Pic-Pic 1910-1922 - the Rolls-Royce from Switzerland
Summary
There were around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of them have disappeared. One of these vanished brands is Pic-Pic, which existed from 1910 to 1922. Thanks to its high technical quality, Pic-Pic became the Rolls-Royce of Switzerland and the second-largest vehicle manufacturer after Martini. However, the production volume was not sufficient for the company to survive and it went bankrupt in 1920.
Estimated reading time: 3min
Preview (beginning of the article)
"You can only use such a stupid name for cough drops or bug spray!" That's what a modern-day marketing strategist would tell us. But the Pic-Pic brand was simply the abbreviation for Piccard & Pictet - and was considered the "Rolls-Royce of Switzerland" thanks to its technical quality. Paul Piccard was a mechanical engineer and university professor in Lausanne before he took over a Geneva-based company as a designer of water turbines together with Lucien Pictet in 1895. In 1904, four entrepreneurs from Zurich and Basel founded the Société d'Automobiles à Genève (SAG). Pictet obtained a license for the manufacture of automobiles and engines from Marc Birkigt, founder of the Hispano-Suiza brand in Barcelona. By 1910, the Piccard, Pictet & Cie workshops had built a total of 165 SAG chassis with four and six-cylinder engines. The two companies were then united under the Pic-Pic brand.
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