Engineer Shrinks Bit of Past: Napoleon’s Coach

For most of his life, George Hatchard had been aching to build a miniature replica of Napoleon’s magnificent gold-emblazoned carriage.

So now after three years of work, interspersed with lots of golf, the coach has finally been finished. It took 736 hours of toil to build the 10 1/2-inch-high-by-18-inch-long coach.

It cost $384.38 to build.

Creating the miniature coach, with red wheels, a blue body and white interior, which was drawn by two horses, was a salute to General Motors, where he worked 38 years before retiring in 1974.

“I was a dedicated employee, and I just wanted to build one of the coaches,” said Hatchard, who served in the Navy during World War II.

He worked as an engineer in the Fisher Body Division, which used the coach on an emblem to identify all the car bodies it designed for GM until three years ago, when that division was disbanded.

Hatchard’s interest in the coach began as a youth, when he entered a GM competition offering college scholarships for students who built the best replica of the carriage.

“I always wanted to build one of the coaches from the time GM started holding contests,” said the Irvine resident, who graduated from the General Motors Institute.

Even though he was able to find a set of plans in the GM archives, it remained a formidable task. He had to build all the parts out of wood, brass and copper.

“It was a difficult gizmo to make even with a set of plans,” he said. “I can see why they dropped the program.”

But hold on.

Hatchard now says he is ready to build a duplicate of the coach, and it will most likely take him another three years since he still loves to play golf.

“I did deviate a little from the plans, and I’d like to make one exactly like the plans,” he said. “No one can notice it, but I can. I know I’ll get a lot of personal pride out of it.”

(The coach was originally used by Napoleon for his coronation as emperor of France on Dec. 2, 1804, and a similar coach was used at his marriage on April 2, 1810, to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.)

Hatchard said: Can you imagine the time, money and men it must have taken to make the full-size coaches?”

“This time I want to make an exact duplicate, and I even plan to use some real gold,” he said, pointing out he used gold paint to resemble the real coaches.

Some of the parts he uses on the second coach will be dipped in real gold, he said.

Hatchard and Marie, his wife of 50 years, once toured France in hopes of seeing the full-size version, but the trip was fruitless.

“I don’t know what happened to the coaches, and no one could help me,” he said, noting that he wouldn’t mind if a museum wanted to show his coach.

“Most people who see it in my home think it’s great, but they mostly take a glimpse for about 15 seconds and they are finished,” he said.

Hatchard said if his creation was in a museum more people would be able to view it. “I’d like that,” he said.