiary , later produced and strafing aircraft of the French Armée de l'air and focused on the setting of the automotive industry in 1938 entirely on the production of aircraft engines and machine guns . After the Second World War, it manufactured jet turbines under license and was incorporated into the French aeronautical group SNECMA in 1968 , which has been part of the SAFRAN group since 2005. Hispano-Suiza / Snecma opened a factory in Bezons in 1999 that manufactures mechanical, hydraulic, electronic and electrical components for jet turbines.

The Hispano-Suiza (Suisse) was in the 1950s as a general contractor for the construction of armored personnel HS 30 the army responsible. The circumstances of its procurement culminated in the HS-30 scandal at the end of the 1960s .

The Hispano-Suiza V10 Supercharged , a coupé from the Hispano-Suiza brand with a modified ten-cylinder engine from the Lamborghini Gallardo , was presented by a Swiss automobile manufacturer based in Baar at the Geneva Motor Show in early March 2010 . The 5.2-liter V10 engine with two electrically powered compressors has an output of 625 kW (850 hp). The Hispano-Suiza Maguari , which will be presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2019, is the production vehicle.

prehistory

In 1898, the Spanish admiral Emilio de la Cuadra and the engineer Carlos Vellino founded the Compañía General Española de Coches Automóviles Emilio de la Cuadra , or La Cuadra for short, as the first automobile factory in Spain . There, the young Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt from Geneva first developed an electric bus, as electric vehicles were in great demand at the time. Despite further drafts, u. a. a combustion engine and a completely new type of car, for which Birkigt designed the chassis, engine and power transmission, this company went bankrupt in 1901 and Birkigt then moved back to Geneva. In November 1902 the banker Juan Castro, as the main creditor of La Cuadra, asked him to come back to Barcelona to set up a new automobile production facility. Juan Castro and Birkigt founded J. Castro Sociedad en Comandita , Fábrica Hispano-Suiza de Automóviles as a partner . At the end of 1903 this company went bankrupt and after only eight vehicles were built, production ended in 1904.

history

Hispano Suiza logo

Established in Barcelona

Hispano Suiza Fabrica de Automoviles SA share dated December 21, 1918

Francisco Seix Zaya and the lawyer Damiá Mateu stepped in and founded the company Hispano-Suiza, Fabrica de automoviles SA in Barcelona on June 14, 1904 , with Birkigt as co-owner and chief designer. Even the young King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, who was a motor enthusiast . stood behind the start-up.

The naming, Hispano for Spain and Suiza for Switzerland , should illustrate the connection between Spanish capital and Swiss ingenuity, which was also expressed in the Hispano-Suiza logo with the Spanish and Swiss flags.

Hispano-Suiza type Alfonso XIII.

In 1910 the Alfonso XIII car type came . with a four-cylinder engine . This sporty automobile, dedicated to the king, with a displacement of 3.6 liters and 44 kW reached a top speed of more than 100 km / h, which was exceptional for the time.

From the series type Hispano-Suiza 15T Alfonso XIII. 500 vehicles left the factory between 1910 and 1916. It had a four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 3416 cubic centimeters and an output of up to 37 kW (50 hp). The top speed was 130 km / h.

When more and more Hispano-Suiza vehicles appeared on the road in Barcelona in 1911, the city's mayor's office drafted the first guidelines for mobilists in Spain: drivers had to be between 18 and 67 years old, and the maximum speed in the urban area was 15 km / h limited, and the first traffic signs were installed, such as “bajada rápida” (drive slowly), “virada a la derecha” (drive on the right), “ondulación brusca” (bumps in the road) or “mal empedrado” (be careful, cobblestones!). The license plates of the automobiles were issued beginning with B-1.

With the beginning of the Spanish Civil War , the Spanish government shut down automobile production in 1936, even stopping it entirely in individual plants, and switching to war weapon production. The Franco regime finally nationalized the company in 1945. As early as 1940, Hispano-Suiza founded the 'Sociedad Ibérica de Automóviles de Turismo' (SIAT), together with Banco Urquijo and a group of other Spanish companies, from which the automaker Seat emerged in 1950 . Marc Birkigt left the company in 1938 and founded in Geneva the Hispano-Suiza (Suisse) .

In 1946, the Spaniard Wifredo Ricart succeeded chief designer Birkigt. Ricart has been designing automobiles and engines since the early 1920s, from 1936 to 1945 at Alfa Romeo in Italy. The company was now called ENASA (an acronym for Empresa Nacional de Autocamiones SA  - National Truck Company) - the trucks were called Pegaso . In 1951 Ricart presented the Pegaso Z 102 with modern technology and a body designed by the Catalan Pedro Serra and presented the car at numerous automobile fairs. In accordance with the government mandate from ENASA, however, the focus was on the development of trucks and buses. For this purpose, the Centro de Estudios Técnicos de Automoción (CETA) was founded as a research and development department in the same year . It was chaired by Ricart, who used his previous experience from previous positions at Vallet y Fiol, Motores Ricart y Pérez ("REX" was a well-known two-stroke motorcycle engine), Ricart-España, Hispano-Suiza, Alfa-Romeo and Lockheed could also bring in.

Branch in France, aircraft engine production

To increase automobile production, the Hispano France assembly plant was put into operation in Levallois near Paris in 1911 . Since the premises there could not be expanded, Don Damiá Mateu had another factory built not far away in Bois-Colombes in 1913 , which soon became the largest Hispano-Suiza site.

With the beginning of the war in 1914, the second product idea from co-owner and chief designer Marc Birkigt came to fruition: aircraft engines . In the Hispano-Suiza 8 , which was manufactured in the Bois-Colombes plant from 1915 , the overhead camshafts ( OHC ) were considered a special technical feature at that time. The French plant became an independent subsidiary of the Spanish parent company in 1923 as Société Française Hispano-Suiza, SA .

For its aircraft factory Société de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin (SPAD), the government of the Third French Republic concluded a supply contract for aircraft engines. The production figures rose rapidly: around 50,000 units of the 130 hp Hispano-Suiza V8 aircraft engine left the factory gates. The collaboration with SPAD was also the trigger for the manufacture of machine weapons. Synchronized by an interrupter gear, the Hispano automatic cannon fired through the propeller circle without destroying the propeller. In later engine designs, it fired through the propeller shaft.

From 1918 the flying stork was the hood ornament of Hispano-Suiza vehicles

The hood ornament of the Hispano-Suiza vehicles used from 1918 , the flying stretched stork , comes from a squadron signet of the French fighter pilot Georges Guynemer , whose SPAD aircraft was powered by a Hispano-Suiza engine. Here there is a parallel to the Italian brand Ferrari , which from 1932 used the signet of the Italian fighter pilot Francesco Baracca : the rearing horse ( Cavallino rampante ).

In 1937, the government of the Republic of France acquired a majority of 51 percent of the shares in the French Hispano-Suiza subsidiary, an important aircraft engine manufacturer in the country. The plant, renamed Société d'exploitation des matériels Hispano-Suiza , concentrated entirely on the construction of aircraft engines and automatic cannons after car production was discontinued in 1937.

Hispano-Suiza (Suisse)

Two years after the start of the Spanish Civil War left Marc Birkigt his company and founded in 1938 in Geneva , the Hispano-Suiza (Suisse) SA Its subsidiary British Manufacture and Research Company (BMARC) based Grantham (Lincolnshire) put u. a. Machine cannons ( HS.404 ) for the Allies.

In the 1950s, the Swiss company was the general contractor responsible for building the Bundeswehr's HS 30 armored personnel carrier. The circumstances of its procurement culminated in the HS-30 scandal at the end of the 1960s . Subsequently, in 1970, Marc Birkigt's son Louis dissolved the company with its 1200 employees and annual sales of 100 million Swiss francs as the sole owner .

Hispano-Guadalajara, Hispano Aviación

Hispano-Fiat emblem

1916 in Guadalajara the corporation La Hispano SA founded. There he made trucks , buses and several cars. The car models 8/10 CV and 15/20 CV from the Hispano-Guadalajara brand are mentioned . When financial problems arose in 1923, La Hispano became part of Hispano-Suiza as Hispano-Suiza de Guadalajara . In 1931 Fiat acquired half of the shares. Now around 300 copies of a Hispano-Fiat 514 were built here as a license for the Fiat 514 . A four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 1438 cm³ provided the drive . Production of this model ended in 1932, 1933 or 1935.

The Hispano-Suiza de Guadalajara began in 1929 with the aircraft. In the 1950s the company was changed to Hispano Aviación SA (HASA). This developed in 1950 for Martin Baker ejection seats for the aviation industry in the USA. The Spanish Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) bought the company in 1972 and in the same year CASA became a member of the newly established Airbus consortium together with other manufacturers from France, Germany and Great Britain .

Automobiles

The technology and reliability of the engines, the numerous variants and technically reliable solutions from aircraft engine construction led Hispano-Suiza automobiles straight into the top class. Hispano-Suiza became a real competitor to Mercedes , Horch , Maybach , Isotta Fraschini and Rolls-Royce in the late 20s and early 30s . From the beginning of the 1920s, the large Hispano-Suiza vehicles were built in the French subsidiary Bois-Colombes near Paris. In Spain, the small four-cylinder from the pre-war period was produced until 1924.

Hispano-Suiza H.6

The H.6 was built from 1919 to 1928. It was powered by a 6.6 liter six-cylinder engine with an overhead camshaft , dual ignition , aluminum housing, light alloy pistons and screwed- in steel cylinder liners . The engine developed 135 hp. The first vehicles had no shock absorbers, later Houdaille or Hartford shock absorbers were installed . The four-wheel servo brake system was an in-house development that Rolls-Royce took over under license, where it was used until the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III was discontinued, after Sir Henry Royce had optimized it so that it also worked when reversing. In 1926 the engine was redesigned, it got wet cylinder liners, a sharper camshaft and an electric fuel pump. Around 200 H.6 were built annually, a similar version was produced in Barcelona as the T.41. Around 50 vehicles were built at Škoda under the designation 25/100. In England it was called 37.3HP. A H.6 cost around 60,000 Reichsmarks at that time .

Hispano-Suiza Boulogne

In 1922 the Monza type was built with an engine enlarged to 6.9 liters from the H.6 with 150 hp. With this engine it reached a top speed of 175 km / h, which, however, in the opinion of experts, was too high for the chassis. The Frenchman André Dubonnet took part in several races with a custom-built H6B, which had an eight-liter engine. This vehicle was called Boulogne in France, 45 HP in England and T.43 in Spain. The sales designation was 46 CV. The sedan, which weighed around two tons, reached a top speed of 150 km / h. The chassis was offered with two different wheelbases of 3.39 and 3.68 meters, from 1928 only the longer version. In France the H6B was built until 1934, in Spain until 1936 as the T.54. With the eight-liter engine, around 260 and with the 6.6-liter engine 2150 pieces were produced.

Hispano-Suiza HS 26 'Junior'

In 1929, the French Ballot works were taken over and a six-cylinder in-line engine with a displacement of 4.6 liters was built into the Ballot RH3. This vehicle was considered the "small" Hispano-Suiza and 124 copies were built from 1930 to 1934.

Hispano-Suiza J12 / Type 68

At the Paris Motor Show in 1931, the J12 / Type 68 was presented with a 9.4-liter 12-cylinder V-engine. With this engine, the car accelerated from 0 to 100 km / h in 12 seconds, even though it weighed over two tons. A J12 cost 14,000 marks more than a Rolls-Royce, but 120 units were sold. Some examples were also equipped with an 11.3-liter engine (type 68 bis), which Hispano had developed for the French state railway. With the 9.4 liter engine it was sold in France as the 54CV and in England as the 54/220. Construction period 1931–1937.

Hispano-Suiza T.60

A prototype with a 3-liter six-cylinder was built in Spain in 1932. This vehicle was to be built under license by the American company Hudson . This project was not carried out. In 1934 the T.60 came on the market as the T.60RL with a 3.4 liter engine and hydraulic brakes. It was built until 1943.

Hispano-Suiza K6 / Type 70

At about the same time, the K6 / Type 70 with a 5.1 liter six-cylinder was developed in Bois-Colombes. He built 204 vehicles in four years. In France it was called the 30CV and in England as the 30/120. Construction period 1934–1937.

In 1937 the last Hispano-Suiza was built in Bois-Colombes. In 1946 they wanted to build a car with a 3.6-liter Ford engine and front-wheel drive . It remained an attempt, and Hispano focused on building aircraft and diesel engines.

Picture gallery

  • Hispano-Suiza (1924) H.6B Million-Guiet Dual-Cowl Phæton

  • Two Hispano-Suiza H.6s, a landaulet in front, built in the mid-1920s

  • Hispano-Suiza H6 C (1933) from the Schlumpf collection

  • Hispano-Suiza H6 C (1933) from the Schlumpf collection

  • Hispano-Suiza type T.68 (J12) 'Berline Transformable' (convertible sedan). Body by Saoutchik (1935)

  • Hispano-Guadalajara 8/10 CV from the Guadalajara plant

  • Hispano-Fiat 514, dated 1935 by the museum.

  • Hispano-Suiza K6 (1935)

The renaissance of the brand in automotive engineering since 2000

Mazel Ingenieros prototypes :

  • 2000: HS 21; Study of a super sports car with a BMW engine in the rear presented at the Geneva Motor Show .
  • 2001: Hispano-Suiza K8.
  • 2002: HS 21-GTS; another supercar.
  • 2004: A fourth prototype and again the HS 21.

These prototypes were designed by the Spanish engineering company Mazel Ingenieros, which went bankrupt in 2015.

Project of the Hispano Suiza automobile manufacturer :

Planes

Hispano Suiza E-30 of Aeronáutica Naval
HA-1112-M1L Buchón C.4K-154 (Real Airplane Company)

1929 saw the start of aircraft production with the name Hispano-Suiza de Guadalajara. In the 1950s, the name of the Spanish aviation company was changed to Hispano Aviación SA (HASA). In 1972 Hispano Aviación SA was taken over by Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) and joined with other manufacturers from France, Germany and Great Britain as a member of the Airbus consortium founded that year.

  • 1930 Hispano-Suiza E-30, aerobatic machine with HS 9-Qd. engine, 320 HP
  • 1934 Hispano Suiza HS-34, training aircraft, first flight in 1935. In 1936 the Spanish military purchased five machines with a De Havilland in-line engine, 130 hp
  • 1938 Hispano Aviación HA-132-L. This type was manufactured in Seville until the end of 1944.
  • 1945 Hispano Aviación HA-1109 and HA-1112 Buchón (dt .: Taube) as a further development of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 after the end of the war in Spain with the Rolls-Royce-Merlin engine, which was shortly before in the aircraft of the Allied opponents was built in. Around 200 copies were built.
  • 1948 Hispano Aviación HA-1109 K. The Messerschmitt Foundation in Manching owns a sample of this type. This aircraft is originally the Ha 1109 K-1L, serial number 54, which was built in 1948. It served as a prototype for the production of the HA-1112 and as a test aircraft. After the retirement, Hispano left the plane to the city of Seville , which displayed it as an attraction in a children's playground. However, vandalism quickly made them a danger to playing children, so the plane was returned to Hispano in 1968. Then it was bought for the film "Battle of Britain" and given German markings. Some floor scenes were filmed, but they fell victim to the editing table. For the recordings, it was laid on a Spanish beach as "belly landed", where it remained after the shooting and was looted again.
Hispano Aviación HA-200 "Saeta"

Willy Messerschmitt acquired the machine from the film company, had it dismantled on April 26, 1968, restored in Spain and adapted to a Bf 109 E, although it never quite achieved its appearance. In 1968 it was transported to Germany by the German Air Force, where it was initially set up in front of the MBB headquarters . In the early 1990s it was in a hall at Augsburg Airport. In 1994 she came back to MBB. By operating the flying Bf 109 G-6, there were enough spare parts that the conversion into a G-2 was started. It received a non-functional DB-605 engine and initially a sand-colored paintwork, with which it was exhibited between 1995 and 1997 in the Oberschleißheim aircraft shipyard. In 1997 it was given a prototypical camouflage, but without any markings. Since then she can be seen at changing exhibitions.

  • 1951 Hispano Aviación HA-1109 J-1L; the cell corresponded to the Bf 109, but with the 1300 hp Hispano-Suiza engine HS 12-Z17.
  • 1955 Hispano Aviación HA-200 D Saeta; Fighter-bomber, trainer. The Spanish Air Force used the machines until the early 1980s. These were built in Seville. The EADS plant in Manching maintains a machine together with the Messerschmitt Foundation . In 2006 this machine was shown at the ILA in Berlin. The Messerschmitt Foundation is the owner and EADS is the operator.
  • 1964 Hispano Aviación HA 300 , fighter plane. Developed in the 1950s by a project group led by Willy Messerschmitt in Spain, the project was then brought to an end in Egypt. The first prototype flew in 1964, after which another was built, but the project was then discontinued in favor of the MiG-21 .

Aircraft engines

Motor type 8A

Well-known engines built in large numbers:

  • 1917: Hispano-Suiza 8Aa to 8Be ; Liquid-cooled eight-cylinder - V-type engine , the engine block made of aluminum alloy , 150 hp at 2000 / min; 49,893 units of this type went mostly to France, but also to the USA, Japan and Italy.
  • 1917: Hispano-Suiza 8F; water-cooled V8 engine, 300 hp at 2,100 rpm
  • 1919: Hispano-Suiza 8Fb; Further development of the Hispano-Suiza 8A to 300 HP power was built into the Airco DH4 (later also called de Havilland DH-4) ( see also: Historic aircraft of the Spanish Air Force )
  • 1924: Hispano-Suiza 12Gb; water-cooled twelve-cylinder - Y motor , 585 horsepower at 2,000 / min
  • 1924: Hispano-Suiza 12Jb; water-cooled twelve-cylinder V-engine
  • 1926: Hispano-Suiza 8Aa; liquid-cooled V8 engine with integrated cannon
  • 1930: Hispano-Suiza 9Qd; Nine-cylinder rotary engine , 310 hp at 2,100 rpm
  • 1932: Hispano-Suiza 12Xirs ; water-cooled twelve-cylinder V-engine, 650 hp at 2,600 rpm
  • 1932: Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrs; water-cooled twelve-cylinder V-engine, 670 hp
  • 1935: Hispano-Suiza 12Ycrs; water-cooled twelve-cylinder V-engine, 860 hp
  • 1940: Hispano-Suiza 12Y-51; Twelve-cylinder V-engine with Szydlowski-Planiol - turbocharger , 1100 hp at 2,750 / min
  • 1940: Hispano-Suiza 12Y-89ter; Twelve-cylinder V-engine, 1280 hp
  • 1945: Hispano-Suiza 12Z-17; Twelve-cylinder V-engine with four-valve technology , 1300 hp at 2,650 rpm on the ground, 1500 hp at 2,700 rpm at an altitude of 6,400 m
  • From 1946 to 1955, Hispano-Suiza manufactured Rolls-Royce engines under license

The Hispano-Suiza-12Y engine was used in numerous well-known fighter aircraft designs from 1932 to 1941. These include u. a. the Morane-Saulnier MS.406 , the Dewoitine D.520 , the Yugoslav Rogožarski IK-3 and the Czech Avia B-534 . In the Soviet Union , the Hispano-Suiza 12Y was successfully developed by Vladimir Klimov into the Klimov M-100 and later the Klimov M-105 , which became the standard engine of many well-known Soviet aircraft in World War II (including the LaGG-3 , Petlyakov Pe-2 , Jakowlew Jak-1 , Jak-3 , Jak-7 , Jak-9 ).

Machine guns

Arrangement of the cannon barrel in an HS engine
(the cylinders have been removed for a better view)
Arrangement of the machine gun
example at SPAD XIII.

Well-known types built in large numbers at the Bois-Colombes plant on the Seine in France were:

The MS.406 was a French fighter aircraft designed by Morane-Saulnier in 1938 . In numerical terms it was the most important fighter in the French Air Force at the beginning of the Second World War and, like the Arsenal VG-33 (a fighter aircraft constructed in France in 1939), an aircraft that was mainly equipped with Hispano-Suiza cannons. The entire RAF Air Force in England also used the 20 mm cannons for their aircraft.

  • Hispano 408 20 mm were used in the serial fighters of the HA-1109 series.

Comment on the history of the machine gun at Hispano-Suiza:

At the suggestion of the top French pilot Georges Guynemer , a few copies of a variant of the SPAD XIII were built in 1917. Guynemer believed that the firepower of a machine gun or two was insufficient for a fighter plane. He was able to convince the developers to install a 37 mm on-board cannon between the cylinder blocks of the Hispano-Suiza engine, which fired through the hollow propeller hub. The cadence of this cannon was very low, but the projectiles wreaked havoc on the aircraft hit. This aircraft version was rarely used, however, as it was not exactly agile and the cannon had to be reloaded by hand after each shot.

literature

Source reference

  • Source electric motors: Eco-Vehículos Nº10; EcoAuto N ° 1; Vehículos Alternativos Ecológicos Nº5 y 7; Hispano-Suiza / Pegaso, un siglo de camiones y autobuses.
  • Source automobiles: Ernest Schmid d'Andrès, Hispano Suiza , ISBN 2-909413-23-3

Web links

Commons : Hispano-Suiza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Pander: Return from Hispano-Suiza: The stork flies again. March 3, 2010, accessed February 9, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Uli Baumann: Carbon sports car with 1,085 hp. February 22, 2019, accessed February 22, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Powder shot . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1970 ( online ).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.
  6. ↑ Infocif.es: ITD-Mazel Engineering Andalucia SL. Retrieved April 5, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Jürgen Pander: Return from Hispano-Suiza - The stork flies again. www.spiegel.de, accessed on October 29, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Luxury sports car drives off on Villach | www.kregionalmedien.at. Retrieved December 27, 2017 .