- Avions Voisin
Avions Voisin was an advanced French luxury
automobile marque byGabriel 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 usemonocoque 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 enteredCitroën where he conducted the three most profitable car projects of the firm: theTraction Avant , the 2CV and the DS, using a lot of Gabriel's lessons.The 1936 Voisin was most recently seen in Indiana Jones "kingdom of the crystal skull" soon after an appearance in Dirk Pitts "Sahara" which featured the inline 6 sleeve valve in capulae red.
"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 thePebble Beach Concours d'Elegance for 2002External links
* [http://perso.orange.fr/automobiles-voisin/index.html]
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