The Legendary Hispano Suiza

Today everybody knows what a Rolls Royce is - a car of ultimate quality, reserved for the richest of the rich. Not everybody knows in the Thirties that there existed a French version high class car - the HISPANO SUIZA. The word means "SPAIN-SWITZERLAND", stemming from the two founder's nationality - namely J. Castro, the Spanish entrepreneur and the Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt. From the beginning all cars carried an emblem on the cooler incorporating the Spanish and Swiss Coat of Arms. 1904 Castro and Birkigt formed the company HISPANO SUIZA in Barcelona and produced cars of different sizes which won quickly the reputation of the experts and the nobility who purchased many of their products. It turned out, however, that the French market was much bigger for high class motorcars and consequently a factory was set up in France - near Paris. A turning point in the development of the company was the outbreak of World War I. Birkigt designed quickly a novel water cooled aircraft engine which outperformed subsequently all their competitors, particularly when it comes to endurance. The HISPANO SUIZA engine became a legend and the emblem of one of the most famous French pilots, Georges Guynemer - a flying stork - became the emblem of HISPANO SUIZA. After the war, Birkigt turned back to luxury cars again and created some of the most advanced cars of this time - all ordered individually by the richest of the time, produced fully hand crafted whereby the body of the car was always made by a coach-building company in accordance with the specifications of the customer. Consequently, there are no two identical cars of HISPANO SUIZA in the world. Rolls Royce took over some technical features from HISPANO SUIZA under a licence agreement but never reached the performance of HISPANO SUIZA. H-S was considered to be the top brand among all luxury cars and certainly the most expensive as well.