This 1925 Hispano-Suiza H6 is Emerging From Its French Crypt for Auction

Be it Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Cadillac, Lancia, or even Packard. You'd think the history of the very first cars modern folks would identify as true luxury cars would be more comprehensive. We're talking vehicles with normal car controls and features. No tiller steering controls like an outboard canoe, and no kerosene-powered headlamps either.

Such features became commonplace on machines of a luxury variety in the 1920s. And this Hispano-Suiza deserves to be held in the same regard as the above-mentioned famous monikers.

Hispano-Suiza, (Swiss-Spanish) is probably just as famous for their firearms and aircraft engines as they are for their automobiles. Check out autoevolution's full-length feature on the history of the Barcelona, Spain, based manufacturing empire.

This particular Grand Touring example of a 1925 Hispano-Suiza H6 left the Barcelona factory in October 1924 and has remained in the family of the curators of the Artcurial Motorcars tour de France since brand new.


It's not in the best of shape, but neither are most things this close to 100 years old. Key body panels have been removed from the chassis to reveal cryptic skeleton-like underpinnings made all the more tantalizing by the overhead-cam 6.6-liter (402 cubic-inch) straight-six engine derived from one bank of a V-12 military aircraft engine.

The 135 horsepower engine could jet up past 60 miles per hour (100 kph) at full throttle. Some planes of the same era were struggling to do all that much better. That's why they needed two or even three sets of wings to stay in the air without falling out of the sky like bricks, after all.

With an expected auction value of between €80,000 and €140,000, you could put a down payment on a house with that kind of money. But a house can't haul ass like this car can.