The first cars were large, featuring a 9.76-litre 6-cylinder engine or a 6.4-litre four. Coatalen left in 1909 to join Sunbeam and the company was re-registered as the Hillman Motor Car Company in 1910. The car was put out of the race by a crash, but it had made a splash. They launched the 24HP Hillman-Coatalen, which was entered into that year's Tourist Trophy. In 1907 Hillman-Coatalen was founded by William Hillman with the Breton Louis Coatalen as designer and chief engineer. Hillman had moved into Abingdon House in Stoke Aldermoor near Coventry and decided that a sensible plan would be to set up a car factory in its grounds. With wealth came the means to fulfil Hillman's next ambition, to become a car producer. Hillman's new company soon established itself, and before the turn of the 20th century, Hillman was a millionaire. In 1870 Hillman and Starley patented a new bicycle called the "Ariel" and by 1885 Hillman was a partner of the bicycle manufacturer Hillman Herbert and Cooper, producing a bicycle called the Kangaroo. In 1869 the firm changed its name to the Coventry Machinists Company, and like many other manufacturers in the area embarked on producing velocipedes. In 1857 Josiah Turner and James Starley formed the Coventry Sewing Machine Company, and recruited skilled engineers from the London area to join them, one of whom was William Hillman.
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