24-HOUR PARTY PEOPLE HIT PARIS

Endurance racers were honoured as Rétromobile returned, but high-end dealers provided the stars

- ALASTAIR CLEMENTS

Salon Rétromobile was back to its brilliant best in the French capital from 1-5 February as it returned to the larger, pre-pandemic layout for its 47th edition, with a special focus on the Le Mans 24 Hours to mark the legendary enduro's centenary year. And visitors were back out in force, too, with a total of 125,000 through the turnstiles across the event's five days - the second-highest attendance since the show's inception in 1976.

Among the 500 exhibitors the Le Mans theme was adopted by clubs, manufacturers and specialists alike, but was most prominent in a pair of curated displays by the organisers. 'A century of innovations' featured pioneering racers, from the front-wheel-drive 1927 Tracta Type 4 'Géphi' via the 1968 Howmet TX turbine car and 1981 Lola T600, hydrogenground-effect to the experimental, powered LMPH2G from 2018.

More impressive was a set of Gallic racers celebrating 'When the French shine'. A chronological timeline went from 1926 LorraineDietrich B3-6 Sport and 1936 Simca-Gordini Type 5 via famous names such as DB Panhard, Alpine-Renault, Matra-Simca, Rondeau, Courage and Pescarolo to Peugeot's 1992 V10-powered 905 and its latest 9X8 hypercar.

There was further Le Mans heritage on show in the clubs hall - not least with Club Salmson, which brought along the actual Rudge-Whitworth Coupe Biennale trophy awarded to the marque at the 1927 race, along with an intriguing Motto-bodied 1954 2300S barquette. Entered in the tragic 1955 enduro, this pretty sports-racer features a 2.3-litre, 105bhp four-cylinder engine mated to a Cotal electromagnetic preselector gearbox, operated by a tiny shifter on the side of the dash binnacle which forced drivers to be extra vigilant at the sprint start to avoid damaging the fragile transmission.