The late Sidney Horstmann OBE, who was the son
of a German clockmaker, originally formed the company in 1913.
From 1915 to 1929, we manufactured around 4,000 cars. Some of
the cars had aluminum bodies and were raced with some success
at Brooklands. |
The Horstman Car
Horstmann pioneered work in the automotive
industry in the 1920's and 30's and designed and manufactured
a number of innovative engineering solutions. One of these
was the development of alternative suspension systems. |
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Horstmann Micrometer
His father, Gustav Horstmann, designed the
world's first micrometer accurate to one ten thousandth of
an inch. The original is still preserved in the Science Museum
and a copy is in the Bath Industrial Heritage Museum. |
The Horstman Suspension
In the military field Horstmann was best known
for the suspension bogie which was patented in 1922.
In this patent he refers to the use of a torsion
bar to support the vehicle weight. This was around 9 years
before Ferdinand Porsche founded his design company.
The suspension system was adopted by both
the UK and US armies during the Second World War as a high
performance suspension system for tracked vehicles. The suspension
still exists on vehicles today such as Khalid, Centurion, and
Chieftain MBT's and is known as the Horstmann Bogie. |
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The Horstman Hair Clippers
Horstman also excelled in other areas and
was first to introduce a hair clipper which had a built-in
adjustable blade to cope with varying lengths of hair.
This was further developed to incorporate
a barbers chair with built in vacuum powered hair removal.
The Company stopped manufacturing hair clippers in the 1960's. |
In the 1950's Horstman was incorporated
into the Simms Motor Group which was later taken over by the
Lucas Group. In 1961
we moved to our current site next to the River Avon on Locksbrook
Road. Lucas sold the company in 1980 to EIS PLC, a London based
international holding company with a pedigree for progressive
growth and security of investment. EIS was taken over by the
TI Group in 1997 and TI was taken over by Smith Industries
in 1999. |
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Since 1980 Horstman has steadily increased
its turnover, workforce and capacity. In 1990 Horstman took
over the trade and assets
of Coventry Climax Engines. Climax had traditionally been a
specialist engine manufacturer with a number of auxiliary power
units in
military vehicles. The current Horstman site in Bath, occupies
over 4,000 square meters and we employ 58 personnel. |
In 2001, Smiths sold Horstman to Harris Watson
PLC along with our sister companies AB Precision and AGI. |
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