GOOD WOOD

This fabulous Tulipwood' 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C has just won the Pebble Beach Concours. David Burgess-Wise recounts its remarkable life story

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It's like a fine piece of furniture,' said Lee Anderson Sr as his 1924 8.0-litre HispanoSuiza H6C 'Type Sport' was voted Best of Show at the 2025 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. 'When we get it home, we're going to put it in the living room and sit in it.'

The mahogany body of his Hispano had proved a crowd-pleaser at the Concours and obviously bedazzled the judges, too, for the car was up against stiff opposition - a 1933 S-Type 4½-litre Invicta with Corsica drophead coupé coachwork, a two-seater 1939 Maybach SW38 Spohn Sport and a 1956 Maserati 200SI Fantuzzi open sports racer - but, even as the finalists lined up at the foot of the final ramp, the Hispano towered, literally and physically, above the rest.

Let’s get one thing straight about the Best of Show Hispano-Suiza: for many years, everyone - including commentator Amanda Stretton announcing the winner - has called it the ‘Tulipwood Hispano’. That’s akin to describing a lovely lady by the material her undergarments are cut from, for while there is tulipwood in the construction of the Hispano’s lightweight bodywork, it’s the unglamorous yet essential substrate beneath the car’s external skinning.

Tulipwood, for all its exotic overtones, is a poplar hardwood (liriodendron tulipifera) from the Eastern United States, ‘frequently used’, says a timber merchant, ‘for kitchen cabinets’. Woodworkers love it for its resistance to splitting when nailed. It’s very strong for its weight and ideal for laminating. That's why tulipwood, layered in whisper-thin strips set diagonally at alternating 90° angles and laid over thin formers, was used by the makers of this Hispano’s coachwork, French aircraft manufacturer Société Nieuport, to build light yet strong monocoque fuselages for aircraft such as its record-breaking NiD-42 S sesquiplane racer.