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Peter Mullin’s Legacy

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A moment to remember: Best of Show award, Pebble Beach, 2011, goes to the Art Deco 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne of Peter and Merle Mullin. Hugues Vanhoolandt photo.

Peter Mullin passed away on September 20th at the age of 82.

VeloceToday has reported many times on the Mullin Automotive Museum he created, beginning with the opening in April of 2010. It was a commemoration of the art deco design era when exquisite art and magnificent automobiles were elements of an artful, futurist culture.*

Over the years, we have been fortunate to have four of the most seasoned, respected and knowledgeable automotive writers visit the Mullin and report back to us in detail. Larry Crane explained the museum’s display of Bugatti furniture; the late Eric Davison searched for something really different; Hugues Vanhoolandt was given a special tour and did his magic with his camera; finally, another museum traveler, Brandes Elitch, opined on the opulent Citroen celebration.

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Re-Creating the Voisin Laboratoire

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From the Archives, November 2012

The rebirth of a 1923 Voisin ‘Laboratoire’ was inspired by a book.

What moves man to recreate a masterpiece that someone else has already created a long time ago? In the world of music this is quite common. We all love to listen to concerts in which conductors and orchestras recreate the music from scores that were penned down by famous composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Sibelius or Leonard Bernstein, to name a few.

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Re-Creating the Voisin Laboratoire

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Notice: Moch’s striking aluminum ‘Laboratoire’ will be one of the highlights of a special exhibition dedicated to Gabriel Voisin, that will run from November 10, 2012, for six months at the Mullin Museum in Oxnard, California.For more information see: http://www.mullinautomotivemuseum.com/

The rebirth of a 1923 Voisin ‘Laboratoire’ was inspired by a book.

What moves man to recreate a masterpiece that someone else has already created a long time ago? In the world of music this is quite common. We all love to listen to concerts in which conductors and orchestras recreate the music from scores that were penned down by famous composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Sibelius or Leonard Bernstein, to name a few.

In films and theaters we applaud when directors and actors recreate the scenes and words originally fashioned by writers such as Jane Austen, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams or William Shakespeare.

Art students visit museums to find out how the old masters did it. Some of them then painstakingly recreate composition, lights and shadows, and sometimes colors and even brushstrokes. There’s nothing wrong with any of this…it is taken for granted.

However, in the world of visual arts, recreating is generally frowned upon by professionals. Not only because criminals have offered forgeries to unsuspecting buyers as being the original work of the well-known painters. Copying, or even painting in the style of an old master, is regarded as a lack of creativity and artistic imagination. [Read more…] about Re-Creating the Voisin Laboratoire

1923 Tours Grand Prix: Results, Videos, Specs and More

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You didn’t think we’d finish Tours up without a full spec and result section? Below, just that. Below that, some YouTube links to several videos depicting the 1923 French Grand Prix.

Above, a notice about the 90th year celebration event at Tours which will take place next year. If you are interested in participating contact: grandprixdetours@wanadoo.fr.

Next week, Gijsbert-Paul Berk will provide an analysis of the race and its legacy. It will surprise you. [Ed.]
[Read more…] about 1923 Tours Grand Prix: Results, Videos, Specs and More

The Grand Prix of Tours Part 6: The Race

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The 1923 Grand Prix of Tours

Friderich-refuels

Friderich refuels his Bugatti T32 during the 1923 Tours Grand Prix. He would finish third; ironically neither the Bugatti “Tanks” nor the Voisin “Laboratoire” would ever race again.

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

July 2, 1923, 8 a.m. For the start of the Grand Prix, seventeen race cars were placed in two rows. In 1923 the positions on the starting grid did not depend on lap times during practice but were, like the numbers on the cars, allotted by the organizers. Hence, pole position was taken by the V12 Delage (No. 1) with driver René Thomas and his mechanic Lhermit. Alongside was Guiness in the Sunbeam, car number 2. Guyot’s Rolland-Pilain was in the second row next to number 4, the Fiat of Bordino.

The noise and smell of the seventeen racing cars on the grid, with a total of 126 screaming cylinders, must have been similar to the noise and excitement of today’s Grand Prix starts. The pace car, driven by local motorcycle champion Paul Meunier, led the field before René Thomas in his blue Delage sprinted away with the Sunbeam of Lee Guinness. Above, Thomas and Bordino are already out of this photograph of the start. Number 2 is the Sunbeam of Lee Guiness, number 3 is Guyot in the Rolland-Pilain, the Voisin of Arthur Duray and the Friderich Bugatti, number 6.

At the end of lap one, Fiat of Pietro Bordino was in front; the Sunbeam of Lee Guiness second followed by the Delage of René Thomas; then Enrico Giaccone and Carlo Salamano both in the Fiats, Henry Segrave and Albert Divo in Sunbeams, Albert Guyot driving a Rolland-Pilain and Ernest Friderich the Bugatti. The race of the decade was on.

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1923 Grand Prix of Tours Part 5: Sunbeam and Voisin

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By Gijbsert-Paul Berk

Louis-Coatalen

Louis Coatalen, Sunbeam's chief engineer.

Established in 1899 and based in Wolverhampton UK, Sunbeam was known for its sturdy but unexciting line of cars. Things changed in 1909 when Louis Hervé Coatalen (1879 -1962) became chief engineer. [Read more…] about 1923 Grand Prix of Tours Part 5: Sunbeam and Voisin

1923 French Grand Prix Part 2: Press and Regulations

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Program cover, 1923 Tours Grand Prix.

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

The race generated an immense amount of advance publicity. Numerous articles in the national and local newspapers and the sporting magazines created a great deal of curiosity and even greater expectations.

The Press
One of the reasons was that the editors of these publications were well aware of the growing interest of the French public in motorcars and motor racing. They properly reasoned that giving support to this great event would increase their circulations and advertising revenues.

Beautiful artwork by the French illustrator Mahias for the cover of Omnia magazine No. 27 portrayed a typical French racecar.

Since the Armistice in1918, France was rapidly recovering from the austerity and misery of the war, despite the death of nearly 1.4 million French soldiers. During their service in the army or with the Red Cross units, men and women from all social classes had learned to drive and to understand the mechanical mysteries of motorbikes and cars. Now that the French economy was flourishing, many of them aspired to own one.

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1923 French Grand Prix Part 1: The Circuit and Practice

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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

The circuit was a closed-off triangle of public roads, just north of the city of Tours. The starting line was situated just outside a small borough called La Noue-Guérinet, between the villages Neuillé-Pont-Pierre and La Membrolle on the Route Nationale 158. The numbers on the map above correspond to the photographs below. The 1923 Grand Prix of Tours was much tougher and much longer than today’s Grand Prix events. In order to finish, the participants had to cover a distance of 800 km (497 miles). As the ‘Circuit de la Touraine’ had a total length of 22.83 km, (14.1 miles) this meant 35 grueling laps. On the straights some of the cars reached speeds of nearly 200 km/h (125 mph). Around the circuit. 22 marshaling posts had been installed each of them equipped with a telephone in direct and permanent contact with the officials at race control in front of the grandstand.

Come with us as we take a lap around the 1923 French Grand Prix.

Photo 1: At the starting line. At one side were the tribunes and a grandstand for 4000 spectators. Note the direction of travel.

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Musings at the Mullin

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Photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt.

As we have all learned, Eric Davison has been around cars for a very long time, from his Watkins Glen days with his father to haunting car and art museums with his wife. So when we found he was going to the Mullin, we asked him to bring back a report on something off the beaten path. Said Davison of the assignment after he returned, “It sounds so very easy but when you are in the Mullin Museum and basically overwhelmed by the magnificence of the cars and of the building’s French decor and the general ambience, the task becomes more complicated.” So did he succeed and bring back a few surprises? We think so—
[Read more…] about Musings at the Mullin

French Cars at Florida’s Tampa Bay Museum

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Panhard: the Dynamic was made from 1936-9. It was the largest unibody car made at that time, with the steering wheel in the center of the dashboard. Even today, the styling is very dramatic!

Story by Brandes Elitch
Photos courtesy of the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum

At Retromobile, a few years ago, I picked up a copy of “Le Guide: Musees Automobiles de France,” published by the magazine “Auto Passion.” The guide covers 36 car museums. Some are well known: the museum at the LeMans circuit, the Schumpf (their equivalent of a National Motor Museum), Le Manoir, near Rennes, the Cadillac museum near Tours, the Henri Malartre museum, housed in an old mansion, near Lyon. I’ve seen all of these, and they are definitely worth seeing. But as it turns out, you can visit one of the most outstanding French car museums, without even leaving the US. That’s because it is located on the west coast of Florida – the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum. [Read more…] about French Cars at Florida’s Tampa Bay Museum

Knight and Day

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The ups and downs of the sleeve valve engine

By Pete Vack

For the 1923 French GP, French car builder Gabriel Voisin and his ‘spiritual son’ André Lefebvre, entered four highly advanced race cars equipped with a 2 liter six cylinder Knight sleeve valve engine, which was a mainstay of his fabulous line of luxury cars. But what is a sleeve valve engine, who was Knight and why did Voisin choose such a layout, straight from the American heartland?
[Read more…] about Knight and Day

Amazing Amelia

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amelia 2009
The Motor Trend Award For The Editor’s Choice–1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic David and Ginny Sydorick, Beverly Hills, CA. Note wheelcovers by Lmarr Disk LTD.

It just keeps on getting better and better..

By Robert Landman
Photos by Robert Landman

March 14-15th 2009 Amelia Island, Florida

Saturday

The weather is like the economy, grey and depressing, but the gloom soon lifts as we see that everyone present is happy to see friends whom they haven’t since last years’ Amelia Concours or Pebble Beach. Events like Amelia are as much about friends as they are about cars.
[Read more…] about Amazing Amelia

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