From Bollée to Bucciali, the best of Salon Rétromobile 2023

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Unless you've only just discovered PreWarCar.com this very instant, you'll have noticed that we're rather keen on Rétromobile, the show which draws thousands of enthusiasts from around the world to Paris to buy, sell or simply admire hundreds of rare, unusual and highly desirable historic cars. We waited for it with eager anticipation and we're not disappointed.

Some exhibitors pulled out all the stops to display some superlative machines. With a unique, single-family-owned 1900 Benz, an unrestored 1900 Decauville Voiturelle and an 1899 Clément quadricycle, the PreWarCar.com stand was obviously a highlight, but you've heard enough about us already.

Celebrating the ancient, obscure and eccentric

One of the single best displays belonged to the Vintage Revival Montlhéry, whose organisers had sourced some exceptional vehicles. Many of us could have identified the Scott Sociable from 100 paces, but the 1908 Truffault was a different matter. Pretty as it was, it primarily stood out for its strange sliding-pillar suspension (not its only unusual feature), on which were mounted the headlamps, turning with the wheels. Vintage Revival also displayed a German-made 1906 Corona motorcycle and the oldest car present at the show, the 1892 Peugeot Type 3 brought along by the Museo dell'Automobili di Torino.

That said, the Musée des Arts et Métiers presented an older vehicle still: Amédée Bollée's pioneering steam carriage L'Obéissante. Built in 1873, L'Obéissante was Bollée's first successful self-propelled vehicle and the first vehicle to travel under its own power from Paris to Le Mans, taking 18 hours with a cruising speed of 19mph.

If the Vintage Revival's display doesn't persuade you to attend their event, nothing will, but if you can't wait until the next event in 2024, one could always visit the Circuit des Remparts in September 2023. The Association Circuit des Remparts presented two excellent cars, the oldest-known surviving Mors from 1896, fresh from restoration, and the 1920 Ballot 3/8 LC which raced at Indianapolis, won the first Italian Grand Prix and later ran at Brooklands in the hands of Malcolm Campbell.

The best of car clubs and dealers

Besides the large heritage collections of Citroën and Peugeot, all the great French marques of the pre-war years were represented by their respective clubs - Renault, Amilcar, Delage, Hotchkiss, Panhard et Levassor, Bugatti and Voisin all being catered for. Even so, the club which impressed us most was the Club des Teuf-Teufs, with its selection of Veteran and Edwardian marques generally unseen or even unheard of outside France, such as Le Zèbre, Buchet, Louvet, Clément-Bayard, Delaunay-Belleville and La Nef. Perhaps the car which appealed most to visitors was the Citroën Kégresse from Citroën's 1922-23 trans-Saharan expedition.

Bugattis were plentiful, with Ivan Dutton Ltd. and Fine Automobiles proudly showing off their wares, the former opting for a spread of Type 35s while the latter yielded a sextet of Type 57s. Other dealers had plenty to tempt us, but none more so than Lukas Hüni, which offered not just a dashing Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost two-seater torpedo, and not just Woolf Barnato's opulent Vanden Plas-bodied Bentley Eight-Litre tourer, but also the ex-Sword Collection 1898 Daimler 4hp Marseilles phæton and, most spectacular of all, the front-wheel drive, Saoutchik-bodied 1932 Bucciali TAV12, which almost defies credulity.

Of course, for all the head-turners with six- or seven-figure price tags, a section devoted to cars under €25,000 meant those of us of more modest means didn't have to leave empty-handed. One might have been tempted by a 1924 Dodge roadster at €25,000, a 1935 Renault Monaquatre at €12,000, or a 1936 Chevrolet roadster.

Parisian motorcycles meet Le Mans stars

If that wasn't enough, two special displays added to an already superb assembly of vehicles. Most people have never heard of Dollar motorcycles, let alone seen one, but it was a Parisian manufacturer extant from 1925 to 1939. Over 20 examples were corralled together, some restored to highly-polished concours condition, others kept pleasingly original. Fittingly, the 100th anniversary of the 24 Heures du Mans was marked, with various significant French Le Mans cars scatted around the site, including a recreation of the 1923 Chenard et Walcker Type 3L which won the first ever race, a Lorraine-Dietrich B3-6 Sport from 1926, the year of Lorraine-Dietrich's celebrated first-second-third finish, the front-wheel drive Tracta Type 4 Géphi which raced in 1928 and 1929 and the Simca-Gordini, a Simca 5 modified by Amédée Gordini to race in 1938.

Words and pictures: Zack Stiling
 

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