Avions Voisin
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Avions Voisin was an advanced French luxury automobile marque by Gabriel Voisin.
Gabriel B. Voisin was an aviation pioneer and manufacturer who in 1919 started producing cars using Knight-type sleeve valve engines at Issy-les-Moulineaux, an industrial suburb to the South West of Paris.
Former student of the Fine Arts School of Lyon and enthusiast for all things mechanical since his childhood, Voisin's uncompromisingly individual designs made extensive use of light alloys, especially aluminum. One of the company's most striking early designs was the Laboratoire Grand Prix car of 1923; one of the first cars ever to use monocoque chassis construction, and utilising small radiator-mounted propellor to drive the cooling pump. The characteristic Voisin style of 'rational' coachwork he developed in conjunction with his collaborator André Noel-Noel prioritised lightness, central weight distribution, capacious luggage boxes and distinctively angular lines. The 1930s models with underslung chassis were strikingly low.
In the early 1930s, Gabriel Voisin could not pay all of his draughtsmen any more and a young creative engineer called André Lefèbvre quit, recommended by Gabriel to Louis Renault. This man finally entered Citroën where he conducted the three most profitable car projects of the firm: the Traction Avant, the 2CV and the DS, using a lot of Gabriel's lessons.
Voisin engine layouts used:(Knight engines)
- Inline four
- Inline six
- V eight (prototype)
- V twelve - 7.2 liter, 1921 (prototype)
- Inline twelve
- Seven-cylinder radial (prototype)
Notes
- Near the end, Voisin was forced to use Graham 3.5 liter engines, the only exception to the Knight-types.
- A 1934 C-15 Ets. Saliot Roadster won best of show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance for 2002
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