The Elusive Lost Voisin Finally Found

 

      

 

a very nice 'true story' by Peter Irlenborn:
Some years ago I learned that there was a pre-war Voisin located somewhere in Turkey. The model and the year of production was not mentioned. Gabriel Voisin with his brother Charles, had produced over ten thousand flying bombers for the French military during the First World War. The war ended at a time before commercial air traffic was commonplace. The factories were available, the light metals for aircraft production were available in the form of obsolete and abandoned or crashed aircraft. But there were no buyers for large airplanes.

The brothers had another idea. The age of the automobile was upon France and a need arose for luxurious transportation for the French aristocratic bourgeois.  Over the next 18 years, the brothers produced one of the most interesting and unique automobile marks ever seen in France. These cars were in sales competition with the fast and luxurious touring models that Ettore Bugatti was producing, like the Type 57 Ventoux and Stelvio models. This mark culminated in significant deviations from normal design considerations and used a sleeve valve engine with a major crankshaft, and an additional shaft in each engine to drive the sleeves. Each cylinder needed three connecting rods! The last series of cars were of a design characteristic unlike all other cars, with a dashboard arrangement right out of an aircraft cockpit. The bodies carried an arrangement of absolute flat door panels and some even had roof profiles flatter than the state of Kansas. These brothers marched to the tune of their own drummer, for sure.  Click 'Read More'... 

(Text and photos by Peter Irlenborn)

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