12.1.17

Vintage cars.


Last Sunday some 700 vintage cars (and a few other vehicles) were driving through Paris, including on some of the major streets and squares. They made a circuit of some 28 km (some 17 miles), but had to mix in with the normal traffic. This kind of rally was organised for the 17th time. No cars could have been built less than 30 years ago. 

I did not manage to take photos of all the 700, but well over 200…

I’m not a car expert, and could not give the names and models on most of the cars, but…

… here I recognize the East German “Trabant”, the bubble car, or rather cabin scooter “Messerschmitt” from the 1950’s. There is obviously also some kind of a very old “Ford” race car.

The sports cars dominated in numbers. The red “MG” is the one I wish I would have had when I was 20.


Among the U.S. cars I believe I recognize a “T-Ford” (in its compulsory black colour), a “Chevrolet Corvette”….

… but especially a number of “Ford Mustangs”.

There were a few high class British cars…

… and among a number of “Jaguars” also a “Rover”.

We could see a few “Mercedes” cars…

… and even some Swedish-built ones.

The “Citroën Type A” from around 1920 was quite present -  see also top picture.

There were a few “Peugeot” cars of the 202, 302, 402 type, produced before and just after WW II…

and a larger number of the “Renault 4CV”, mostly from the 1950’s.

The “Peugeot 203” cars were also basically produced during the 1950’s..

… as well as these “Panhard” ones.

Of course, there was a rather great number of the “Citroën Traction Avant”. They came into production in 1934 and we can see them in all movies from WW II times. Production was resumed after the war and continued until the mid-1950’s.  

Another famous “Citroën” is of course the “2CV” model, produced until as late as 1990.

There were also a few “Fiat Cinquecento” cars, the last ones produced in the middle of the 1970’s.

I was surprised to see only a few of the wonderful “BMC Minis” (I had one)… and only one “Peugeot” of the “Columbo” model.

There were of course also a few “Volkswagen Beetles”…

… and also “Volkswagen” (macro-)buses.  

I was surprised again to see relatively few of the “Citroën DS” model, produced during 20 years (1955-75), famous for its design and suspension. ..

… but the “Citroën SM” model, considering its relative rareness, was quite well represented.

Here are some examples of standard, typical, cars from the 1960’s to the 1980’s…


… and some utility cars.

We could also see a number of “Jeeps”, “Land-Rovers”…

The local transport system was represented by some buses.

Some followers were riding vintage motor bikes…


… whereas others were biking.  

3 comments:

Jeanie said...

I'm no car expert either, but I do love these classics. Here we generally see just US cars so it's fun to see some of the classic European ones here!

R's Rue said...

Great

Anonymous said...


At the beginning of Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "Bon Voyage"-one of the best movies I ever saw in my entire life-I saw "la divina" Isabelle Adjani riding a very cute black car. I always wanted to know what brand it was. Today, I think I recognized it among all those cute cars? Was it a Peugeot, maybe?

Such a cute post, Peter! I love it! In some of the photos I could swear they look like those die-cast miniatures from Matchbox.

Thank you so much
Maria