Quiz Archive

About Quiz # 293: 1908 TT Piccard Pictet (Upd. Winner's post script)

Was it the spring holiday? Were our hints to thin? Is the knowledge on early racing near to extinction? Who will say. We received only a few answers on this rare racing car. It is a 1908 TT Piccard Pictet with a T-head engine made under license of Hispano-Suiza. Here depicted is how the car started life at the 1908 TT at the Island of Man with at the wheel André Debuissy. The Quiz-photo as you may have seen last week was how the car was seen the 1909 Brooklands Whitsun with at the wheel Stewart Gore Brown. Correct answers came in form jurymember Bart Oosterling(a bit late) and very much in time from competitor Martin Shelley: "This is a Piccard-Pictet (Pic-Pic) probably a 1906 four cylinder 20/24 HP car, a license-built Hispano-Suiza. By 1908 the competition cars had Rudge Whitworth wire wheels, and the sole TT entry was driven by Andre Debuissy, although the mechanic of the mystery car looks more like Debuissy than the driver. Debuissy crashed after Quarter Bridge on Lap 1. Mystery car looks like it could be at Brooklands in which case the driver is R Gore-Brown and its Whit Monday, 1909 when Gore-Brown duelled against Arrol Johnston of P Stirling for a prize of 200 Guineas and lost when the Pic-Pic broke down!"  (editor: two races and two break downs, no wonder that Swiss Piccard & Pictet went back to the banking business where they came from and where Pictet at least still is...)

Sender Leo McAllam who provided photos and info for this quiz likes to add only small corrections:" The only slight fault is that he has failed to appreciate that the 1908 TT car (which did have wire wheels - see the other Pic-Pic pic I sent you, attached again here) and the 1909 Brooklands car are one and the same vehicle, now fitted with wooden wheels, the latter being preferred for track use at this period. In the TT the Piccard-Pictet lasted until lap 6 but that's a relatively minor point.

That aside, congratulations Martin! ( see Read More to read the full story by Leo )


after quiz by Martin Shelley:"A postscript to my apparently winning competition entry! I found it difficult to tell the story in only 100 words, hence some detail appears misleading. The crash that eliminated the 1908 TT Pic-Pic (my contemporary sources which I will email you say on lap 5) occurred as I said just after Quarter Bridge on lap 1, but the car restarted and finally retired with overheating problems caused by the earlier accident in which a wheel was buckled and the cooling system likewise damaged. As the Pic-Pic was way down the field by that stage, the details hardly merited full descriptions in contemporary reports. The winning Hutton was one of three entered, the other two both retiring after crashes. First to crash out (also on lap 1) was by co-incidence driven by the same PD Stirling who was Gore-Brown's opponent in the subsequent match race at Brooklands when he drove an Arrol-Johnston, probably also an ex-TT car. Gore-Brown was the nephew of Ethel Locke-King, wife of Hugh, the owner and builder of Brooklands.

Finally, not sure I agree that wire wheels were not favoured at Brooklands as the evidence suggests the opposite. If the Pic-Pic Gore-Brown drove was indeed the same car driven by Debuissy, I am surprised it no longer had the wire wheels it wore in the TT. But we know this car buckled one of its wire wheels in the lap 1 crash so maybe after the race, it was fitted with new wooden spoked wheels all round... Maybe it was a different car!


by Leo McAllam:

Piccard-Pictet made these type of cars initially for the Société d'Automobiles ? Gen?ve (SAG), the T-head engines being made under license from Hispano-Suiza, to a Marc Birkgit design.

The SAG name seems to have been dropped in 1907 in favour of Piccard-Pictet. The adoption of a De Dietrich-style radiator shape seems to have happened at the same time.

One car took part in the 1908 Tourist Trophy race on the Isle of Man, entered by the British agents: Donne and Willans, London; the driver may have been Swiss (or French), one André Debuissy (not spelt like the composer).

Regulations for the 1908 TT stipulated a 4 inch (101.6mm) cylinder bore, stroke optional, and 4 cylinders, hence the event was and is often referred to as the 'Four-Inch Race'. The P-P was a standard 20/24cv (in the UK 18/24hp) with a bore of 100mm, stroke 120mm, 3770cc; one of the smaller cars in the race (the winning Hutton - a 4-cylinder Napier in reality - had a 5.7-litre engine). The race was over 9 laps @ 37.5 miles each, the Piccard-Pictet retired at the end of lap 6, no reason reported. The race was run on the 24th September 1908.

All the 'Four-Inch' cars were rated at 25.6 RAC horsepower (bore only was used in the formula to calculate RAC hp) and at Brooklands in late 1908 and on into 1909 a number of 'not exceeding 26hp' races were run at the track, which mainly attracted ex-TT cars.

At the 1909 Whitsun Bank Holiday Brooklands meeting, Stewart Gore-Browne drove the TT Piccard-Pictet, in a scratch race against a TT Arrol-Johnston, but the P-P broke down.

Two races, two breakdowns, I wonder what the P-P made of it, and if anyone told Marc Birkgit!

Saturday, 05 March 2011