Javillac
Often The world of aeronautics and the automobile have been closely related, thus achieving many of the advances in terms of aerodynamics or even aesthetics by incorporating elements such as rear fins in some models.
But on today's list we bring Ten examples of car manufacturers who decided that they saw the sky was the limit and decided to move into aviation as well, although there are also cases in which the opposite occurs, with companies dedicated to aeronautics that also left their mark on the road.
ROLLS-ROYCE
Beyond the prestige associated with this historic brand from Great Britain that has been the choice of heads of state and monarchs over the years, the company of the Spirit of Ecstasy perhaps It is equally well known today for its turbine engines. which assemble Airbus and Boeing aircraft alike.
The company decided to enter fully into the world of aeronautics in 1914, at the beginning of World War I, creating the first Rolls-Royce V-12s, the best-known variant of which was the Merlin with a displacement of 27 litres and mounted on the Spitfires of the Royal Air Force during World War II.
PACKARD
This now defunct American company was one of the most prestigious car brands in the United States and also one of the oldest. They were pioneers in the the first V-12 engine was fitted to a production car in 1912, with the Packard Double Six, and it was precisely these engines that made Enzo Ferrari fall in love with twelve cylinders.
But with the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent entry of the United States into the conflict, automobile manufacturing ceased so that Packard began manufacturing aircraft engines, developing the famous Liberty L-12During World War II they worked together with Rolls-Royce to develop their own version of the Merlin, called the V-1650, which they ended up using in the P-51 Mustang.
FORD
The Ford Motor Company can be credited with many things, and that is that Henry Ford He was not content with just manufacturing more than fifteen million units of the Ford Model T and thus changing the world forever, he also He had the idea of creating a small plane that would be affordable for everyone.
This is how it was born in 1928 The Ford Flivver, which was intended to be the Ford T of the skies, sharing some components with this car, but a fatal accident in which neither the plane nor the pilot were ever found in the ocean put an end to this project. They manufactured the Ford Trimotor between 1925 and 1933, which were commercial airplanes and have the bad reputation of having been the aircraft in which the singer Carlos Gardel lost his life in 1935.
HISPANIC-SWITZERLAND
Apart from being one of the most prestigious and technologically advanced automobile companies of the time thanks to the ingenuity of the Swiss Mark Birkigt, Hispanic-Suiza It was also a leading company in the world of aviation since World War I.
In this conflict Spain remained in a neutral position, something that greatly benefited the country's industry, including Hispano-Suiza, which In 1915 he developed a V8 engine with overhead camshaft. which was equipped in various aircraft of the Triple Entente and which many call the "engine that won the Great War".
FIAT
The Turin company began manufacturing cars in 1899, and shortly after the invention of the first airplane they moved on to develop their own aircraft engines from 1908 onwards, being the first mechanics directly inherited from the brand's racing cars.
Fiat Aviazione focused mainly on the manufacture of military aircraft, reaching create his own supersonic jet aircraft in 1956; the G-91 bomber. By the 1969s the company was more interested in the automobile business, and in XNUMX the aeronautical part of Fiat became Aeritalia.
SAAB
We now move on to the companies that They did things backwards and went from manufacturing airplanes to devoting part of their efforts to cars., in some cases leaving aviation aside. Perhaps the best known of all the examples of brands that have made this shift in their business is Saab.
The Swedish brand was founded in 1937 with the aim of developing fighter planes, as the Swedish army was its main client. After World War II The company started selling aircraft abroad, and they thought it would be a great business idea if they did the same with cars., So the first Saab car arrived in 1947. Although the last four-wheeled Saab was built in 2011, the company continues to manufacture aircraft today.
BMW
Although Gustav Otto founded the company in 1910, it was not until 1922 that it was renamed BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke), with a logo that referred to the propellers of an airplane and the colors of the Bavarian flag. Prior to this name change that referred to the change of activity, they had already developed in the face of World War I, its first six-cylinder engine for aviation.
It was not until 1923 when the company's first motorcycle arrived; the R32, and the BMW Dixi was the brand's first car, an Austin Seven manufactured under license from 1928. After World War II they abandoned the manufacture of aircraft engines to focus on motorcycles and resumed automobile production from 1952.
MITSUBISHI
Although Mitsubishi was founded in 1870, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries division did not emerge until 1884, specializing in heavy machinery of all kinds with a particular focus on shipbuilding. By the 1930s they were the most valuable company in Japan. and they manufactured vehicles of all kinds, including airplanes.
Although they had manufactured some cars in low numbers during the 1910s, the company focused mainly on larger tonnage vehicles and buses. With the outbreak of World War II Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes were among the most famousAfter the conflict, they began manufacturing cars in the 1950s, although they did not expand this business internationally until the 1970s, and they currently continue to develop aircraft mainly for regional flights.
AVIA
The Madrid company known for its vans and commercial vehicles was founded in 1957 by the company Aeronáutica Industrial SA (AISA), which had been dedicated to the manufacture of light aircraft, including versions of Juan de la Cierva's autogyro, from 1923 until its dissolution in 2004, when it was absorbed by Eurocopter.
By the end of the fifties with the boom that the automobile industry was experiencing in Spain and The high demand for industrial vehicles led to the decision to create Avia, using Perkins diesel engines and selling their products with great popularity until 1987.
NEXT PLANES
This brand was founded by one of the fathers of aviation, Gabriel voisin, setting up his aeronautics company in 1905, just two years after the Wright brothers' first flight. Voisin achieved many pioneering feats in this sector, but left the industry to focus on automobiles after the end of World War I.
In 1919 he manufactured his first cars for the brand called Avions Voisin., these being some of the most exclusive and with a more striking design of the time, but perhaps the most remembered product, at least for the Spanish, the work of Gabriel Voisin was the biscuit, which was manufactured in Barcelona with quite a bit of popularity.
