Record Breaking Voisins Bring '20s Style To FOS

Created by the gifted French aviation and automotive engineer – Gabriel Voisin – the four Voisin race cars at FoS include one of only two C1 Competition models, built in 1921, along with an example of the C3, which took the top three places in the 1922 Strasbourg Grand Prix, as well as the extraordinary 1923 C6 Laboratoire, plus the 1927 Speed Record Voisin, which broke 17 speed records at Montlhéry on 26 September 1927, almost 90 years ago.

This 210 bhp Voisin, which broke records at the banked Linas-Montlhéry Autodrome near Paris in 1927, will be making its Goodwood debut.

The 24-hour record is one of the most coveted in the motor racing world, so when the huge 45hp Renault – also running at FoS this weekend – annexed this record at 108.53mph at Montlhéry in July 1926; it was thought that this record speed would stand for some time. 

However, the Renault record was soon surpassed by the Voisin, driven in turn by Morel, Kiriloff and Marchand, to raise the speed record to 114.2 mph.  In the course of this 24-hour run at Montlhéry, a number of other world records were also taken and, after the two rounds of the clock, the Voisin was kept going for another three hours or so, in order to capture the records for 3,000 miles and 5,000 kilometres, with the average speed of the Voisin actually increasing right up to the 24^th hour, which is a wonderful tribute to the endurance of both Gabriel Voisin’s car and its drivers.

The four Voisins will be joined at FoS by hundreds of other fascinating competition cars and motorcycles, screaming up the Goodwood hillclimb and you can watch the whole event LIVE on our YouTube channel.

Photography by Tom Shaxson