During a short silence at last weekend's Vintage Revival Montlhéry we asked a young british journalist for his opinion on the cars present. "When in the UK at an event you will see fabulous cars that you have seen many times before. Here at Montlhéry I am baffled about the number of carmakes you have never heard of, plus cars that you've heard of once, but never saw in reality."
And yes, outside the incredible line ups of Bugattis, Amilcars, Salmsons, Morgans and more, it's the oddballs that add magic to Montlhéry. Did you ever see an Alcyon, a Hinstin, a GAR, a Guyot Spécial Grand Sport, a Silver Hawk, or a Schasch? Or an Aries LeMans, an eight cylinder twin compressor Salmson, a never-never-ever restored BNC, or a mock-up of a long forgotten Voisin experiment (not! created by Thierry 'AV' Auffret who is posing with it) and the first time out of the Leyland Thomas just to name a handful of the presented oddities.
Organiser Vincent Chamon and Jean-Frederic Frot have a lucky hand in creating superb Montlhéry weekend weather. For the third time in succession it was a Mediterranean like sun that kept the old bankings dry and made visitors faces red. Check how brilliant the atmosphere was from this fine video, sent in by Jean Baptiste Avril. PreWarCar gave away prizes for the Most Sympathetic Club (well deserved by the British Talbot Club who did a massive amount of work for the event). L'Esprit d'Evenement prize went to the 1927/28 Schasche presented by its restorer F. Seeger. It's an austrian made mid engined (Sarolea) cyclecar and land speed record holder in the 500cc class. Prize for the Most Original Motorcycle was for a perfectly non-molested but most sympathetic recommissioned 1904 Peugeot course, presented by Hans Devos from Belgium. Finally the prize for Most Original Motorcar went to the 1926 George Irat 4A6 two litre Torpedo, presented by P. Lefoulon.
Let's make a bet about the weather at Montlhéry 2017...