Marc Birkigt

Marc Birkigt (1878 to 1953) was a Swiss engineer and a pioneer of the automobile and of aviation, best known as the co-founder and chief engineer of the luxury car maker Hispano-Suiza. He was born in Geneva on 8 March 1878, trained as an engineer at the Geneva Mechanical School and in 1899 went to Barcelona, where he worked for the firm La Cuadra. After several bankruptcies and changes of ownership that firm was reborn in 1904 as Hispano-Suiza with Birkigt as chief engineer, and he later co-founded the Dewoitine company with Émile Dewoitine. His luxurious Hispano-Suiza H6 of the 1920s earned him a nomination for the Car Engineer of the Century prize, and his aircraft engines, including the liquid-cooled V8 that powered the SPAD VII and SPAD XIII fighters of the First World War, together with the HS.404 20mm autocannon, made him equally famous in aviation and ordnance. He died at Versoix on 15 March 1953.