The Geneva Motor Show is next month, and with it we’ll see a bunch of new shit, including a new Mercedes CLA, an updated BMW 7 Series, and Volvo’s Polestar 2. We’ll also be seeing a new Hispano-Suiza, the first new Hispano-Suiza car in about 4,000 years. It’ll be all electric, Hispano Suiza says, a grand tourer inspired by the kind of things the company made in the 1930s.
The car will be called the Carmen, named for a granddaughter of the company’s co-founder. The only image we have for now is the one up top, but the company said in a press release that the car was designed in Barcelona and will be built there as well.
While the new model takes inspiration from the Dubonnet Xenia, one of the elegant and luxurious vehicles built by Hispano Suiza in 1938, development and build of the Carmen and its custom-designed electric powertrain will be led by the company’s production partner, QEV Technologies.
Hispano-Suiza was a notable maker of luxury, enthusiast-minded motorcars in the first half of the 20th century, based out of Barcelona. It has not made cars since the 1940s, but it has had a long history in the aerospace industry. Today the brand seems to be back with the founding Suqué Mateu family. And QEV Technologies is heavily involved with Formula E racing, so the comeback should benefit from that expertise.
The luxury electric market is getting increasingly interesting and it increasingly resembles the car market around the turn of the century, when dozens of companies were competing to make gasoline-powered cars in a still-emerging market. There’s Tesla, of course, but also players like Jaguar, Byton, and whatever Henrik Fisker’s doing these days.
Will Hispano-Suiza still be a thing in 10 years, or 20? I haven no idea, but they’re giving it a go, and that’s worthwhile.