Famous constructers: Gabriel Voisin (Part 2)
From the basic lines of cars, the test with the cyclecar le Sulky with half of the liter of cubic capacity or the model with the engine 7,2 V12 and each wheel drive with independent hydraulic circuits. Overly complicated structure didn’t have a chance to implement even in small series.
The engine C3 with high compression and output of 140 hp Voisin led to the declaration that he will pay 500,000 francs to anyone who will build powerful and also economic power plant. No such person came forward. The smaller four-cylinder C4 knocked on the line Paris-Milan famous Orient Express and its antipole became an ordinary three pieces (!) Twelve-. Also a “mobile laboratory”, the Laboratories at the Category Grand Prix from 1923 got an attention, which had probably the first independent car body over the world. Circulation pump cooling was driven by the propeller on the radiator.
The Voisins team also accentuated on the light construction with the lowest possible center of the gravity, endurance and reliability. At the same time, he gattered aerodynamic knowledge from sky to earth. One from his clients was and architect Le Corbusier (the Voisin door handles were designed by him, for example), French actor Jean Gabin and even the American film lover, Italian origin, Rudolph Valentino.
At the beginning of the 30s, during the world economic crisis, the automaker became insolvent and the withholding of wages has led to the departure of many employees, including André Lefebvre. Voisin lost control over his company in 1932, just as it happened to André Citroën. But unlike the industrialist who was dying of the cancer, Voisin after two years managed to win the company back, even only for the next three years.
At that time, he already resigned to slide engines, disqualified by the complex structure, considerable production cost and limits in speed increases. He bet on reliable a cheap American six-cylinder of capacity 3,5 liter. However, these Voisins of the series C30 did attract more likely a confusion.
After Second World War, Voisins offered to his impoverished homeland Voisin aluminum Microcar Biscooter and he was even thinking to brush on the steam engines. The last automobile bearing his name became a triple axle two hundred, which was exhibited in 1958 at the Paris Motor Show.
Doyen aviation settled in Tournus, where he was writing the memoires and corresponded the visitors their curious questions related his tangled love life. After the divorce with his wife Adrienne Lola, he got in his 46th married to an eighteen years old Spanish and for a while he also lived with her older sister.
It’s interesting, that he liked to return to his aviation past, but no too interested in automobiles. To one of the visitors who drove by Voisin car, allegedly said: “Why do you mess around with that old junk? At your age you should spend your time and money to beautiful girls!”
Gabriel Voisin died on the Christmas Day, the 25th of December 1973. He is buried in the village Le Villars, close to his native town.
