|
In August each year I am invited to be a judge at the Valescure Golf Club Concours d’Elegance, organised by French historic racer Francois Degand and motoring historian Jean-Pierre Cornu. Through the years there have been a number of interesting judges involved including five time Tour de France Auto winner Bernard Consten and the late Clay Regazzoni.
In the past two years, however, two of the permanent judges have been Francoise Conconi and Henri Chemin. Francoise Conconi was best known as co-driver for one of the greatest women rally drivers of all time, Michelle Mouton. In recent years she ran a restaurant but gave it up but still keeps in touch with all the rally people. Henri Chemin was the former head of public relations and motor sport manager for Ford France and he told an interesting story about Jim Clark. “ During the winter of 1967/68 I came up with the idea of linking pop music with motor racing as a Ford France promotion. I had a word with Jim Clark, who was living in Paris in 1967 and with France’s number one pop star Johnny Hallyday. The idea was a club for young people to bring them closer to their heroes in pop and racing. I enlised the support of the Paris newspaper Paris-Jour, the radio station Europe 1 and Jabby Crombac’s magazine Sport Auto. “ We decided to call it Club J.J.J. ( Jimmy, Johnny et Jeunes) and the plan was that we would have a stand at Hallyday’s pop concerts and at Jimmy’s races in France. It was also arranged that Jimmy would attend Johnny’s pop concerts and Johnny would appear at Jimmy’s races. I still have Jimmy’s signed contract but alas we had to abandon the whole project when Jim was killed at Hockenheim. It was a tragedy, I liked him very much.”
As usual there was a superb variety of cars taking part in the concours including some very unusual ones. One that caught my eye was a 1913 Vermorel grand prix car built in Lyon. It was one of just nine of that type built and was raced up the legendary Mont Ventoux Hill Climb. This one was in superb condition and the leisurely thump thump of its engine was in stark contrast to Bernard Consten’s Porsche 904 racer. I remember watching Eugen Bohringer in action on the Monte Carlo Rally with a factory entered 904 which was spectacular on the ice and snow. Bernard’s 904 was originally sold to French racing driver Robert Buchet and raced by him. Another interesting car was a 1955 Tickford-bodied Lagonda cabriolet that had been originally owned by actor Peter Ustinov and it was one of the prizewinners. The overall prize, however, went to another of Bernard Consten’s cars, his Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona. As for irony, the secretary of the local Jaguar club turned up with an interesting Aston Martin DB4 that had originally been shown at the New York Motor Show. It then came back to Europe and was taken on by Garage Mirabeau their French distributors in Marseilles. I learned one interesting fact which was that in those days Aston Martins imported into France had their Lucas headlight whipped out and replaced by French Marchals as the French didn’t think much of the Lucas electrics. Nothing changes!
* * * * * At the BRDC Classic event last July I caught up with a car that impressed me the first time I saw it race, Mike Sparken’s Ferrari 750 Monza (Chassis 0504M). Mike, who was born in Paris as Michael Poberejsky, changed his name to Mike Sparken when he was racing. He bought the car in 1955 straight from the factory having formerly raced a special-bodied Aston Martin. He immediately went out and won his first race with it at Dakar. He raced the car all over and often brought it to Britain. I saw him with it at the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park a year later. The car had a successful racing life and went to America. When it came back to Britain it went through various hands and at one stage Sparken bought the car back again but today it is raced by Richard and Andrew Frankel.
|
| Welcome |
|
Valescure Concours - Here in the south of France there are a number of motoring events. .... read more
|
|
|
| Book Reviews by GG |
|
| Contact |