Back in the early 1960s I bought the English translation of the first volume of Gabriel Voisin’s autobiography, Men, Women and 10,000 Kites, which dealt with the aviation phase of the life of this extraordinary man, ‘a prey to the demon of creation’, and ended in 1918. It left me wanting more, but though the second volume, Mes Mille et une Voitures, which recalled his subsequent adventures as a motormanufacturer, had been published in France in 1962, a year after the first, it failed to appear in English. I had eventually to make do with the unsatisfactory French edition, a cheaply-produced paperback devoid of illustrations or index.

Now Reg Winstone has rectified the omission with a splendid, copiously-illustrated translation of Voisin’s second volume, which not only captures the idiosyncratic nature of Gabriel Voisin’s highly opinionated prose but includes a host of explanatory footnotes which add greatly to the original text. The cover artwork – taken from a poster by Joë Bridge and showing a pyjama-clad Gabriel Voisin descending from a Voisin car outside a young lady’s door – reveals much about the man; its original headline was ‘Je viens vous visiter en Voisin’ (literally, ‘I come to visit you as a neighbour’), which underlines Gabriel’s somewhat unconventional interpretation of neighbourliness…

Voisin was the last survivor of that amazing generation of eponymous French motor manufacturers whose highly distinctive products were the expression of their individuality. Ettore Bugatti was another, of course, and so were Louis Delâge and André Citroën. He was also a bon vivant who regularly dined at Maxim’s and haunted the dressing rooms of the Paris Opéra where the young ladies of the corps de ballet provided ‘agreeable subjects for diversion for men of his world’.

Romantic interludes were often enjoyed in his fashionably luxurious hideaway at 72 Boulevard Exelmans, which boasted such amenities as ‘a blue bathroom that effectively consisted of an enormous swimming pool’ beside which was ‘a vast wardrobe containing every imaginable type of fancy dress; feather boas lay next to chasubles’.

These were donned by his guests at a notorious housewarming party. But in stark contrast to this decadent lifestyle, Voisin was a man who worked as hard as he played. He wore his blue mechanic’s overalls with pride and had great respect for his colleagues – ‘those who have accompanied me so bravely throughout my crazy life’ – and admired their ‘spirit, courage, rectitude and loyalty’. Written when he was 81 and published without the attentions of an editor, My 1001 Cars inevitably has gaps in the narrative. But it reveals much about the man and the world in which he moved, the trials and tribulations of motor manufacturing in the wake of the Great War, the deviousness and duplicity of many of those with whom he did business and the uncompromising nature of his approach to design.

He was perhaps the most successful of the manufacturers who resolutely swam against the tide of convention. After all, Voisins formed part of the French Presidential fleet in the early 1920s and the marque was highly successful in record-breaking. Gabriel extracted the most from the sleeve-valve engine, understanding the performance potential of the type’s large port openings and fortuitously discovering the advantages of high compression in increasing power output. He pioneered monocoque construction of racing car bodies and was a tireless experimenter in terms of vehicle dynamics. As Reg, a lifelong admirer, remarks in his foreword, ‘like a pebble skimming a lake, he radiated ripples of unconventional thinking’. And though he was not a great businessman, Voisin left a lasting impression on the French motor industry. For instance, his protegé André Lefebvre created Citroën’s immortal Traction Avant after leaving the Voisin company. And his quirky, unorthodox cars remain as amonument to one of motoring’s most original personalities. Highly recommended. Unmissable, really. D B-W

Publisher: Faustroll

Status: Out of Print (No Stock)

Number of pages: 296

Binding: HBD