Only a handful of the fine Pic-Pic cars remain in the possession of collectors worldwide. This is the story of the rise and fall of a Swiss marque that started with a license model of Hispano-Suiza in 1906, participated in the famous Grand Prix of 1914, and even after keeping company with the most distinguished marques in the world, folded shortly after World War I.

On a sunny summer morning in 1966, the author met with Léon Dufour in Geneva. Dufour, former technical director of the Piccard-Pictet company had also invited his former automobile workshop manager, Marcel Ador. The two men, well into their 80s, reminisced with lively discourse about their shared experiences with perhaps the most respected Swiss marque—tales of success and failure, solutions and problems, and memories of another age. Both had been involved in all the developments of the Pic-Pic cars from the beginning in 1906 to the bitter end in 1922.

Shortly after 1900, the big craze in Paris and Geneva was the new-fangled automobile. Two rather well-to-do sportsmen of Geneva, Charles and Frederic Dufaux, set their aims at building their own racing cars. They designed a powerful racer with a straight-eight engine of about 12 liters (732 cubic inches) capacity yielding about 80 hp. For the manufacturing of the engine and the mechanical work they approached Piccard & Pictet, which had the necessary workshop and installations. It is well possible that this firsthand connection with the automobile initiated the desire of Lucien Pictet to produce motorcars.

Léon Dufour, a young engineer, was hired in 1905 by Piccard, Pictet & Co. and appointed as chief designer. and later, technical director of the company. Whereas the elderly Piccard did not believe in the fashionable motorcars, considering them merely toys of wealthy playboys, Lucien Pictet envisioned a great future for the automobile. This diverging opinion led to the foundation of the Société d’Automobiles, Geneva (S.A.G.) at the end of 1905. It was purely a marketing company that signed a contract with Piccard, Pictet & Co. for the production of motorcars. The board of S.A.G. consisted of industrialists and a lawyer.

Pictet was appointed managing director. Contrary to most of the newcomers in the field, who started with some prototypes (often put together with foreign engines and mechanical parts), the Geneva company went to work in a very professional manner. Pictet had traveled to Barcelona early in 1905 and met the Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt of the Hispano-Suiza company. He was very impressed by the advanced design and high-quality workmanship of the cars made in Spain. Negotiations for a license agreement were concluded in August 1905. Production was planned to a minimum of 120 chassis per year. At the second National Automobile Exhibition in April 1906, Piccard & Pictet and S.A.G. already displayed a 20/24 hp chassis, licensed Hispano-Suiza, which was much admired.

Read more about the Aston Martin in
Volume 44 Number 3