50th Annual Rétromobile in review

"Nothing against Hershey, but Rétromobile is unique and enormous — and it’s in Paris!"

Of course, I managed to find a hot rod at Rétromobile. JFAuto from Jonquières had a ’32 Ford roadster on its stand — a car built in the United States, and looking a little out of place here in Paris. Courtesy of Ken Gross

If you need a midwinter fix for your swap meet longings, here’s a solution. Each February, as they have for decades, enthusiasts from all over the world gather at the sprawling, multi-building Paris Expo Center at Porte de Versailles, France, for an enormous indoor swap meet that takes place inside several huge, action-packed exhibit halls. Rétromobile hosts more than 500 vendors and countless old car dealers and restorers along with dozens of car club displays. And, as if that wasn’t enough, there’s the Gooding Christie’s auction on site. In addition, RM Sotheby’s holds an auction at the Salles du Carroussel in the Louvre Palace, Broad Arrow is at Roland Garros Stadium and Artcurial Motorcars holds court at the Peninsula Hotel with still more vehicles. (More about those in a moment.) There’s also a huge area at “Retro,” as it’s called, with hundreds of old and not-so-old cars for sale.

The Cité du Train Museum in Mulhouse, in eastern France, brought the only surviving Bugatti Automotrice — an enormous, self-propelled railcar powered by Bugatti Type 41 Royale engines. Producing these trains saved Bugatti in the Depression. Courtesy of Ken Gross

This year, the Cité du Train Museum in Mulhouse, in Eastern France, somehow managed to transport the only surviving Bugatti Automotrice, an enormous, dramatically engineered, self-propelled railcar powered by Bugatti Type 41 Royale engines. As well, the French National Motor Museum enhanced the Automotrice display with several rare Bugatti cars, including a Type 47 16-cylinder Grand Prix race car; a one-off Type 64 coupe (the stillborn successor to the Type 57); a Type 73 baby car (another one-off); a pair of postwar Type 101s; and the last racing try from the original Bugatti company, the radical Type 251, a mid-engine Grand Prix car. You could opt for introductory rides in century-old vehicles, attend daily classic car workshops, wander deliriously from floor to floor, suffering from sensory overkill, or just stand around the vendor displays sipping champagne.

At Rétromobile, I promise you’ll see cars and trucks you’d never find at Hershey, Carlisle, Pate or Turlock. How about scads of rare French marques such as Amilcar, Salmson, Ballot, Hotchkiss, Lorriane-Dietrich, Georges Irat and Voisin, to name a few? There were countless Ferraris, including five coveted 250 SWBs, and lots of Bugattis, Delahayes and Delages — even a freshly restored Tatra T77, a streamlined saloon on the Gallery Aalderling stand, offered at just under 1 million euros.

If you read the British old car magazines, you’ll recognize names such as Gregor Fiskens, Simon Kidston, Axel Schuette, Joe Macari, Christophe Groh and Max Girardo, to name just a few. These star dealers all try to outdo one another each year in Paris with breathtaking cars. Kidston’s stand featured the 1926 Hispano-Suiza that belonged to his late uncle, “Bentley Boy” Glen Kidston, resplendent in a fresh restoration and just back from Pebble Beach. A giant photograph showed that very car photographed 100 years earlier in the same spot in London. Max Girado had the two-time Le Mans-winning Ferrari 275P, chassis 0816. If you must ask the eight-figure price, you can’t afford it!

A Belgian firm called AVD Revival presented a beautiful reproduction example of a Series II GTO for a fraction of the millions a real one would cost. Courtesy of Ken Gross

Axel Schuette presented Robert Kudela’s stunning trio of restored Gran Sport Talbot-Lago T26 coupes, one each by Figoni et Falaschi, Saoutchik and Antem. The combined package had an eight figure price tag! Can’t afford a Ferrari 250 GTO? A Belgian firm called AVD Revival presented a beautiful reproduction example of a Series II GTO for a fraction of the millions a real one would cost. Under the hood was a 3-liter Ferrari 250 V-12 with six stacked Weber dual-choke carburetors. A close look at the yellow badge on the nose confirmed that it didn’t display a prancing horse, probably protecting the vendor/lucky owner from a lawsuit.

Of course, I managed to find a hot rod. JFAuto from Jonquières had a ’32 Ford roadster on its stand — a car built in the United States and looking a little out of place here, but not to my eyes.

European automakers with long histories such as Peugeot and Renault like to tout their brands’ innovations through the years at Rétromobile, with restored and occasionally original old models on display to prove the point — a practice that the newbie Asian marques are unable to match. Supercars abounded, both new models and pre-owned.

From the French National Motor Museum and the former Schlumpf Collection, here’s a 1947 Bugatti Type 73C. It had a 1500cc, twin-cam I-4, and just five experimental models were built. Courtesy of Ken Gross

For book, literature and poster collectors, Horton’s Books and many other prominent and not-so-prominent booksellers had large stands. Gilles Fiournier was on hand to sign his new “Amilcar 6 Cylindres” book, and if you missed the sold-out version of “Automotrices Bugatti,” author Eric Favre would cheerfully sell you the latest edition — and sign it.

There were hundreds of smaller vendors with all manner of mostly European petroliana, automobilia, model cars, car parts, posters and radiator mascots, making walking progress slow, if you tried to look at every item. The car magazine folk were roaming the halls — I spoke with my old friend Mick Walsh from Classic & Sportscar; David Lilywhite represented Magneto and all the French publications were there. Many car clubs also had impressive stands. On the Facel-Vega stand, an HK500 was displayed, and you could buy F-V pins and memorabilia. Among several cars on the Peugeot Owners Club stand was a Peugeot 404 convertible, the successor to the ratty 403 that TV detective Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) used to drive, except this example was perfectly restored. The vibe was electric on every floor with people smiling, enjoying the ambiance and eagerly buying everything in sight. Even the refreshment stands here are a kick with crisp baguettes, tasty pink ham slices and soft cheeses, every possible chocolate treat and gelato you could want and, of course, wine of all kinds.

Everything Ettore Bugatti and his son Jean did was artistic — such as this bench vise with a voluptuous shape that’s also very practical. When these rare devices show up, there’s a stir among collectors. A British firm called Tula Engineering offers half-sized versions. This is the real thing. Courtesy of Ken Gross

Auctions galore

Gooding Christie’s had pride of place at Rétromobile — the other auction houses were in off-site locations — but most had shuttle services to and from Place Vendôme so you didn’t have to use the excellent Parisian Metro, unless you wanted.

David Gooding, of Gooding Christie’s, had a barnburner of a sale at Rétromobile, totalling $61.5 million, with 10 lots selling for more than $1 million each. This 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS Teardrop Coupe by Figoni et Falaschi sold for $8,247,855, Courtesy of Ken Gross

The auctions all did comparatively well. David Gooding of Gooding Christie’s had a barn burner of a sale at Rétromobile, totalling $61.5 million, with 10 lots selling for more than $1 million each. Top whack was a Ferrari 288 GTO, which brought $11,138,468 for a new model record! Perhaps of more interest to Old Cars readers, a 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS Teardrop Coupe by Figoni et Falaschi sold for $8,247,855, and a Bugatti Type 57C Atalante brought $2,753.855. Curiously, a lovely Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta failed to sell for about $7 million, and a 250 GT LWB California Spider remained unsold despite a hefty bid of more than $5 million. On the Gooding stand were Scott Sargent, arguably America’s premier Bugatti restorer, and Gooding Christie’s jovial auctioneer Charlie Ross.

Artcurial sold an unrestored and remarkably original, numbers-matching 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL “gullwing” for a stunning $5,115,197, about 30 percent of the total auction sale. A 1992 Ferrari F92A Formula 1 car, owned and driven by F1 ace Jean Alesi, brought $3,2378,061. If you wanted a bargain 1972 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7RS, that ship has sailed. A nice example here sold for $530,464.

RM Sotheby’s sold a more reasonable 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL “gullwing” for $1,591,165 and a 1962 300SL roadster for $1,625,372. So, you could have bought both of those SLs and still had a couple of million dollars left versus the Artcurial SL coupe. In the same sale, RM shifted a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider for a staggering $16,874,486.

Bonhams’ 1962 Facel Vega Facel II Coupe brought $171,428. They turned down $357,764 for an ex-Oscar Davis 1952 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Sports Sperimentale Cabriolet by Carrozzeria Touring. I love these 6C2500s. They are essentially a Classic prewar Alfa carried over to the postwar period. My friend Raoul San Giorgi restores them in Brussels.

If you are thinking of attending, next year’s Rétromobile dates are Feb. 3-7, 2027, and details are available at www.retromobile.com Thanks to its Byzantine honeycomb of a Metro system and countless modern busses charging just a few Euros per trip (and even less if you buy a book of 10, or a Metropass), you don’t need expensive taxis. The Paris Metro route is clearly laid out, and if you use Google Maps, your phone screen becomes your GPS. It tells you which line to use, advises stations one by one, informs you when the next train will arrive and points out special attractions along the way. But Uber is there, and it works really well. Don’t believe the old adage about the French being rude to visitors. Nearly everyone we encountered was helpful and pleasant — even when I stammered a question in my hesitant high school French.

From a tourist perspective, we visited the born-again Notre Dame Cathedral. Its once burned-out hulk and formerly fallen towers are completely and correctly restored to their past glory. And Paris has so many other attractions — such as the Louvre and the Fondation Louis Vuitton museum in a stunning Frank Gehry building, and the Musée d’Orsay, the American Library and the Pere Lachasse cemetery —- so you won’t know what to do next, if you or your significant other suffers a bit of old car burnout. And then there’s the fabulous food and wine in Paris... c’est formidable!

But, now you don’t even have to go to Paris. From Nov. 19-22 of this year, Rétromobile is coming to the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. A number of vendors here told me that they’ll be on hand.

So perhaps the Paris magic will work in the Big Apple? Let’s all attend and see!

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