Georges Roesch

Roesch, Georges (born Geneva 15 April 1891:[1] died 7 November 1969[2]) was a Swiss-born automotive engineer. At 25, he was hired by the London firm of Clément-Talbot in 1916 as Chief Engineer. In 1919 Talbot was acquired by Darracq, and the following year the resulting combination merged with Sunbeam to form Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Motors (STD).

Between 1920 and 1925 Roesch worked with STD under Louis Coatalen to develop a six-cylinder push-rod engine of striking simplicity and efficiency.[2]

The first successful post war model was a Georges Roesch-designed six-cylinder high-speed tourer released in 1927. From that point forward all Roesch cars sold well, including the 1936 Talbot 110 Speed Tourer, after the Rootes Group took over Talbot in 1935. The first Rootes Sunbeam, named the Thirty, designed by Georges Roesch, was propelled with a new 4503 cc straight-eight engine. This golden era of Georges Roesch, however, ended soon with the financial collapse, in February 1935, of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq business.

Character

An insight into the irascible perfectionism of Roesch may be gained from the report that he refused ever to have a vacuum cleaner in his house because he found none of the existing vacuum cleaner designs satisfactory.[2]

Sources and further reading

  1. ↑ "The invincible Talbot". Autocar. 126 nbr 3715: 25–31. 27 April 1967.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Engineer with a vision". Motor. nbr 3528: 28–29. 31 January 1970.

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