14 Dec 06
Gabriel Voisin, born in Belleville in 1880, was one of France's aviation pioneers: an early interest in gliders was followed by the formation of Europe's first plane-making company with Louis Bleriot. Voisin and Bleriot did not get on, though; Bleriot went his own (successful and acclaimed) way, and Gabriel's younger brother Charles became a partner in the new Appareils d'Aviation Les Freres Voisin, established in 1906. Their boxkite-style biplanes first flew in 1907, and in 1908 Henri Farman - also to go on and set up his own company - made the first one-kilometre circuit in the air in a Voisin. Owners of Voisin aircraft also included the escapologist and showman Harry Houdini, the first man to fly in Australia in 1910, and the 1910 Rossel-Peugeot-powered Voisin Canard ('duck') proved to be the brothers' first large-scale commercial success. Seaplane versions, called Hydro Canard, were also made, and demonstrated from the river Seine.
The brothers set up a factory in Billancourt, Paris - near Renault - and by 1912 had adapted a version of their 'pusher' (rear-engined) biplane for the French military. The Type L two-seater, known as the Chicken Coop for all its wires, used an 80bhp Le Rhone engine; this, and successors with 70bhp Gnome, 100bhp Renault, 120bhp/150bhp Salmson, 280bhp Renault and then 300bhp Hispano-Suiza and 220bhp Peugeot units, proved reliable and durable, and over 3,500 Voisins were used as night bombers in World War I. A Salmson-engined Voisin Type 3 is said to have scored the first aerial victory of the war, shooting down a German plane in October 1914, and the planes were built in countries including the UK, Russia, Italy and the US.
Charles Voisin was killed in a car crash in 1912 and after the war Gabriel - a designer rather than a military man - was said to have been disillusioned by the way his planes had been used in the war. This, and the fact that orders for new planes were now thin on the ground, led him to work in new areas: he developed pre-fabricated house units, before turning towards cars, converting his factory at Issy-les-Moulineaux.
Voisin applied the same principles of aerodynamics and lightweight construction to his cars as he did to his planes, reflected in the name - Avions Voisins - he gave to his company, as well as a system of continuous improvement; some of his models remained in production for just months. First up was the Citroen-influenced M1 18CV (1920), a four-cylinder 4.0-litre model with Knight sleeve-valve engine, Voisin's own starter motor system and, from 1921, front-wheel disc brakes.
Voisin had his cars compete in events including hillclimbs, endurance runs and the Blue Train races, and a squadron took first, second, third and fifth in their category at the 1922 Strasbourg Grand Prix. A specially built car, the Laboratoire, took on the likes of Bugatti in the 1923 Grand Prix de Tours; this showcased a one-piece aluminium body similar to an aeroplane wing, and was one of just five cars to finish the race.
