Rallye de Paris
9th
& 10th March 2002
Unlike recent years, this March's Rallye
de Paris had fine weather from start to finish. The TOPS team had several old
hands and one pair of new members. The old hands included the Rylands in their
black E Type, the very tall Wilsons in their very small Stratos, the Pilks in
their one-off wide Aceca, Klaus-Otto Raker in his Porsche and the Bonds and
Morrises who had combined forces to travel as a cozy foursome in the Morrises’
Scimitar coupe. The newcomers were Jane and Charles Cook, whose white E Type
failed to mate with Rylands' car as he had suggested, despite being left alone
beside it in the twilight privacy of an underground car park on the night
before the start.
Most of the TOPS contingent had come a
day early, allowing time for an evening at a nightclub and a variety of
Parisian pursuits the next day (after an understandably slow start for most).
These activities ranged from visits to the Louvre to an afternoon looking at
Steve Hitchens’ garage full of Ferraris, followed by the TOPS pre-start dinner.
Parc ferme the following morning revealed
a distressingly strong trend towards the modern, with posses of Porsches,
masses of Maseratis, lots of Lotuses, and the inevitable bewinged Countach
which looked as though it had strayed from outside the previous night's club.
There were also more poseurs psi than you
would find anywhere else but Paris - several beautiful young men dressed in
Biggles-a-la mode, one very strange character who rallied alone all weekend in
his Renault Spider (on reflection, perhaps not surprisingly), and a splendidly
over-the-top pair in a full-fig Porsche 914/6 repro rallycar, complete with
intercoms. They provided great amusement later on to the Cooks, who were
struggling to keep up on a winding D road, when the Porsche outbraked itself at
a 90-left and disappeared into a ploughed field. Presumably the intercom
suffered a temporary service interruption.
From Paris the rally headed for Dijon
where we were let out to play for a 'regularity trial' on the old French GP
circuit, best-remembered in recent times for the epic duel between Villeneuve's
three-tyred Ferrari and Arnoux' Renault. Accompanied by their long-suffering
partners, Messrs. Cook, Pilkington and Rylands found themselves in the same
60s' session, while the Wilsons and Morris/Bond had to play with more modern
machinery. The Cooks were so carried away with the grunt of their
newly-modified car that they found a Cobra to play with, until the white E's
brake pedal went soft. Not for the first or last time in the weekend Jane found
herself on pedal-pressing duty while Charles got grubby with the bleeding
screw.
Dinner was taken in the Bastion of the
Hospice de Beaune, where the height of the tall tales told was inversely
proportional to the amount of wine left in the bottle. Bond and Cook discovered
a mutual affinity with fine cigars and managed to enjoy a post-prandial puff
with only marginal disapproval from Trish.
Sunday dawned cold and clear and the
rally convoy moved briskly through Burgundy's beautiful, deserted villages en
route for the current GP circuit at Magny-Cours near Nevers, where another
hour's-worth of play was followed by a prizegiving lunch and free lappery for
those still interested. Although less interesting than Dijon-Prenois (which is
relatively narrow, interestingly undulating, and has limited run-off), the
circuit was better than many of today's purpose-built layouts. Power told,
however, and the fastest cars on the circuit were the two well-driven Motul
Healey 3000s which rocketed down the long straight fast enough to compensate
for more caution round the wiggly bits.
For allegedly having driven close to
their target times on both circuit sessions the Cooks and Pilks came first and
third in their class, which enthused Charles so much that he invited Jane to
drive the white E on the GP circuit after lunch. Suffice to say that such
panache was demonstrated that, at dinner that evening, Richard Bond was
persuaded to come out of his self-imposed semi-retirement to track-train the
lady. At least, we think that was the agreement.
All in all, a most enjoyable long
weekend, with good company, weather and food, and a sufficiency of sporting
motoring. France still provides remarkably enjoyable driving on its public
roads, and you can still eat lunch en route for £10 for three courses including
wine, as we discovered somewhere north of Reims on the way home.
<
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C.C.
Titbits at the Rallye de Paris
Paris is a fair hike from Cumbria so at
Trisha's suggestion, we went a day early to do the tourist bit. An easy drive
down via Abbeville with the Pilk's A.C. (one might be forgiven for thinking
that they had actually turned up in something almost common but their Aceca is
totally unique being six inches wider than the 'production' cars) and the
Wilson's highly desirable Lancia Smart Arse. Paris traffic was dreadful and not
helped by Parisians who seemed hell bent on causing blockages, anyway 'E' got
thoroughly fed up and boiled which she hasn't done before, so once we had
arrived at the hotel and bashed the exhaust system getting into the underground
car park, I reckoned that was where she would stay until the start of the rally.
We had a package evening arranged which
meant a minibus collecting us and delivering us plus some Germans to a large
boat to travel up the Seine at dusk. I thought it might be slightly corney
particularly as there was no booze on board but it was not to be missed. Paris
is really very beautiful and the floodlit bridges and stunning buildings were
glorious. Progress was slow as the current was surprisingly strong but once we
turned round, we really motored back to the bus which took us to a restaurant
in Montmartre. After dinner we wandered along to the Moulin Rouge and had a
table right by the stage. I didn't expect to be impressed but I was. The
cabaret moved at a tremendous pace and the girls were certainly interesting - a
sports bra salesman would have had a thin time but their legs seemed to be
joined directly to the base of their shoulder blades and they really did leap
about in a huge variety of elaborate costumes. There were a couple of acts with
guys doing acrobatics which were far from dull and then a bird with even less
on than the others, leaped into a large transparent pool full of snakes - big
ones. I was very near the front and suddenly thought that perhaps it wasn't
such a good idea after all. A great show that one wouldn't go to alone. The sad
aspect was that after a while, I found myself looking at their faces!
The following morning Alannah took me to
the Louvre with Sue and Sally and that was also spectacular and not to be
missed. We felt we had to see the Mona Lisa but having done so, couldn't think
why it is such a famous painting given the quality of the rest of the
galleries.
I went back after lunch because I had
walked far enough but the excuse was that I had to go and sign on which was
refreshingly simple and took all of fifteen seconds - indeed the whole event
was uncharacteristically French in that there was very little ‘hurry up and
wait‘.
Paris is somewhere I have always avoided
in any car let alone an old one, having got really snarled up on the
Périphérique years ago with a trailer going to Montlhéry but we will go again -
perhaps on Eurostar - as it was essentially civilised and fun but then after
the endless rain and gales in Cumbria, anything would have been.
The trip home was memorable in that we
broke our record for a day's run in the 'E' and covered 721 miles from Avalon
to Wigton - a good TOPS jolly – why weren’t the rest of you there?
J.K.R