{"id":2874,"date":"2010-01-29T23:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T04:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2010\/01\/retromobile-35\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:55","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:55","slug":"retromobile-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2010\/01\/retromobile-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Retromobile 35"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"La<\/a><\/p>\n

This year marks the 35th Rétromobile show held in Paris at the Porte de Versailles. Rétromobile<\/a>, the largest indoor old car event in Europe, occurred a fortnight earlier<\/a> than in the past, due to scheduling conflicts at the exposition grounds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rétromobile is not just a European Hershey held indoors. The formula does not really translate to any other venue. To be sure, there are vendors of automobile components and ephemera: tools<\/a>, polish<\/a>, car covers<\/a>, leather outfits<\/a>, pedal cars<\/a> and model cars<\/a>. If you’re restoring a French car, you’ll be happy to find an engine<\/a> for your Chapuis-Dornier or a radiator<\/a> for your Citroën. You can even buy an electric power steering<\/a> kit<\/a> for your Delahaye.<\/p>\n

But there are also high-end collector car dealers<\/a> with some mammoth motorcars<\/a>, and auto manufacturers as well. At one time, the French Big Three were stalwarts, but Renault pulled out some years ago. Peugeot<\/a> and Citroën<\/a> are faithful followers, though, the former showing off<\/a> a 602 Eclipse<\/a> and the latter touting 40 years of the SM and GS<\/a>. Mercedes-Benz celebrated the legend of the gull wing<\/a> (which the French call “butterfly doors”). BMW\/Mini pulled out this year, replaced by Mazda<\/a>, which had some seldom-seen<\/a> models<\/a> on display. Alfa-Romeo<\/a>, too, was a welcome surprise, celebrating its centenary. Also with a presence was the German gearbox<\/a> maker ZF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s the clubs that add enthusiast depth to Rétromobile, organizations like Amis<\/a> de Delage<\/a> and Club Vedette<\/a>, the latter with a V8-engined Simca Chambord<\/a>. Morgan France<\/a> had a strong presence, but their kinship to the 124 Spider group<\/a> was somewhat of a mystery.<\/p>\n

There’s always an auction at Rétromobile, in recent years conducted by Bonhams<\/a>. This year’s headliner was the Bugatti from the Lake<\/a>, a Brescia<\/a> rescued from the depths of Lake Maggiore near the Swiss-Italian border. An incomplete car<\/a>, it was nonetheless sold for €260,500 ($375,120), to a buyer who has promised to preserve it.<\/p>\n

There are always centerpiece displays at Rétromobile. This year celebrated two centuries of urban transportation<\/a>, corraling a flock of microcars<\/a> and a vintage DeDion bus<\/a>. Another display demonstrated the intricacies of filming<\/a> action scenes with automobiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My favorite, however, was La Baleine<\/a>, the whale-like creation<\/a> of French artist Paul Arzens<\/a>. Constructed in 1938 (take that, Harley Earl!), it shows subtle clues<\/a> of its origin as a 1926 Buick<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year marks the 35th Rétromobile show held in Paris at the Porte de Versailles. Rétromobile, the largest indoor old car event in Europe, occurred a fortnight earlier than in the past, due to scheduling conflicts at the exposition grounds. Rétromobile is not just a European Hershey held indoors. The formula does not really translate….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,8,13,14,16,17,29],"tags":[42,41,32,33,38,34,43,37,36,35,31,40,39],"class_list":["post-2874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auctions","category-events","category-french-cars","category-german-cars","category-italian-cars","category-japanese-cars","category-microcars","tag-bonhams","tag-bugatti","tag-chapuis-dornier","tag-citroen","tag-delage","tag-delahaye","tag-la-baleine","tag-mazda","tag-mercedes-benz","tag-peugeot","tag-retromobile","tag-simca","tag-vedette"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3200,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}