Voisin

France, 1919 – 1939

SA des Aéroplanes G. Voisin, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Seine

Gabriel Voisin was first famous for his aircraft. Voisin was one of the earliest and most important pioneers, claiming to have developed a practical aeroplane before the Wright brothers; the controversy still rages. Voisin was always a spectacular character, and so were his Voisin cars. However, like his aircraft, the Voisin cars were efficient machines as well. With the post-World War 1 depression in the aircraft industry, Voisin cars entered motor manufacture by acquiring the rights in a Citroën model which was never made as such. This Voisin car was the Voisin 18CV of 1918, which Voisin car used a Knight double-sleeve engine. Sold as the Type C1 Voisin, this Voisin car had 4-cylinders and a capacity of 4-litres. The Voisin car was a fine car, and henceforth Voisin cars used only sleeve-valve engines, developed by himself to a high degree. The 4-litre Voisin car had aluminium pistons, to permit higher engine speeds, and was eventually capable of 80mph. In spite of an excellent performance, the 4-litre was an immensely strong, refined and silent motor car – all characteristics of Voisin cars in general. A sports version Voisin carwas also offered, with 90bhp. The 4-litre was made until 1926. Alongside this Voisin car, from 1921, was the smaller Voisin C4, an 8CV of 1¼-litres that was later enlarged to 10CV and 1½-litres. In its final form, the 10CV engine of the Voisin car produced 44bhp at 4.000rpm – so much for the opponents of sleeve valves, who claimed that high revolutions could not be combined with reliability – and the Voisin car was capable of 70mph. The Voisin car had Dewandre vacuum servo brakes, as had all Voisin cars from late 1925. The 10CV Voisin car, too, survived in basic form until 1928. All the same, Voisin cars had to follow fashion in one respect, and introduced three 6-cylinder Voisin cars for 1927. The best-known Voisin car was the 13CV, providing 2.3-litres, the first Knight-engined six to be sold in France. Even in normal form, this was a 66bhp, 75mph vehicle, but a sports model Voisin car was also available. From 1928, this six, known as the Voisin Charmant, had alternative final-drive ratio for fast cruising.

Apart from sleeve valves, to which a number of famous manufacturers were wedded at the time, Voisin cars had three other enthusiasms that were considerably less common. One was truly easy gear-changing, which many makers sought, but few actually incorporated in their production cars. The Sensaud de Lavaud system of infinitely variable gears was applied on Voisin cars in 1929, first to the 10CV which, in the following year, had been superseded by a Cotal electric epicyclic gearbox. To this interest was related Voisin cars fondness for multi-cylinder engines, which aimed at giving the utmost flexibility, thereby avoiding gear-changing altogether. Voisin made a V-twelve luxury car as early as 1921. The layout of this Voisin car was revived in 1930 for the Voisin Type C18 Diane. This Voisin car was a 4.8-litre car with a 115bhp engine that needed only 3 forward speeds. The Voisin Simoun and Voisin Sirocco were two low chassis models Voisin cars with striking razor edge saloon and coupé bodies which were made in very small numbers in 1930. Identical except for their engines, the Voisin Simoun used a 5.8-litre six, and the Sirocco the V12. The Voisin Diane was still listed for 1938. The other Voisin cars of the 1930s were sixes, the Voisin Charmant continuing to 1934.

Voisin cars had a reputation for putting into practice ideas which remained ideals for most manufacturers. For example, he was dedicated to weight reduction, and to this end produced notably light patent bodies whose only drawback was their extreme ugliness. Of wood and aluminium, they were entirely practical, being cheap to make, compact, and strong, as well as light. A 2-door, four-seater saloon body on the 10CV Voisin car chassis weighed only 1.060lb, keeping the weight of the whole Voisin car down to 22cwt. The most unprepossessing were the convertible Voisin cars and those with detachable hard tops. Because of their looks, the Voisin cars, with their maker’s patent bodies, never sold well – a deplorable waste of well-directed ingenuity. However, fabric Weymann-type and other normal bodies were also supplied on the Voisin car. From 1931 to 1934, some Imperia cars from Belgium were made under licence. In 1936 a most unusual Voisin car was made in the shape of the straight-12; this Voisin car had two 3-litre, 6-cylinder engines in line, the rear part of the hindmost engine projecting into the driving compartment. 180bhp and 125mph were claimed, but the Voisin car was not put in production. The last Voisin cars, introduced in 1937, used the 6-cylinder 3½-litre Graham engine, though without the supercharger. These Voisin cars were not the work of Gabriel Voisin, but were made by a syndicate that had acquired the Voisin car name. After World War 2, Voisin designed a car which was as complete a contrast to his former work as can be imagined – the Spanish-built Biscuter.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN    

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com

Hispano Suiza

E, 1904 – 1944

SA Hispano Suiza, Barcelona

Although the Hispano Suiza car became most famous as a French make, the origins of Hispano Suiza were Spanish, it was always made in Spain as well as in France (indeed, in greater numbers) and in the country of its birth Hispano Suiza cars outlived its French offshoot as far as serious production  was concerned. The Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt, who had designed the Barcelona-built La Cuadra car in 1900, was responsible for the design of a car made in the same city from 1901 to 1904 and called the Castro. The first Hispano Suiza car, of 1904, was in fact the 20hp Castro renamed. A range of Hispano Suiza cars, with large, beautifully-built T-head pair-cast fours with live-axle drive and the luxury of water-cooled brakes was established and by 1907 these Hispano Suiza cars had found their way into the stables of King Alfonso XIII. Two similar sixes with 6.2- and 10.4-litre engines (the Hispano Suiza 30/40 and the Hispano Suiza 60/65) joined them in the following year. All were expensive machines of conventional design, intended mainly for the carriage trade – although not the Alfonso XIII model of 1912. In 1910 an Hispano Suiza racing voiturette won the Coupe de l’Auto race in France. This Hispano Suiza car had a T-head engine with a very long stroke. The Hispano Suiza Alfonso was based on it. Various versions were made, but the best-known, a 3.6-litre car, had cylinder dimensions of 80x180mm. The range of Hispano Suiza cars of tourer type was retained. While the design of the Hispano Suiza Alfonso did not change, thanks to its extreme popularity abroad, the rest of the Hispano Suiza models by 1913, were much more modern, consisting of monobloc 4-cylinder cars, still with long strokes, but with overhead valves operated by an overhead camshaft, all neatly enclosed. V-radiators relaced the former flat pattern in 1914. Two ohc fours, a Hispano Suiza 16hp and a Hispano Suiza 30hp, were listed until 1924. They were solid, reliable machines without front-wheel brakes, seen usually as taxis. By then, they had been overshadowed completely in the international field by the radically new Hispano Suiza H6B of 1919, which was made at the Paris factory and is dealt with under Hispano Suiza France. The next Hispano Suiza car model to originate in Spain, and the first six since before 1914, was a cheaper version of the Hispano Suiza H6B intended for the less opulent Spanish market, consisting of a basically similar but smaller engine of 3.7-litres, with an detachable cylinder head, installed in an H6B chassis. This power unit needed the assistance of a lower set of gear rations than those of the H6B, as it was expected to pull the same weight. This Hispano Suiza car was replaced by another ‘utility’ Hispano Suiza car in 1930, a 3-litre model with pushrod-operated overhead valves like the contemporary small Hispano Suiza car model in France. It had an interesting history; the design of this Hispano Suiza car was to have been taken up by Hudson in America, but because of the Depression American motorists were denied a Birkigt car. By 1935 the Hispano Suiza car had been enlarged to 3.404cc and there were three other sixes in the range: the 3.750cc Hispano Suiza Type 49, the 4.580cc Hispano Suiza Type 65, and the 8-litre Type Hispano Suiza 56bis, which had the same engine dimensions as the French-built car, Hispano Suiza H6C. The smaller sixes were made until 1944. In all, some 6.000 Hispano Suiza cars were produced by the Barcelona works, against about 2.600 from the Paris factory. One or two prototype Hispano Suiza cars of the French V12 were built at Barcelona but there was no series production.

France, 1911 – 1938

(1) Sté Francaise Hispano Suiza, Levallois-Perret, Seine, 1911 – 1914

(2) Sté Francaise Hispano Suiza, Bois-Colombes, Seine, 1914 – 1938

In 1911, a French company with a Paris factory was founded to assemble the Hispano Suiza car from Spain, a hitherto obscure make that had recently won sporting renown in France and was already an established manufacturer of luxury vehicles in its home country, enjoying royal patronage. The Spanish market was poor compared with the rich potential of France and other motoring countries and so it was that when a superb new model of Hispano Suiza cars of the most modern and advanced design was introduced, it came from the French factory. This was the Hispano Suiza H6B of 1919, the first French-developed Hispano Suiza car. It gained such immediate and lasting fame that henceforth, Hispano Suiza car was regarded as a primarily French make, and the products of the Spanish Hispano Suiza car factory (though made in great numbers) fell into onscurity. The Hispano Suiza H6B was designed as the last word in advanced transport for the rich. The engine of this Hispano Suiza car was the outcome of the company’s experience of aircraft engine manufacture during World War 1 – a field in which it was already famous. Its six cylinders, totalling 6.6-litres, were of aluminium, with light steel liners. The cylinder head was fixed on the Hispano Suiza car. A single overhead camshaft operated two valves per cylinder. This engine gave 135bhp at 3.000rpm. A 7-bearing, pressure-fed crankshaft coped with the power. Thus a good power-to-weight ratio was combined with reliability on Hispano Suiza cars, according to the best aviation practice. The chassis was light, yet rigid, and extremely efficient servo-assisted four-wheel brakes were provided to check the 85mph which was available on Hispano Suiza cars in top gear. In spite of a high final drive ratio of 3.4 to 1, the engine developed such excellent low-speed torque that 6 to 50mph in an Hispano Suiza car in top gear occupied only 21 seconds.

The new Hispano Suiza car was not quiet compared with the cars of competitors who counted silence above mechanical efficiency, but in its combination of most of the desirable qualities of a true luxury car – comfort, flexibility – and of the sporting machine – first rate reliability, performance, brakes and handling – the Hispano Suiza car was unique in 1919. Not surprisingly, what amounted to a single-model policy was pursued for many years. Alongside the Hispano Suiza H6B, the Hispano Suiza H6C Sport or Boulogne model appeared in 1924. Bore and stroke were 110x140mm against the H6B’s 100x140mm, giving eight litres. This fabulous Hispano Suiza car was capable of up to 110mph and could be had in short-chassis form. Modified Hispano Suiza H6B’s had won the Coupe Boillot at Boulogne in 1921, 1922 and 1923, in the last instance with the 8-litre engine, which accounted for the new Hispano Suiza car’s name. The H6B and H6C were both still available in 1929, and, as the Hispano Suiza car Tipo 56bis, the latter was made in Spain well into the 1930s. From 1924 to 1927, the former was made by Skoda of Czechoslovakia, under licence. In 1930 Hispano Suiza took over Ballot and fitted a smaller, 4.6-litre, 6-cylinder engine into a Ballot chassis. This Hispano Suiza Junior model, which had central gearchange, was not a car in the same class as its predecessors. In spite of the coming of the Depression, however, in 1931 Hispano Suiza cars produced their biggest, most complex and most expensive design. This Hispano Suiza car was the V12 which abandoned, for the first time since 1919, the six-in-line, overhead-camshaft layout. Cylinder dimensions were ‘square’, at 100x100mm, providing 9½-litres and even greater low-speed torque than that of the old H6B. The overhead valves were operated by push-rods and rockers. Top gear ratio was now 2,75:1 and bottom 5,4:1, or about the same ratio as the top gear of many family saloons of the period. All Hispano Suiza V12s could exceed 100mph and in its fastest, short-chassis open form, the Hispano Suiza car was said to attain 115mph. The V12 was made until 1938. Meanwhile, the Hispano Suiza Junior had been superseded in 1935 by the 4.9-litre, 6-cylinder Hispano Suiza K6, which used push-rod overhead valves like its big brother Hispano Suiza car. It too was current until 1938. Hispano Suiza of Paris then abandoned car production, never to resume it. A prototype Hispano Suiza car was built after World War 2, with front-wheel drive and a Ford V8 engine, but it never achieved catalogue status.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com