Forgotten Makes: The Hurtu

In view of the opposition now being shown to car drivers, who are blamed for driving too fast, too close, blocking city streets when they park, causing emission problems and in contrast to (inconvenient) public transport, being a general nuisance, it is unlikely that anyone would care to be seen in a car called a Hurtu…

However, I have quite vivid memories of this obscure French make, because I went on the 1937 Veteran Car Run from Hyde Park to Brighton as the honoured passenger to Capt J H Wylie, RN, one of the founders and then-Secretary of the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain, on his 1898 3½ hp Hurtu. This early primitive was so very appropriate to the VCC Run, and as it turned out, the day was truly memorable. That year the aviator Miss Jean Batten was the Club’s guest-of-honour at the dinner they held at the Metropole Hotel after the Run and the Captain had sent her on ahead in his Rolls-Royce, driven by his chauffeur. For this reason he was anxious that his Hurtu should get him to Brighton as soon as possible and I recall that it was the first veteran to leave the start that Sunday morning, at 8.32am, although we were actually No.4 in the entry-list…

Alas, Capt Wylie’s desire to meet his guest as soon as possible — she had the previous month flown back from Australia in a 200 hp Percival Gull Six in 5 days 18 hrs 15 min, beating H J Broadbent’s male record with his DH Leopard Moth by 14 hrs 10 sec, having broken the outward record and that for England-South America in the Gull — were the subject of several frustrations. The previous year I had done the Brighton Run on Dick Nash’s 1900 Peugeot and beforehand he had said: “Don’t wear your best suit, we may have to ‘get out and get under’ “. But we didn’t; Dick’s frustration came later, when the two outsize candle carriage-lamps were stolen. In Wylie’s case it all occurred on the day.

Dating was less stringent then and his Hurtu may have been rather later than 1898 (it was in fact later re-dated 1899, and is thought to have gone to Sweden), but it was certainly a crude proposition, based on the earliest Benz but perhaps not so well contrived. But it was definitely a true veteran, the big-end of its single-cylinder “gas engine” exposed, drive by belts, the tyres solid rubber and cooling on the total loss system, suction inlet valve, ignition by trembler coils. As the great A V Ebblewhite signalled us away the turf-turfing ceased and a change of plug was required. But then we were off, with an M-type MG Midget as tender-car. Fog was troublesome, as were the Croydon tramlines, which the Hurtu’s track fitted exactly. After being escorted through Brixton and Streatham by a Hillman police-car the Hurtu’s engine stopped at Thornton Heath. The inlet valve was resting on the piston. It was only a miracle that enabled me to replace it, cotter-pin in pliers, and the valve spring miraculously depressed with a screwdriver in my other hand. “Boddy”, said Wylie, “I know you are a journalist; I did not know you were a skilled engineer”. Me, who could only just about decoke an Austin 7…

The rise past frost-bound Croydon Aerodrome was almost our undoing, the surface carburettor dispensing a mixture not agreeable to the engine. Now almost last, we could only hope that the famous aviatrix was being well looked after by the Metropole staff; especially as the inlet valve fell down again near Reigate. This time the thread of the valve stem had stripped. I had to search for the missing bits, and it was ages before, by tying down the spring, we could induce the cotter pin to re-enter its tiny hole. Then the engine refused to recommence, pull it round by the flywheel as Wylie did. Change plug and it condescends to restart.

Now low on petrol and the MG missing, I had to go off in someone’s Hillman Minx for more Aviation fuel. Later on, it was in an enthusiastic girl’s 1923 A7 that I set off again for fuel and was able to get “Aviation” from beside Hawker biplanes at Gatwick aerodrome. A few more troubles and with candle lamps lit we finished, at 5.30 pm. Maybe the Brighton Run was more of an adventure then! Veterans only recently discovered (the Hurtu had last run in 1929) being scarcely understood in many instances. Capt Wylie had been so impressed by the cups of tea brought to him by the aforesaid Austin-girl that he invited her, me and, to my slight annoyance, her boyfriend to the VCC dinner. So it was in haste to Seaford in the A7, change into a borrowed dinner jacket, ring for a Morris taxi and back to Brighton, returning to London the next day by train.

I recount all this to show that I have encountered the Hurtu. It was one of the truly early French makes. It began with sewing machines, then bicycles, but by 1896 the manufacture of automobiles was attempted, the first very apparently copies of the Benz Ideal, although before that Hurtu had felt their way with tricars, again a crib, in this case of the exciting Bollee three-wheelers. But these, a few hundred apparently, were for the Bollee Company. Finally, at their works at Albert on the Seine, the Compagnie des Autos et Cycles Hurtu took on car making. These first Benz-derived Hurtus were supposed to incorporate improvements to the quite practical German make. But the historian St John Nixon is scathing about their shortcomings, although conceding that the British Marshall made in Manchester, inspired by the Hurtu, was perhaps even worse.

Whatever the truth of this, Hurtu was encouraged to go on to make conventional light cars from 1900, using almost inevitably the renowned single-cylinder 3½ hp De Dion Bouton engines. Aster engines seem to have been used later, in single, two and four-cylinder versions. From about 1907 the dashboard radiator was adopted, and became a hallmark of pre-1915 cars of this make. It was not until 1912 that a one-cylinder Hurtu was dropped from the range, the future of “one-lunger” cars being by then almost extinct, outside the cyclecar field. Primitives behind them, Hurtu adopted a unit gearbox for their monobloc 10 hp shaftdrive light car.

Hurtu survived the war, moving to Neuilly on the Seine, and greeting the post-strife era with a side-valve 14 hp chassis using a 75 x 180 mm (2120 cc) engine, improved for 1920 with four instead of three forward speeds and detachable wheels, but retaining a cone clutch in the well of the unit gearbox. Customers had the choice of a frontal or behind-engine radiator. The chassis cost £500 but electric lighting and starting were extra and were rather hung on, and the engine had valve caps in a fixed head…

The concession here had been obtained by Ariel Motors & General Repairs Ltd, in London’s dismal Camberwell New Road, although the Ariel was no more. (But see “Forgotten Makes”, October 1992) They contrived very smart ivory-white Avonmore bodies with black fittings for the 1919 Olympia Show, but the tourer was priced at a high £750. Seeking a more comfortable ride (over war-torn roads?) the rear half-elliptic springs had been lengthened.

The factory moved again, to Rueil, and this 2-litre car remined the staple model. For 1921 the bore and stroke were increased to 76 x 130 mm (2359 cc) but the price of the tourer had also risen, to £825. The frontal slightly-vee-radiator was undistinguished “The British Marshall, inspired by the Hurtu, was perhaps even worse,” and an unfinished body at Olympia, blamed on the strikes, could hardly have inspired sales, and it was unkindly suggested that you could not jack-up the back axle as it had a tie-rod beneath it. The headlamp leads unplugged for the use of an inspection-lamp, the rh brake-lever was inboard of the gearlever and there was some ingenuity in the coachwork. Perhaps in an attempt to get business going, in 1921 the London-built tourer was reduced to £695, which a French body chopped to £650. The chassis, with splash-lubricated engine and straight-bevel back axle, was back to £500 from £575. Not enough apparently, as it was soon down to £465 for the chassis, £675 for the tourer. For 1922 cantilever back springs were presumably intended to give even more comfort; triangulated torque rods were used. The petrol tank remained in the scuttle but a dummy rear one held the tools.

Someone liked the Hurtu however, because the concessionaires built for Mr E M Tailby of Birmingham a neat two-door all-weather Britannia-blue body under Gwynne patents, with big windows and slender pillars, on a 14 hp chassis.

A power output of 35 bhp at 1800 rpm from a 2.4-litre engine was not impressive but this was rectified by bringing out a new 12/20 model with a 70 x 130 mm (2001 cc) push-rod overhead-valve engine in time for the 1922 Paris Salon, although by then Hurtu had gone from the London Show. This ohv car, continued with the older one, had a Ferodo-lined plate clutch, spiral-bevel back axle, the same 9ft 10in wheelbase and 765 x 105 tyres. It had 4-wheel brakes, which the 14 hp chassis lacked, the handbrake applying first the rear brakes only, then all four. The ohv engine was said to develop 42 bhp at 1800 rpm, 60 at 3000; an unusual feature, later to be used on Roesch Talbots, was the Solex carburettor at the rear of the inlet manifold. The original concessionaires were back at Olympia in 1923 with the new model (chassis £400). At this time some pre-war Hurtus were to be seen here, one 1913 model not having had its big-ends “taken up”, a nice period touch…

Hurtu or not, a sports 4-seater was available for £550 in 1924, but then it began to diminish. No stand at Olympia, no Press road-test as I recall (although I have not read them all). Typified by the unfortunate British owner of a 1922 15 hp Hurtu which by 1927 had burnt out its clutch and broken the reverse-gear pinions and who cried “Is the car still made and where? Can spares be obtained?”… In fact, car production continued in France until 1930 and the name was carried on with mopeds with 49 cc engines and such-like, which went on well into the 1950s. Nor is the Hurtu forgotten in VCC circles, where half-a-dozen ranging from 1899 to 1914 are recorded.