Roesch, Georges Henry, born

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

15 April 1891: died 7 November 1969, automotive engineer, was the Swiss-born son of a German-born blacksmith turned Geneva garage operator and his French-born wife.Anthony Blight, ''Georges Roesch and the Invincible Talbot ''Grenville, London 1970 He came to England in 1914 from

Delaunay-Belleville Automobiles Delaunay-Belleville was a French luxury automobile manufacturer at Saint-Denis, France, north of Paris. At the beginning of the 20th century they were among the most prestigious cars produced in the world, and perhaps the most de ...

, where he trained under Barbaroux, to work for Daimler. With little English and a German surname and accent the subsequent outbreak of the First World War meant twelve months under a cloud of suspicion until the authorities gave him the benefit of the doubt. In 1916, aged 25, he was hired by the London firm of

Clément-Talbot Clément-Talbot Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturer with its works in Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington, London, founded in 1903. The new business's capital was arranged by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot (whose family name became the brand- ...

as Chief Engineer. He developed a 1750 cc touring car for production after the end of hostilities.Veteran to Classic, ''Motor Sport'' magazine, page 57 February 1991 However in 1919

Talbot Talbot was an automobile marque introduced in 1902 by English-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément-Talbot ...

was acquired by

Darracq and Company London A Darracq and Company Limited owned a French manufacturer of motor vehicles and aero engines in Suresnes, near Paris. The French enterprise, known at first as A. Darracq et Cie, was founded in 1896 by Alexandre Darracq after he sold his Gladi ...

, and the following year the resulting combination brought in Sunbeam to form S T D Motors. Talbot began to make the Coatalen and S T D Motors Paris designed Talbot 8-18 which was not a success. Roesch modified the design and turned it into a successful four-seater named Talbot's 10-23. The Talbot factory proved too small for volume production. Between 1920 and 1925 Roesch worked with STD under

Louis Coatalen Louis Hervé Coatalen (11 September 1879 – 23 May 1962) was an automobile engineer and racing driver born in Brittany who spent much of his adult life in Britain and took British nationality. He was a pioneer of the design and development of inte ...

to develop a six-cylinder

push-rod An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located bel ...

engine of striking simplicity and efficiency. The first successful post war Talbot was the Georges Roesch-designed six-cylinder high-speed tourer, Talbot 14-45, released in October 1926 for London's Motor Show. Roesch had been called back from Paris, where he was working under Coatalen, to the dilapidated Talbot works in 1925 and chose to design a relatively expensive low-volume car to fit Talbot's capabilities that might save the Talbot business. The 14-45 was the star of the 1926 Motor Show. From that point forward all Roesch's Talbot cars sold well. Certain weaknesses of the 14-45 were established and remedied and because it would comfortably reach 75 mph Roesch renamed the car his Talbot 75. His engine was "uncannily smooth" spinning effortlessly to provide its astonishingly high output. The

Rootes Group The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and dea ...

took over Talbot in 1935. The first Rootes Sunbeam, named the Thirty, designed by Georges Roesch, was propelled with a new 100 mph 4503 cc straight-eight engine. There may have been as many as eight prototypes made and some were displayed at the 1936 Motor Show but the new model did not go into production and Roesch left Sunbeam-Talbot going to David Brown in 1939 to develop a

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

design. Unhappy he left David Brown and joined

Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 for ...

Power Jets Power Jets was a British company set up by Frank Whittle for the purpose of designing and manufacturing jet engines. The company was nationalised in 1944, and evolved into the National Gas Turbine Establishment. History Founded on 27 Januar ...

. He continued to work on gas turbines for this rest of his career.Anders Detlev Clausager. ''Sunbeam-Talbot & Alpine In Detail: 1935-1956'' 2010 Herridge & Sons / Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust.

Character

Georges Roesch was not a boastful or articulate man. An insight into his irascible perfectionism may be gained from the report that he refused ever to have a

vacuum cleaner A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven. The dirt is collected by either a ...

in his house because he found none of the existing vacuum cleaner designs satisfactory.

Sources and further reading

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20040810003108/http://www.sunbeam.org.uk/Talbot.htm * http://vea.qc.ca/vea/marques1/talboteng.htm * http://www.talbotownersclub.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Roesch, Georges 1891 births 1969 deaths British automotive pioneers Engineers from Geneva Swiss emigrants to the United Kingdom