Horstmann Cars

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Horstmann 8.9 HP from 1914
Horstmann from 1915
Lettering on the grille
Hood ornament

Horstmann Cars Limited , sometimes spelled Horstman , was a British manufacturer of automobiles .

prehistory

The company was founded by Sidney Adolph Horstmann (1881–1962), himself the son of watchmaker and inventor Gustav Horstmann (1828–1893) who immigrated from Westphalia in 1850 . He received over 100 patents in his life and invented the micrometer accurate to 10 / 10,000 inch in 1856 . It is now in the Science Museum in London . Gustav Horstmann had seven children; all four sons were apprentices with him. His watchmaking and jewelry store , founded in 1854 on Union Street in Bath ( Somerset ) , later traded under the name of G. Horstmann & Sons and was the nucleus of several other companies. It went on in 1925 in the Horstman Gear Company .

Sydney Horstmann was already working with engineer Richard John Baynton Hippisley (1865–1956) on a three-wheeled automobile with a single-cylinder engine around 1900 . He invented a continuously variable vehicle transmission and in the following year founded the Horstmann Gear Company to evaluate the patent. It was not successful, but the company made a name for itself with clockworks , chronometers and mechanical timers .

Automobile manufacturing

In 1903 Sydney Horstmann exhibited a light car (a former vehicle class between Voiturette and small car ) at the London Motor Show . The vehicle was built by the Horstmann Gear Company until 1912 , but only in small numbers.

Horstmann Cars Limited

The automotive division became an independent company in 1913 as Horstmann Cars Limited , or, more likely, as a subsidiary . It was unveiled to the public at this year's London Motor Show . After the outbreak of the First World War , and thus after a very short production period, car construction was suspended. During the First World War , the Briton Horstmann changed the name of his operations from Horstmann to the English spelling Horstman , which is much more common than the original.

The designer and inventor George Carwardine (approx. 1886–1947) worked as a foreman at Horstmann since 1912; from 1916 to 1923 he was plant manager.

After the end of the war, Horstman automobiles reappeared . All of them had light bodies and a sporty look. The four-cylinder engines were purchased from Anzani and Coventry Climax . They were quite successful in motorsport and were also used in club races in Brooklands .

Production ended in 1929; the company was dissolved in 1930.

There is an unresolved relation to Horstman Ltd. in Bath, which manufactured camshafts and other precision parts for mechanical engineering . This company was taken over by Simms in 1955 and joined Lucas Industries in 1969 . In 1975 the camshaft production was separated and sold to Weyburn Engineering ; the remaining part became Horstman Defense Systems, which still exists today .

Vickers tank with Horstmann drive

Depending on the source, between 1913 and 1929 1500 resp. 3000 automobiles manufactured between 1915 and 1929; No figures are available for the vehicles manufactured by Horstmann Gear from 1904 to 1912 . In 1922 Sidney Horstmann invented the Horstmann drive , a suspension for military caterpillar vehicles.

vehicles

model construction time cylinder Cubic capacity cm³ Power hp comment
8.9 HP 1914 4th 995 15th
10 HP 1919-1921 4th 1327 20th
11 HP 1921 4th 1498 33
12/30 HP 1923-1929 4th 1496 Anzani engine
9/20 HP 1924-1925 4th 1100 25th Coventry-Simplex engine
9 HP 1927 4th 1208
9/25 HP 1928-1929 4th 1247

About ten vehicles of this brand should still exist; one of them can be seen at the Haynes International Motor Museum in Sparkford, Somerset.

literature

  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The great automobile encyclopedia. BLV, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-405-12974-5 .
  • GN Georgano : cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours. Courtille, 1975 (French)
  • David Culshaw, Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975 . Veloce Publishing, Dorchester (1997), ISBN 1-874105-93-6 (English)

Web links

Commons : Horstmann Cars  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Grace's Guide: Gustav Horstmann
  2. ^ Grace's Guide: G. Horstmann & Sons
  3. ↑ a b c Grace's Guide: Sidney Horstmann
  4. ↑ Grace's Guide: Horstman Gear Company
  5. ↑ a b c d e Grace's Guide: Horstman cars
  6. ^ A b c Horstman Defense Systems: Website, History
  7. ↑ a b c d e GTÜ: Horstman
  8. ↑ Grace's Guide: George Carwardine
  9. ↑ a b Grace's Guide: Horstman