I know by the traffic on this site a lot of people have a passion for the Gulf sponsored cars. If you want to see the biggest single display of these cars hop on the train over to Paris and Retromobile where Adrian Hamilton has a huge stand displaying probably the largest single collection of Gulf sponsored cars you are likely to see.
For the racing enthusiast there are stacks of interesting cars including two C type Jaguars a D type lots of Maseratis and even the Lotus 33 in which Jackie Stewart derove in his first Formula 1 race. Better hurry though as it closes on Sunday.



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That's interesting; in C&SC this month the Blackhawk Collection is advertising the "only surviving" Mirage GT40, it carries a #14 and has the orange across the nose, rather than just a longitudinal stripe as seen by Graham.

What is this one in the link below? A Sexton Blake?

www.gelscoemotorsport.com/breakingNews.php

It seems to have both types of paint job but the roundel on the nose is not in the same place as the Paris car!

I'm going to have to get my Ronnie Span book out.

Manufactured for the owners of all Mirage rights recently by Gelscoe as I understand it-so is quite capable of being legally described as a Mirage.

I don't know what it is about the combination of pale blue and orange, but it works brilliantly. Or perhaps it was just the great cars that it adorned during the John Wyer era that makes it work so well.

Of the three JW Mirage GT40s, M10001 survives, M10002 was written off at the 'Ring in 1967 and M10003 was rebuilt by JW as a GT40 ('The Ford that beat Ferrari' John S Allen & Gordon J Jones)

That was my understanding (excellent book, is it not, Alan?), so, how many "continuation Mirage" cars are there?

Just the one.

So far !!

Take a seat and enjoy the view!



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I was there yesterday too and thought that this display was one of the highlights of the show. I'll upload a few pics later on.

As well as all of this, for me, the absolute highlight was seeing Alain Cerf's working recreation of Le Fardier de Cugnot of 1769/71 which was completed only about a month before this year's show. Drew smiles and applause all round when demonsstrated yesterday. C'est magnifique! I went to see the original in Le Musee d'Arts et Metiiers as well.
M Cerf's recreated fardier will now be displayed at his museum at Tampa Bay, Florida.

The Lotus 33 was on the Hall & Hall stand, another interesting machine being the ex-Jo Bonnier Cooper-Maserati.

There's a really, really, really picture-heavy thread from Rétromobile over at Autodiva: it starts at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!

http://www.autodiva.fr/forum/viewtopic.php...09&start=80

Be aware that the further you go, the slower it loads! From post 280 on, you'll probably have time to make a cup of coffee while you're waiting

Tacky & it's quite obviously the wrong blue

I've just remembered something! Advertising does work... back in the 70s I used to stick my nose in at a little car-makers in Bolton, whenever I was passing. In that town was the ONLY Gulf filling station I have ever seen and I always bought fuel there as a thank-you to the blue and orange cars.
Rather bizarrely the car-makers also shared their name with another minority (in the UK) brand of fuel.

Not many people know that.

The 33 being the Robs Lamplough car, and the JoBo Cooper from Donington. Looks like it has been a good show for the racing buffs.

Yes indeed! Here's the Cooper-Maserati on the Hall & Hall stand





It wasn't all blue and orange. The Adrian Hamilton stand also had this ex-Jacky Ickx Brabham BT26A



But the 917 remains my persoanl favourite!

More from Paris.

The very high standard of the Retromobile is apparent and there is clearly a well balanced participation by the (high end) trade such as Fiskens as well as manufacturers and the motor clubs. Very large presence from Mercedes-Benz, celebrating their 125th anniversary, Peugeot, Citroen and others. All quite superb but I'm glad that I attended last Thursday as even then it was pretty crowded. There's more space at the "end of term" NEC event but I think that Retromobile has the quality.



The Citroen-Kegresse is, I think, from the Le Mans museum.

And Peugeot had their experimental EX1 electric car that wouldn't look too out of place in Tron!



There was quita a significant and varied motorsport content this year including a trbute to Fangio. Others were tucked away on other stands including an ex-Rene Arnoux Ligier-Judd JS31 (chassis 31/04) of 1988 that for some reason I failed to photograph! However, for Chevron fans like Giraffe, here's the ex- Ricardo Patrese Chevron B34 (chassis no. 6) Formula 3 on the FFSA stand.



Also from the Le Mans museum was the 1991 winning Mazda although their stand, quite near the entrance, seemed less busy than the other manufacturer displays.



From an earlier age, the Automobiles Classiques stand had the Rene Thomas world land speed record setting Delage of 1924, even though its caption named the driver as Rene Dreyfus!



A major reason for visiting for myself was the debut of the just completed (about a month actually) working reproduction of Le Fardier de Cugnot. This was the very first self-propelled vehicle built originally in 1769 and improved up to 1771. The original vehicle is in the Musee Nationale des Arts et Metiers and I had been to see it specially the day before.



The reproduction is truly magnificent and drew smiles and applause all round when it moved under its own steam. I was amazed that the organisers just basically let them play with it surrounded by visitors. In the UK we'd have had the crowds held back about 3 miles and an entire fire brigade on hand!









Actually, with fuel prices the way they are, a wood-burning steam vehicle may also be the future although maybe not at 2-3 mph!

The vehicle has been constructed after much research by Alain Cerf and his son Olivier. Alain is a French national resident in Florida and the Fardier will now be exhibited in a new wing of his museum at Tampa Bay. The Tampa Bay Automobile Museum is at 3301 Gateway Centre Boulevard, Pinellas Park, Florida 33782. Website here:

Tampa Bay Automobile Museum

I also posted some pics of Retromobile in my blog :

http://bit.ly/g6LIFE

More on Flickr too

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbenard/

We may criticise the French for many things, but following the letter of EU dictats and pettyfogging rules and regulations is not their thing - a trait that we in the UK would do well to learn from. More power to their collective elbow.

The Citroen Kegresse is one of a team of 5 sent by Andre Citroen which famously traversed the Sahara in December 1922 and January 1923, the first desert crossing by motorised transport. Its nice to see such an obviously preserved survivor which has not been tarted up or extensively restored.

The Cugnot Fardier is a weird thing (reminscent of John Brydon's Salvesen steam carriage which has regularly completed the L2B run in recent years), and the transmission alone is worth a detailed look as it drives via a pair of ratchet levers onto cogs mounted on either side of the front wheel, a bit like a lever escapement from a clock. But the Musee des Arts et Metier in Paris contains an extraordinarily eclectic collection of early vehicles and is absolutely unmissable IMHO. The real snag was the museum was closed for redevelopment for years and was reopened prematurely but I managed a visit then and was blown away by it all despite many of the exhibit support materials being unfinished. Anyone seriously interested in the early history of most forms of transport would not be disappointed...

The LSR Delage is an impressive thing to look at but far more so when driven in anger, which it still is...

Marticelli

I did, I sold them a filling station site that came as part of a larger site that we had bought for the residential permission that came with it. I got what the whole had cost us for just that part. The chairman couldn't stop rubbing his hands and made me MD of a new division.