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Page 24 DUDLEY CHRONICLE, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20 2012
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Sunbeam cars gathered for the unveiling of a blue plaque on the site in Penn The racing car Toodles V at Brooklands, where it broke eight world records Where the work took place –the Sunbeam racing car workshop in 1922
Coatalen, centre, examining the Sunbeam Bomber in
1917 at the airfield in Castle Bromwich
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Days when Sunbeam raced
ahead in Grand Prix stakes
FOR more than 60 years Britain has
dominated Grand Prix manufacturing,
but it was not always thus.
In the early days it was French cars which
led the way, and, in the days before the World
Championship, it was winning the French
Grand Prix which was recognised as the pinnacle
of motor-racing achievement.
The first British car to win the French
Grand Prix, in 1923, was made right here in
Wolverhampton, in Sunbeam’s Blakenhall
factory, but it’s designer was a Frenchman,
Louis Coatalen.
He was a Breton, born on September 11,
1879, and worked for a number of French car
manufacturers before arriving in England in
1900 to work for the Crowden Company, and
then becoming chief engineer at Hillman in
Coventry.
In 1909 he was recruited by the Sunbeam
Motor Car Co in Blakenhall, to be their chief
engineer, and immediately planned to enter
motor-racing. He began designing purposebuilt
racing cars, which led to the first major
triumph, a win in the 1912 Coupe de l’Auto in
Dieppe, Sunbeams coming 1st, 2nd and 3rd,
by Alec Brew
eclipsing and astonishing the major European
manufacturers.
In 1912 Coatalen also designed his first
aero-engine a 150hp side valve V8, followed
by a 225 hp V12, which he first tested in a specially-built
racing car named Toodles V.
In October 1913, this car, at Brooklands,
broke eight world endurance speed records in
a hour and a half. There is no doubt that
Coatalen was a talented, even brilliant engineer,
but he was not afraid of copying others.
Devious
During 1913 Peugeot cars with twin overhead
camshafts swept the board in three litre
racing, and by some devious means one of
these found its way to the drawing room of
Coatalen’s home, Waverley House on
Goldthorn Hill. Here, Sunbeam mechanics
stripped it down to discover its secrets, and
for 1914 Sunbeam also featured twin overhead
camshafts, as did the new aero-engines
he designed at the start of the War.
Sunbeam was a major supplier of aeroengines
during the War and also built more
than 600 aircraft, including just one of its own
design the single-engine Sunbeam Bomber.
All the engines were officially called
Sunbeam-Coatalen engines, but after the War
they were rather eclipsed by Rolls-Royce and
Napier designs.
Coatalen turned to his great ambition, to
win the French Grand Prix. The Sunbeam
company merged with Darraq and Talbot and
Coatalen became a Director of the resulting
STD Motors.
In 1923 a Sunbeam finally won the French
Grand Prix, driven by Henry Seagrave, and
would have won the following year but for
technical problems. Coatalen also produced
three different cars to break the World Land
Speed Record but Sunbeam began to experience
financial difficulties, and in 1934 closed
down.
By that time Louis Coatalen had returned
to his native France, though he had taken
British citizenship. He lived there through the
War and died in 1962. He had brought great
fame to the Sunbeam company, and to Wolverhampton,
his adopted home for over 20 years.
Louis Coatalen , then aged 33, in 1912
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