Undeterred by that rude Parisian curmudgeon, I went on to have a lovely trip through France that year, driving my Citroen GS through the countryside to all quarters, including Mulhouse, where I visited the Schlumpf Museum (but that's another post sometime down the track). And so I have also never lost my fascination for French food, French movies and, yes, French cars, amongst various other acquired tastes of the French kind.
Here's part of one cabinet where French cars rule. While this is by no means all of my French cars, this is headquarters, I guess. In later posts I'll deal with the Peugeots on the bottom shelf, the Renaults and other oddities on the middle shelf, such as Simcas and Panhards, but for starters I thought I'd take a tour along the top shelf, to visit sporting French sedans with very big numbers written on their sides. |
Far left, a Renault Dauphine, winner of the Monte Carlo Rally in 1958. It's an IXO 1:43 model (in fact all of the model cars here in this post are 1:43) |
Very much a genuine one-off, this is a modified Altaya model of a Peugeot 403, painted up very nicely in the real livery of the Class C winner at the Armstrong 500 at Philip Island in 1960 and 61. This Pug was one of the first cars painted with distinctive stripes to make it easy for pit crews to follow its progress. The Armstrong 500 race soon relocated to Bathurst and then evolved into the world famous endurance race most people know about. But back in 1960, a little 1400cc Pug managed to win its class, which was for cars 1300-2000cc. A good effort, and obviously a great drive. I bought this from the modeller who modified it, in an eBay auction. |
Citroen DS19 from the Rallye de Corse (ie, Corsican Rally). It's another IXO model, and a not especially nicely made one, I might add. I have my eye on replacing it with a model of the Citroen which almost won the inaugural London to Sydney Marathon, but the poor old Corsican will do for the meantime. |
Citroens were very active in rallying at that time. This is something snatched from a search on Google images, from the Rallye du Maroc. |
And now, for a change of pace, some lovely footage courtesy of You Tube from the Rallye du Maroc, complete with casual Citroen drivers, helmetless in their T-shirts, casually changing gears with the column shift while they throw up clouds of dust for les autres to manger
Meanwhile on the other, eastern, side of Africa the Peugeot 404s were showing the others how to eat dust. This is the 1967 East African Safari winner, a very nicely made model by Norev. |
And here is some footage of this car being driven around a test course, presumably several years later. I like the in-car 404 driving glimpses the most, but the rest is interesting enough to warrant a run.
Fast forward to 1976 and this is the Peugeot 504 which came home in 9th place in the East African Safari Rally, in the year when Mitsubishi came in 1-2-3. This is an Altaya model, not quite as nice close up as the photo might suggest. |
That's the spirit! A 504 being driven to Sunday School, no doubt. |
This Peugeot 404 Pickup was in the inaugural 1979 Paris-Dakar Rally. It was a private entry, the extended cab built by the driver, Marc Andre. |
While their competitive spirit was spot-on, the more the years advanced the more stickers cars seemed to wear. Personally, I just prefer one dirty big number on the driver's door. That spelled 'competition' loud and clear to me. |
Holy crap, I think you're my long lost twin brother.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to Mulhouse to see the car museum, we stayed in Colmar. Next to the toy museum in Colmar is a store bursting at the seams with 1/43 diecast models. I was in awe. I had not started collecting yet and in retrospect, I kick myself for not picking up a few toys there.
And if you like the Schlumpf, you'll enjoy this collection in California.
http://karakullake.blogspot.com/2010/08/mullin-automotive-museum-review-part-1.html