Historic Car Brands

Avions Voisin was a French luxury automobile brand established by Gabriel Voisin in 1919 and which traded until the early 1950s.

Gabriel Voisin and his younger brother, Charles, were early aviation pioneers and manufacturers, who established Aéroplanes Voisin in 1905. The first plane to fly in Australia was a Voisin, piloted by Harry Houdini, in 1910.

Gabriel Voisin continued the company’s operations after Charles’ death in an automobile accident in 1912.

During World War I, Aéroplanes Voisin was a major producer of military aircraft, notably the Voisin III. After the War Gabriel Voisin abandoned the aviation industry and set up a company in 1919, to design and produce luxury automobiles, called Avions Voisin. 

The first Avions Voisin was called the C1 (‘C’ in memory of brother Charles) and was more advanced than outwardly similar cars.

Production of cars using Knight-licensed sleeve valve engines began at Issy-les-Moulineaux, an industrial suburb southwest of Paris. Nearly all Avions Voisin cars were powered by sleeve valve engines, although some 1930s models switched to Graham 3.5 litre engines.

The Knight engines included in-line fours and in-line sixes, but Voisin later experimented with more conventional V8, V12, in-line 12 and seven-cylinder radial prototypes.  

Gabriel had studied at the Fine Arts School of Lyon and was an enthusiast for all things mechanical since his childhood, Voisin’s cars made extensive use of light alloys, especially aluminium and his designs were distinctively aeronautical.

The first racing car that brought prestige to Voisin was the 1922 C3S.

One of the company’s early designs was the Voisin Laboratoire Grand Prix car of 1923: one of the first cars to use monocoque chassis/body construction. Quirkily, it featured narrow rear track that did away with the need for differential gears and a small radiator-mounted propeller to drive the coolant pump! 

The C6 Laboratoire model took fifth place in the 1923 French Grand Prix, driven by young Avions Voisin engineer, André Lefèbvre. However, its sleeve-valve engine was seriously underpowered for Grand Prix racing.

The company must have realised that its future racing success was seriously limited by its engine choice. Also, the new Grand Prix racing formula for 1926 stipulated 1.5-litre engines and that almost certainly dictated supercharging as well. There was no sleeve-valve engine able to compete.

Early sleeve-valve engines were quieter and more reliable than early poppet-valve engines, but by the mid-1920s, camshaft-driven valves were proved and allowed engine designers to improve outputs greatly.

After abandoning racing in 1926, Voisin presented the C11, with a factory-built, integrated aluminium body that was sold as a complete luxury car and not as a rolling chassis in need of a coach-builder.

The characteristic Voisin style of ‘rational’ coachwork was developed in conjunction with Gabriel’s collaborator, Andre ‘Noël-Noël’ Telmont, who prioritised lightness, equal weight distribution, capacious luggage boxes and distinctively angular lines. The 1930s models with underslung chassis were strikingly low to the ground, giving them stable handling.

The luggage boxes were designed to attach securely to the running boards of some body styles, where they locked in place, but could be easily lifted off.

Voisin cars were aimed at a high-end audience who were drawn towards innovation. It is no coincidence that Josephine Baker, Rudolph Valentino and the great architect Le Corbusier were clients of Voisin. 

Most bodies had lightweight aluminium mudguards that were stabilised by distinctive struts running from their radiator cowls.

In the early 1930s, as the Great Depression began to bite all global automobile companies, Gabriel Voisin could not continue to employ all of his engineers any more, so he recommended André Lefèbvre to Louis Renault. Lefèbvre later moved to Citroën, where he led three particularly significant car projects: the Traction Avant, the 2CV, the HY van and the DS, using a lot of Gabriel’s lessons.

Presented in 1934 at the Paris Motor Show, the Voisin C25 Aerodyne revived the brand’s aeronautical experience. Among the many peculiarities was the sliding roof that allowed passengers to travel en plein air.

The choice of Aerodyne as a model name was inspired by Gabriel Voisin’s aircraft background and that moniker has since graced many products, from guitars to Kenworth trucks.

The Voisin C27 Aerosport from 1934 anticipated the famous Atlantic Bugatti for elegance and style, with an interior that echoed the Art Deco period.

In 1935 the C28 Aerosport introduced ponton or ‘pontoon.’ Bodywork, with integrated front fenders and bonnet and slab-sides. Avions Voisin was one of the first car makers to incorporate this body design.

After the Second World War the Voisin business was integrated into that of its principal creditor, engine supplier Gnome & Rhône, which was in turn nationalised to form the basis of the state-directed SNECMA business.

In stark contrast to his pre-War luxury and racing vehicles the company presented the Biscooter Voisin at the 1950 Paris Motorcycle and Bicycle Show. The name implied that it was around the size of two motor scooters, or a scooter with four wheels!

This voiturette was intended for the post-War austerity and basic practicality age, with a front-mounted 125cc engine from Gnome & Rhône. The aluminium-bodied vehicle had a three-speed transmission and the buyer did not require a driver’s licence. 

The design drew no interest from either manufacturers or consumers in France, however, and he eventually licensed it to Spanish firm Autonacional S A of Barcelona. By the time it was introduced in 1953, the marque had been Hispanicised to Biscúter, but it soon became known as the Zapatilla, or little shoe. (It could have been worse, because the Latin for little-boot is Caligula.) 

Around 12,000 vehicles were produced in Catalonia, between 1953 and 1960.

Its production, single-cylinder, 197cc, two-stroke motor produced nine horsepower (7kW), had crank starting and drove only the right front wheel. It had a large, oil-filled cylinder head, to help in avoiding overheating in traffic and overcooling at higher speeds.

It was a practical, if somewhat ignominious end for the once-glorious Avions Voisin.

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