Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Here we were walking down the Champs de Elysee in Paris and we come upon several supercars parked by one of the city's busiest streets and tourist meccas. Three Ferrari Californias, a Lambo Huracan and a McLaren. What gives? Well, for only 99 Euros you could drive one of these exotics around the block. Are they crazy? You start off on a narrow side street and circle around to the busy main thoroughfare. No chance to do anything, but watch out for traffic. Oh, and did I mention you also had a chaperone with you? Not my idea of a test drive, but at 99 Euros, there was a line up.
Also on the Champs, several car companies had interesting, but small showrooms. Interesting, since they were all very high tech with interactive displays and experiences. Each one also highlighted one of their famous race cars. In the case of this Citroen display, it was their rally car.
And for Renault, they showed their current F1 racecar, along side their new Twizy electric car(?). This Twizy has been strangely modified to look like a racecar (check out those tires). Sublime to the ridiculous?
Moving away from the big city to the countryside, I came across quite a few old Citroen Deux Chevaux trucks. These haven't been built for years and years, but I saw several still earning their keep, doing what they were originally made for.........
Also came across a few old French "classics", like this Peugeot 404 from the '60's........
This beautifully maintained, or restored example, was parked by a classic French country home. Couldn't have had a better backdrop.
What is a "trucklette"? Good question, but in my mind this vehicle that I saw in Paris, qualified. Could you get anything much smaller and still have it be useful?
And back to Provence. Driving through the tiny village of Bonnieux, we came across this garage, which apart from having a very old and rather cute Renault 4CV in its bay, it also had quite a new Porsche.......
Lots of Porsche cars in France, but the juxtaposition of the little Renault and this racing Porsche (those are slicks on the GT3) in the same garage, in a back country village was worth a picture.
And then in another out of the way village, St. Remys en Provence, I came across Bullitt Racing. A company which raced and seemed to specialize in old Mustangs (check out the background).........
Of course, it didn't hurt that they had a version of the Ford GT40 in their showroom, done up in the classic Gulf Oil colours. To find this in a tiny French village was unusual to say the least.
And to finish off today's Tour de France.........
This is for those of you, who love the new Fiat 500, but aren't familiar with its original namesake. Hard to believe that, it was actually this small. Cheap transportation for a family of five?
As I said in a previous blog, I love touring the countries of Europe, but for me the experience is double sided. Seeing the countryside and the cities, with a generous side order of new and different cars. So even being stuck in traffic is interesting. Gotta love it!
Until next time......
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