Automobiles Hotchkiss

Automobiles Hotchkiss was a subsidiary of the French company Hotchkiss et Cie based in Saint-Denis, Paris, which produced luxury cars between 1903 and 1955, and trucks between 1936 and 1970.

The badge for the marque showed a pair of crossed cannons, evoking the company's history as an arms manufacturer. Hotchkiss also briefly built cars under the Hotchkiss Grégoire brand after the war. Hotchkiss went through a number of mergers and takeovers after the war and the brand disappeared in the 1970s; its successor companies went on to eventually form the partially state-owned Thales Group.

Early cars

The company's first entry into car making came from orders for engine components such as crankshafts which were supplied to Panhard et Levassor, De Dion-Bouton and other pioneering companies and in 1903 they went on to make complete engines. Encouraged by two major car distributors, Mann & Overton of London and Fournier of Paris, Hotchkiss decided to start making their own range of cars and purchased a Mercedes Simplex for inspiration. Georges Terasse, previously of Mors, was taken on as designer.

The first Hotchkiss car, a 17 CV four-cylinder model, appeared in 1903. The engine of the 20 CV type C was heavily based on the Mercedes Simplex except that wherever possible it used ball bearings rather than plain ones (including the crankshaft) and except the Hotchkiss drive. Six-cylinder models, the types L and O followed in 1907.

The ball bearing engines lasted until the 30CV type X of 1910. In that same year Hotchkiss moved into a smaller car market with the 2212cc type Z.

With the outbreak of World War I, the factory turned to war production and a subsidiary plant was opened in Coventry, England. Car production resumed in France 1919 with the pre war types AD, AD6, AF and AG. During World War I, they produced machine guns and tested them from the factory roof.

Production models

• Hotchkiss 35 CV[1]
• Hotchkiss 20/30 CV[2]
• Hotchkiss L[3]

Inter war production

After an attempt to enter the luxury market with the AK, which did not get beyond the prototype stage, the company decided on a one model policy and introduced the Coventry designed AM in 1923. Later that year the Coventry plant was sold to Morris. Henry Mann Ainsworth (1884[4]–1971) and Alfred Herbert Wilde (1889 - 1930),[5] who had run it, moved to Paris to become general manager and chief engineer of the car division respectively.

In 1926 construction of the new factory in the Boulevard Ornano was completed and in 1929 Hotchkiss got hold of a steel press allowing in-house manufacture of steel bodies. The one model policy lasted until 1929 when the six-cylinder AM73 and AM80 models were announced. "73" and "80" stood for the bore of the engines used, a naming theme picked up again later in 1936 after a brief hiatus.

Although most cars had bodies that were factory built, Hotchkiss still was a luxury car brand, and so coachbuilder Veth and Sons built a small number of bodies for the AM80.

The AM models were replaced by a new range in 1933 with a new naming system. The 411 was an 11CV model with four-cylinder engine, the 413 a 13CV four and the 615, 617 and 620 were similar six-cylinder types. The 1936 686, which replaced the 620, was available as the high-performance Grand Sport and 1937 Paris-Nice with twin carburettors and these allowed Hotchkiss to win the Monte Carlo Rally in 1932, 1933, 1934, 1939, 1949 and 1950.

Second World War

The armament side of the company and the body stamping plant were nationalised in 1936 by the Front Populaire government. The car company in 1937 took over Amilcar. With re-armament speeding up they also started making military vehicles and light tanks. When France declared war, in September 1939, Hotchkiss were sitting on an army order for 1,900 H35 and H39 tanks powered by six-cylinder motors of respectively 3.5 and 6 litres capacity, and at the time of the German invasion in May 1940 they were still working through the order.[6] However, as the military situation deteriorated the decision was taken, on 20 May 1940, to abandon the Saint-Denis plant which by now was fully concentrated on war production.[6] There was a disorderly evacuation, initially towards Auxerre and then Moulins and then further towards the south, as employees desperately tried to keep information on the military production out of the hands of the Germans.[6] However, the national capitulation implicit in the signing of the armistice on 22 June left these efforts looking somewhat irrelevant, and most of the employees drifted back in the ensuing weeks.

Post war models

After the war, car production resumed only slowly with fewer than 100 cars produced in each of 1946 and 1947, but by 1948 things were moving a little more rapidly with 460 Hotchkiss cars produced that year.[7] This volume of output was wholly insufficient to carry the company, although truck production was a little more successful with more than 2,300 produced in 1948,[7] and it was support from the truck volumes and from the Jeep based M201 that enabled the company to stagger on as a car producer slightly more convincingly than some of France's other luxury car makers, at least until the mid-1950s. The cars that represented the business in the second half of the 1940s were essentially the company's prewar designs. The 2,312 cc four-cylinder car was now branded as the Hotchkiss 864 while the six-cylinder car was badged as the Hotchkiss 680 with a 3,016 cc engine or as the Hotchkiss 686 with the 3,485 cc engine.[7]

The luxury automobile range was modernised in 1950 and a new car, the four-door saloon Anjou, was available on the 1350 (renamed from the 486) and 2050 (686) chassis. The high-end Anthéor cabriolet was added in 1952. Some Anthéor and Anjou models were coachbuilt by Swiss coachbuilder Worblaufen

Trucks

Hotchkiss built its first truck in 1936, equipped with the 2,312 cc overhead-valve four-cylinder engine familiar from the 486 passenger car.[12] Called the 486 PL (PLL in the case of the long wheelbase model), 163 examples had been built by the time production was halted in June 1940 due to the outbreak of war.[13] After the war, this was updated with an all-steel cab in 1946, becoming the PL20, for two tonnes' payload. The 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine was retained, producing 60 hp-metric at 3,000 rpm; this successful model also benefitted from hydraulic brakes. Hotchkiss trucks were all right-hand drive until March 1951, when this was changed to the more typical location on the left.[14] In 1952 the payload was increased to 2.5 t and the name was accordingly changed to PL25.[12] The PL25 retained the PL20's 3.3 m wheelbase. The range was supplemented by the six-cylinder PL26 in June 1952 and the longer, 3.8 m wheelbase PL25L in January 1953. The PL25 was kept in production until 1964.[13]

Merger and closure

Hotchkiss took over Delahaye, another French luxury car brand, in July 1954. The company immediately discontinued passenger car production under the Delahaye brand, and the last Hotchkiss passenger car was built the next year. The resulting Société Hotchkiss-Delahaye briefly built trucks under the combined brand but soon retired the Delahaye name, while replacing production of the Delahaye VLR Jeep with the Hotchkiss M201, a license-built version of the Willys MB which was manufactured until 1966. In 1956 the company was taken over by weapons and home goods manufacturer Brandt, becoming Hotchkiss-Brandt. This firm then merged with CFTH in 1966, becoming the "Compagnie française Thomson-Houston-Hotchkiss-Brandt" which was soon thereafter renamed Thomson-Houston. In 1968, this company was merged with CSF, becoming Thomson-CSF. The Hotchkiss name disappeared in the 1970s as truck manufacturing ended at the end of 1970 and was gone completely when the later Europa Jeep project was cancelled in 1976.[21] Thomson-CSF, however, did keep using Hothkiss' crossed cannon emblem on their military vehicles. Thomson-CSF was nationalized in 1982 to form Thomson SA, eventually becoming the Thales Group

See also

• Delahaye
• Delage
• Talbot-Lago

External links