Automobiles Avions Voisin at the Mullin Collection

[Nine17]

On my way down the California coast to last weekend's Friends of Steve McQueen Car Show, I arranged for a visit to the Mullin Collection in Oxnard. The director was very kind to open the doors and let me loose by myself for a few hours with these wonderful cars.

Gabriel Voisin built the first practical airplane in Europe, started the world's first aircraft factory, and his Voisin bombers were the mainstay of the French air forces during the early part of World War I. Voisin was a true eccentric, adventurer, and seducer of women until his death at the ripe old age of 93. I recently read the biography of Andre Lefebvre, who as a young man fresh out of engineering school was Gabriel Voisin's "spiritual son" when he moved from aircraft production to automobiles after the First World War. Automobiles Avions Voisin ran into financial difficulties with the onset of the Great Depression, and Lefebvre moved first to Renault (where he clashed with the owners) and then to Citroen, where he conceived and led the development of the Traction Avant, Deux-Cheveaux, and DS, along with the TUB and HY vans. Gabriel Voisin and Andre Lefebvre were true innovators and outside-the-box thinkers. Peter Mullin has a significant collection of their cars, including their early Grand Prix cars.

The first car here is a 1922 Strasbourg GP C3. This car is interesting in that it was an early rules-bender -- note the cigar-shaped bulge along the sides, intended to keep the frontal-area down while conforming to the body width rules prevailing that year. The next car is the 1923 C6 "Laboratoire" car -- which competed with the Bugatti "Tanks" in the GP de Tours. The propellor on the radiator housing drives the water pump (don't spend too much time in the pits). The Laboratoire in the museum is a re-creation.

[Nine17]

Voisin's racing cars were truly intended to help develop the breed, but he and Lefebvre eventually abandoned racing in favor of record-breaking. Their aircraft background led them toward smoothness at cruising speeds rather than high-winding OHC engines as became prevalent in racing. To that end, Voisin bought rights to produce Knight sleeve-valve engines, which he considered to be superior for their silence (no valve gear) and better adaptation to touring cars. Remember, synchronized transmissions were still in the future, and proper luxury cars were meant to stay in top gear and surf their massive torque so as not to upset occupants with the grinding of gears. Of course, Knight sleeve-valve engines were notorious for consuming oil in quantities equivalent to their consumption of fuel, but wealthy owners put up with this to avoid spilling their cocktails when their drivers changed ratios.

Most of Voisin's touring cars were designed in-house and are truly unusual and quirky in their own right -- cubist modernism at its Art-Deco apogee. Many hardware items were actually designed by the futurist architect Le Courbusier. While most would find them far from "elegant" in the way that we consider contemporary Bugatti, Hispano-Suiza, and Delage cars bodied by the great Parisian coachbuilders such as Henri Chapron, Letourneur et Marchand, Saoutchik, Fernandez et Darrin, or even the Alsatian Bugatti builders Gangloff, the judges at Pebble Beach awarded Mullin's 1934 C-25 Aerodyne Best in Show for 2011 -- a highly unusual choice at a concours d'elegance.

Peter Mullin has put together a very impressive tribute to Gabriel Voisin's automobiles -- along with his collection of more "traditional" versions of "French Curves."

[Jim Garfield]

I am a big fan of the Laboratorie - there was a lot of creative thinking that went into that car.

A few pictures from the hard drive:

[Jim Garfield]

That upholstery in your sixth picture is wild. Assuming that it is period correct, it predates the current US camo design by seven decades.

[Nine17]

The interior fabric is in an original Art-Deco pattern loomed in Europe for Avions Voisin expert Philippe Moch. There was a great article by David Burgess-Wise in Octane Magazine a few months back:

http://www.classicandperformancecar....5_arodyne.html