Louis Coatalen

The only published biography of an important engineer and personality in the industry. Story behind great motor racing successes and some failures. New research into family and links across the automobile design world. Includes many previously unpublished photographs.

WINNER OF THE 2020 MICHAEL SEDGWICK AWARD

Louis Coatalen emerges from thisbiography as a man full of Gallic charm and wit, determined to obtain successfor his products by whatever means necessary. His perseverance and a certainlack of scruples, his ability to recognise a good idea and recruit talentedindividuals, combined with his undoubted leadership skills made him a major figurein motoring history.

Coatalen’s successes andfailures are traced from his birth in Brittany, his training as an engineer inFrance, through to his rise to fame in the British motor industry, bringingsuccess to both Humber and Sunbeam before WW1. His aero-engines were usedextensively by the RNAS.

His personal motor racing storyis told as well as that of his team management of cars and drivers that includedthe very first British car to win a Grand Prix and others that broke the WorldLand Speed Records on five occasions. During his later career after returningto France he built up the Lockheed Hydraulic Brake Company and also devotedmuch time and money to developing a powerful, but ultimately unsuccessful, dieselaero-engine. His somewhat complicated privatelife involving four wives, drug addiction and some injudicious investments arealso put on record for the first time.

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