1912 Fiat
Italian sporting torpedo par excellence, the 1912 Fiat Tipo 54 had a 5.7-litre, monobloc four-cylinder engine and shaft drive; it sold in Britain at £650 in chassis form, to which coachwork such as that shown here would add another £200 or so. The wire wheels fitted to this car are not standard, for the original specification called for the wooden-spoked artillery type.
1912 Hispano-Suiza
Although the Hispano-Suiza company was founded in Barcelona in 1904, seven years later they were building cars in Paris as well. Most famous of all the Edwardian Hispanos was the sporting Alfonso XIII (named after the marque’s most prestigious customer), which in its most common form had a longstroke 3.6-litre engine. The 1912 Alfonso illustrated here still bears a bullet mark on its steering wheel, where its owner was killed in the Irish troubles of that time.
1912 Nazzaro
Racing driver Felice ‘Lucky’ Nazzaro enjoyed less than his usual good fortune when he became a car manufacturer in 1912. Unlike his erstwhile team-mate Vincenzo Lancia, Nazzaro found that his sporting reputation was not sufficient to sell cars, and sales remained disappointing during the marque’s decade of existence. Most Nazzaro cars were distinctly staid in appearance, and it is likely that this 1912 model once bore far more sober raiment than it does today.
1912 Opel
It was a blessing in disguise when the Opel factory at Russelsheim, Germany, burned down in 1911, for the holocaust enabled the Opel brothers to rebuild in the most modern fashion. By 1912, they were back in production with a bewildering range which started with the basic 1-littre 5/12hp and went up through another seven distinct types-6/16hp, 8/20hp, 10/2Shp, 14/30hp, 18/40hp, 24/50hp and 34/65hp, to the massive 10.2-litre 40/100hp, priced at £800 in chassis form.
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