A welcome return to Retromobile | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

I am extremely pleased that I did and found the whole thing to be a much-needed tonic. After last year’s delayed but brave ‘mini Retromobile,’ this year’s event was a very welcome return to form, especially as an aficionado of older French classic cars. Nowhere else in the world will you find such a condensed selection of fine gallic machinery, with outstanding Delages, Delahayes, Bugattis, Citroens, Panhards, Alpines, Matras and what have you at every turn, supported by an outstanding display of Italy’s finest (another personal passion) with Alfa Romeos, Lancias, Maseratis, and Ferraris galore, plus sundry, rarely-seen classic wonders from every other part of the world.

Granted, this year’s Retromobile may have lacked the focused displays of previous years, but it was still able to gather together an impressive selection of themed exhibits, such as some fun period classic camper vans, a celebration of 30 years of the Renault Twingo, plus an outstanding carousal of the centenary of the Le Mans 24 Hours. This included a handful of winners – from the victorious 1923 Chenhard et Walker 3-Litres onwards – some of the landmark innovative race entries (e.g. the first front-wheel-drive entrant; the 1928 Tracta Gephi and 1968 gas turbine Howmet TX), plus a grouping of French competition cars that campaigned the famous La Sarthe endurance race, with some amusingly chauvinistic curation, aimed clearly at the home crowd, such as the 1972-winning Matra MS670 reluctantly acknowledging that one of the victorious team’s drivers was British (Graham Hill), or the 1980 Rondeau M 379B, that was 100 per cent French, apart from its Ford-Cosworth DFV engine. Tres francais.

One of the things I love about Retromobile, and after 34 years it still rarely fails to deliver, is the event’s remarkable ability to find cars that you have only ever previously seen in books or on the internet, but never in the flesh. This year was no exception, with a tiny little early 1950s coupe that wonderfully combined two of my favourite things – Italian coachwork with French mechanicals – casually appearing with little fuss on an Italian specialists stand.

The car was an ex-1953 Geneva Salon Allemano-bodied Panhard Dyna X Berlinette, with a handcrafted one-off copy body, and one of five differing bodies built by the Carrozzeria around a Panhard Dyna X chassis in the early 1950s. It was joined by a pair of unusual coachbuilt Lancias, plus and an amazing example of Zagato’s forward-thinking, in a 1949 ‘Panoramica’ glassy coachwork two-door saloon, based on contemporary Fiat 1100 mechanicals.

Not just one, but two Frua-bodied Maserati 5000 GTs (the world’s most expensive new car when made in the early 1960s) sharing space on the same stand was worth the trip to Paris alone, as was a unique 1955 Zagato Siata 1250 GT. Other draws included an all-electric retrofit display of iconic older Renaults, such as the Mutt, a back-to-basics and electrified 1927 vintage Vivastella, an eagle of EV R5s, and a R4, named Suite #4, and modified with an all-glass rear end by artist Mathieu Lehanneur.

The French Facel-Vega Club created the enigmatic but stillborn Project Le Mans, a Chrysler 6.4-litre V8-powered mid-engined racing GT, conceived in 1962 and set to campaign the 1964, 24 Hours event, but sadly never completed due to Facel going bankrupt ahead of the event. The Club’s fascinating display previewed the ambitious plan of Facel Vega specialist Paulo Antunes to actually build and race a 100 per cent accurate recreation of the Le Mans project in time for for next year’s Le Mans, to mark the 60^th anniversary of what should have been the Facel Vega’s endurance race debut. We will follow their progress with interest and wish them well with this fascinating project.

One ex-Le Mans racer that did not only race at the celebrated Circuit de la Sarthe, but also excelled by winning its class and taking the coveted Team prize, was the unexpected sight of a Bristol 450 S Le Mans, which contested the 24 Hours race in 1954. An unusual-looking but efficient machine, the 450 S was christened ‘the Flying Christmas Tree’ with its steeply raked windscreen and two large stabiliser fins. Another unusual sight was a Porsche 356, which had just completed 356-mile tour in Antartica. With caterpillar snow tracks and front skis replacing the four wheels, plus a huge front-mounted snow board, to drive on the Antarctic ice, this 1956 Porsche 356 A with Renee Brinkershoff at the wheel successfully covered a total distance of 30,000 kilometres on seven continents. 

Another rather odd Porsche 356 was displayed away from the busy Porte de Versailles Retromobile exhibition halls, Grand Palais Éphémère, where Bonhams staged an impressive auction of around 650 lots of significant historic cars, with highlights including most Porsche 911s and Ferraris than you could shake a stick at. Its unusual Porsche was a 1964 356C, known as the Mirror 356, adorned with thousands of tiny glass mirror sections, made as an art installation by Gustav Troger in 2003. Other notable Bonhams lots included a unique 1947 Volkhart V2 Sagitta, a bulbous Volkswagen Beetle-based coupe, rivalling an early Porsche, but even less attractive.

A 1952 Lancia Aurelia PF200 Spider – one of just seven prototypes, designed and built by Pininfarina for promotional purposes of the Turin studio’s talents – was far easier on the eye, as was an imposing 1921 Hispano Suiza H6B skiff with special wood decking coachwork. A 1991 Jordan-Ford 191 Formula 1 racer, that Michael Schumacher made his Grand Prix racing debut in, plus a 1937 Maserati 4CM Monoposto, an amazing famous ex-Le Mans 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Prix Coupe ‘Chambas’. Elsewhere, one of just 120 modern-era Lagonda Taraf saloons, perfectly illustrated the depth and variety of the mouth-watering Paris Bonhams selection. A great way to round off an exceptionally strong 2023 Retromobile.

Photography by Joe Harding.