Retromobile, Paris February 2019,
This year Retromobile saw the 100th anniversary of Citroën cars, an important milestone for an automotive manufacturer. Citroën joining Renault and a handful of others in their centenary years. With the PSA groups modern cars doing well in a struggling industry they were happy to pull out all the stops to show off the importance of this event.
Citroën are one of the most significant automobile manufacturers. the talents of industrialist André Citroën and the hugely capable designer André Lefèbvre left us with some game changing cars. Unfortunately one of them bankrupted the company in 1934 and left André Citroën to lose his company after it was the fourth largest car manufacturer in the world, he died only a year after in 1935. But, the name and the significance of what he achieved lives on today, 100 years of cars, but even longer in the manufacturing business.
The 1934 Traction 7a, what effectively bankrupted the company, was a significant car, mostly unitary monocoque construction, front wheel drive with rack and pinion steering and mass produced.
But it was the 2CV which really caught on across the world, introduced in 1948 the significance of this French farmers transport is not to be underestimated. Simplistic design and construction kept the weight down and the cost. The earliest cars with the tiny 375cc 9hp engine isn’t known for it’s performance, but the original brief was 95mpg at 30mph on rough or muddy fields.
Citroën had dug deep into their conservatiore and brought out some interesting concepts, some we have seen before, but the newer ones are quite striking. The 2006 C-Métisse station wagon stunned everyone when it was unveiled. But they didn’t stop there and followed up in 2008 with the Concept GT, equally striking but with a different purpose. You can even drive this one, albeit on Gran Turismo games…
The CExperience below from 2016 is another striking vision of what I hope is Citroën’s future. The doors are hinged at either end opening to reveal an unobstructed cabin opening.
Just across from the Citroën display were Renault, always a Retromobile favourite, who had put on another superb display, this time of all turbo charged cars. Renault have had a long history of turbo charging cars, having a great deal of success with the smaller engines, even in Formula 1.
Sticking to the same layout and location, which I think is a good thing, Renault have a blank square to fill with a new theme each year. Being even older than Citroën means they have no trouble.
Some personal favourites for there, obviously the R5 Turbo from 1980, with it’s 160bhp 1.4 four cylinder engine, Built to go rallying they made around 1820 of these in road going form. The Turbo 2 being a cheaper version with less of the bespoke components, they made around twice as many of those.
Easily confused with the original Cinq Alpine Turbo, the Alpine bit being important there isn’t a lot shared with the other car, in the UK they were known as Gordini Turbos. This does have that fantastic supermini style that Renault carried off so well.
They even did it successfully with the Super Cinq replacement, again the GT Turbo was quite the hot hatch in it’s day. Light weight, around 850kg making the most of the 120bhp available.
Somewhat easier to forget, as when did anyone last see one, a Renault Fuego, let alone a Turbo one. This stylish coupe not only looked good, went well too. Less well known facts are that this was the first car to have remote central locking, the PLIP system as it’s known in France is a shortened version of the inventors name. And, the first car to have stereo controls on the steering wheel. This even sold reasonably well in the United States.
Another interesting car, another car sold in The United States, most often as the Alliance car seen last year in saloon form, called the 9, was the Renault 11. Essentially a 5GT Turbo in larger hatchback form, this was to the Renault 5 what Peugeot’s 309 was to the 205, except Renault got there first.
The 1980’s are big in the classic world now, Renault having got plenty of decent examples to share.
At the other end of the spectrum, low volume, huge value cars was a stunning collection of Miura’s by Kidston SA, a well respected advisory firm connecting buyers and sellers of cars who don’t usually advertise. The centrepiece was the stunning ex-Shah of Iran Miura P400 in orange an early example from 1968 that came complete with 60s style film shot in the snow with stunt driver. Watching this Muira being drifted around was seriously cool, the Shah used to drive in the snow, so this was more than fitting. I recommend watching it here, https://www.kidston.com/kidston-movie-item/68/A-Winter , they’ve made many more great films like that too.
They also had a few more, this unique open top car was restored to it’s original metal flake blue colour, the car being unique in two ways. I like colour originality on rare cars like this, but it was creating some division, with some people preferring an alternate colour. It was striking, I rather liked it.
Another eye catching Miura, this one an SVJ, only one Jota was buit and destroyed, the rest were converted by the factory to Jota spec, or nearly. Apparently only 6 of these were done, each one being rare and valuable. This was Lamborghini’s race car for the road, the original was Bob Wallace’s test mule, Bob being Lamborghini’s test driver. Legend has it that it had around 440bhp from it’s 4 litre engine and 1300kg.
More Retromobile to follow in another installment.
In the meantime check the Facebook gallery for more images here.
Simon
