Louis Hervé Coatalen (11 September 1879 – 23 May 1962)
was an automobile engineer and racing driver born in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
who spent much of his adult life in Britain and took British nationality. He was a pioneer of the design and development of internal combustion engines for cars and aircraft.
France
Coatalen, the second son of J Coatalen, was born in the Breton fishing town of
Concarneau / Konk-Kerne and went on to study engineering at
Arts et Métiers ParisTech
Arts et Métiers ParisTech is a French engineering and research institute of higher education. It is a ''grande école'', recognized for leading in the fields of mechanics and industrialization. Founded in 1780, it is among the oldest French ins ...
, in the town of
Cluny
Cluny () is a commune in the eastern French department of Saône-et-Loire, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is northwest of Mâcon.
The town grew up around the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 9 ...
[ (France).
]
Career
After serving his apprenticeship with De Dion-Bouton
De Dion-Bouton was a French automobile manufacturer and railcar manufacturer operating from 1883 to 1953. The company was founded by the Marquis Jules-Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton, and Bouton's brother-in-law Charles Trépardoux.
Steam cars
T ...
, Clément and Panhard et Levasseur he left France to work in England in 1900. After a short time with the Crowden Motor Car Company he joined Humber Limited
Humber Limited was a British manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, and cars incorporated and listed on the stock exchange in 1887. It took the name "Humber & Co Limited" because of the high reputation of the products of one of the constituent ...
in 1901[Obituary M. Louis Coatalen. ''The Times'', Friday, 25 May 1962; p. 18; Issue 55400] and was to become their chief engineer. He designed their 8-10 and 10-12 models. They were highly successful but their design was, unusually for Coatalen, totally conventional.[W O Bentley. ''The Cars in my Life'', The Macmillan Company, New York, 1963]
In 1906 aged 26 or 27 he went into partnership with bicycle manufacturer William Hillman
William Hillman (13 November 1848 – 4 February 1921) was a British bicycle and automobile manufacturer. In partnership with Louis Coatalen he founded the Hillman-Coatalen Company in 1907, later the Hillman Motor Company after Coatalen's defe ...
. In 1908 he drove their Hillman-Coatalen car in the Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
Tourist Trophy race.[
]
Sunbeam
The brief partnership was dissolved in 1909 and Coatalen moved from Coventry to Wolverhampton to join Sunbeam. He was appointed joint managing director (with William M Iliff) in 1914.
Sunbeam 12-16
His first design was one of the outstanding light car designs of its day. In 1912 three 12-16s took the first three places in Dieppe's ''Coupe de l'Auto'' 2-day race for 3-litre cars. The first of the three cars was also third in the race for Grand Prix cars. But his designs rapidly became less innovative and he seemed to copy Peugeot developments rather than use his own.[
]
Grand Prix races
Sunbeam cars won the Tourist Trophy races in 1914 and 1922. The Sunbeam cars that took the first three places in the 1923 French Grand Prix were said to have owed much to Fiat designs.[
]
Aero engines
During World War I he designed aircraft engines
An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...
for Sunbeam. On his death in 1962 Lord Sempill
Lord Sempill (also variously rendered as Semple or Semphill) is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in circa 1489 for Sir John Sempill, founder of the collegiate Church of Lochwinnoch. Sempill was killed at the Battle of Flodden ...
wrote to The Times to point out that Coatalen was one of the three leading designers of engines for aircraft and airships used by the RNAS
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...
in the First World War. The other two, he said, were W O Bentley
Walter Owen Bentley, MBE (16 September 1888 – 13 August 1971) was an English engineer who founded Bentley Motors Limited in London. He was a motorcycle and car racer as a young man. After making a name for himself as a designer of aircraft an ...
and Sir Henry Royce
Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, (27 March 1863 – 22 April 1933) was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude ...
.[M. Louis Coatalen. Mr. Anthony S. Heal. ''The Times'', Friday, 1 Jun 1962; p. 21; Issue 55406]
Sunbeam produced a greater variety of aero engines than any other business during the war. W O Bentley said this was "in part because Coatalen was so good at selling ideas to the Admiralty and War Office."[
He was appointed a director of STD Motors when in 1920 Sunbeam joined with ]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- ...
and Darracq
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 ...
to form STD Motors Limited, but he remained chief engineer of Sunbeam. He was later put in charge of the technical and designing staffs of all STD subsidiaries.[S.T.D. Motors, Limited. ''The Times'', Wednesday, 8 Feb 1922; p. 18; Issue 42950]
Race cars
With the success of 1.5-litre Talbot-Darracq cars, his main interest became racing cars. Their wins catapulted Sunbeam to the highest echelons of international competition from the legendary success at the 1912 Coupe de l’Auto to winning the 1914 and 1922 Tourist Trophy and 1923 and 1924 Grand Prix. Coatelen collaborated with the industry foremost designer Ernest Henry on the 1922 Grand Prix Sunbeams and had some of the most respected drivers of the period – Henry Segrave
Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave (22 September 1896 – 13 June 1930) was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneous ...
, Jean Chassagne
Jean Chassagne (26 July 1881, in La Croisille-sur-Briance – 13 April 1947) was a pioneer submariner, aviator and French racecar driver active 1906-1930. Chassagne finished third in the 1913 French Grand Prix; won the 1922 Tourist Trophy and fi ...
and Kenelm Lee Guinness
Kenelm Edward Lee Guinness Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE (14 August 1887 – 10 April 1937) was a London-born racing driver of the 1910s and 1920s mostly associated with Sunbeam Motor Car Company, Sunbeam racin ...
driving his Sunbeam cars.
In 1926, Sunbeam's racing activities were taken into the STD company and moved to Suresnes
Suresnes () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,145 as of 2016. The nearest communes are Nanterre, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud an ...
near Paris in France and although Coatalen continued working part-time in Wolverhampton, he spent most of his time in Paris.
On his direction, Sunbeam was among the first British manufacturers to provide front wheel brakes.[ Coatalen's innovations included balancing the wheels (a technique also claimed by ]Sig Haugdahl
Sigurd Olson "Sig" Haugdahl (January 10, 1891 – February 4, 1970) was an IMCA "Big Car" (now sprint car) champion 1927 – 1932 and an early promoter of stock car racing in the United States.
Background
Sig Haugdahl was born on the Tiller ...
) and putting the oil pump in the sump, and he was an early advocate of shock absorbers.
Record breaking
Sunbeam became heavily involved in land speed record attempts including the successful 1000HP car of 1927 and the failed '' 'Silver Bullet
In folklore, a bullet cast from silver is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. The term ''silver bullet'' is also a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem: for example, pe ...
' '' of 1930. Louis Coatalen designed the engines for the first car to exceed 150 miles per hour and the first car to exceed 200 miles an hour, the 1000 horsepower Sunbeam driven by Henry Segrave
Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave (22 September 1896 – 13 June 1930) was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneous ...
.[
]
France
From the proceeds of his S T D share sale, Coatalen bought control of the French branch of Lockheed hydraulics and with the income from this bought a yacht and a villa on the Isle of Capri.
During the Second World War he lived in France and he continued living there until his sudden death in Paris in 1962 aged 82.[
]
Marriages
Louis Coatalen married four times: in 1902 to Annie Ellen Davis (divorced 1906), in 1910 to Olive Bath (daughter of a Sunbeam director, Henry J Bath), in 1923 to Iris van Raalte, née Graham, and in 1934 to Ellen Bridson known to family as Dickie. There is no record of a marriage to a member of the Hillman family.
Impresario
Following the publication of Coatalen's obituary, Sunbeam expert Anthony S Heal wrote to ''The Times'' to describe Coatalen as an ''impresario
An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer.
Hist ...
'' of the motor industry. "He led and inspired others to achieve miracles they themselves would not have thought possible."[
W O Bentley described him as "not only a first class businessman who made (and lost) a great deal of money in his active life with Sunbeams; he had other qualities which I liked even better; he was highly educated and amusing and a tremendous raconteur, and he was dedicated to motor racing".][
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coatalen, Louis
1879 births
1962 deaths
French expatriates in the United Kingdom
British automobile designers
Land speed record people
Sunbeam Motor Car Company
British automotive pioneers
People from Concarneau
Arts et Métiers ParisTech alumni
Sportspeople from Finistère