Voit (founded around 1929) started selling diving products at the end of the 1940s. They manufactured the Churchill fins under license. In 1950 they aquired Swimaster which had a complete set of diving items incl. regulator. Beginning in 1955 they cooperated with U.S. Divers Voit actually produced many of US Divers's rubber goods such as masks, hoses, and fins. US Divers in turn, allowed Voit to market the aqualungs under their own labels. Beginning in 1955 they sold in the Regs by U.S. Divers with different grey hoses and a different label.
The VR1 was actually a Mistral. The VR2 was the equivalent of the DA Aquamaster.The Voit 50 Fathom regulator, introduced in 1959, was an entirely different design. It was an Emile Gagnan design that Voit purchased the patent rights for. It was the first downstream valve double hose regulator. US Divers never sold a version of it. They stopped producing it in late 1961 or early 1962, and started selling a copy of the US Divers DW Mistral. This clone was known as the Voit Polaris 50, model V22. Voit also produced two versions of a plastic bodied reg. The first was known as the VCR-5, and was the Gagnan design. The second version was the same as the US Divers Jet Air, and was essentially another DW Mistral. It was known as the V55.
The broadcast of “Sea Hunt” with Mike Nelson pushed their sales as almost Voit regs were shown.
At the End of the 50´s Voit was bought by AMF which bought Mares in the 70s too. Voit and Mares were merged and production was moved to Rapallo/Italy.
The Voit singlehose regs were so dependable that they were used by the military. After the merge the MR 12 II(“Military Regulator”) was sold as Mares MR 12 II.
Many thanks on Informations goes to Greg Barlow - a great collector of Voit Gear.
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