A fine Vintage: centenary year sees Montlhéry at its very best

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Few events have been as hotly-anticipated as the 2024 Vintage Revival at Montlhéry, falling as it did in the high-speed concrete oval's centenary year. The biannual celebration of pre-war motoring has always set a consistently high bar, so it had a lot to live up to this year, and it didn't disappoint. After a such a wet start to spring, at least from where we sit in the British office of PreWarCar.com, the sight of the sun in the sky on Saturday morning was a welcome one indeed, and by nine o'clock the happy hordes of Revival-goers were basking underneath balmy, rather Mediterranean skies.

The PreWarCar.com stand was a hive of activity, with our readers and customers dropping by to say hello, along with other visitors enticed by the 1907 Itala 40hp which was our main attraction, resplendent with its replica Peking-Paris body. Other talking points under our marquee included the supremely realistic miniatures of AMF Modelcars, among them the delightful, ex-George Daniels 1909 Jackson which now forms part of the PreWarCar stable, and a funny little cyclecar built in the 1920s by M. Bontemps Armand, which took refuge in our shade when not buzzing around the Montlhéry banking in all its slothful majesty.

Talking of funny cyclecars, where would the Vintage Revival be without them? We were pleased to see Frazer Sloan had travelled from England with his 1924 Seal, a four-seat motorcycle and sidecar in which everybody sits in the sidecar, and the two-wheeled c.1926 Morgan-Monotrace Type MM, which defies classfication; with its enclosed bodywork, steering wheel and auxiliary stabiliser wheels, is it a car or a motorcycle? Another strange creation, the '1910 Alber Jackuet', appeared à vendre and was promptly snapped up by Kate Clark-Kennedy and Tony Crump. Fitted with a mid-1920s vee-twin and looking very much like it had just been recovered from a shed, Kate and Tony will be preparing it for English roads and, having found a suitably diminute radiator for it in the Montlhéry autojumble, are looking for an older single-cylinder engine to instal in it. All sorts of other oddities abounded, from some kind of skeletal contraption with a mid-mounted Anzani single to a post-war single-seater, again with a mid-mounted single-cylinder engine, which defied identification but was raced at Course de Côte d'Urcy in 1961. Next to such cars as those, the various Villards looked positively normal.

Among the marques which were particularly well-represented were Bugatti, Delahaye, Salmson, Amilcar, Benjamin, Darmont, Sandford and Georges Irat, but more than anything else it was the year of the tricycle. There were some interesting varieties scattered around the sight, including an Automoto, which notably used its own engine rather than a De Dion unit, a beautiful unrestored Phébus which appeared next to a similarly oily-rag quadricycle of the same make, and a Prinetti et Stucchi of the single-cylinder type, exhibited by Italy's Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile

Olympic motor sport revived

One of the highlights of the event, however, was the presence of Team Jarrott, which heralded the return of tricycle racing in France for the first time since the original period. The significance of this was increased by 2024 being the year of the Paris Olympics—when Paris hosted the Games in 1900, tricycle racing was among the featured sports (incidentally, it was also the only time motor sport has been part of the Olympics, with the exception of a rally held for the 1936 German Games). Eighteen tricycles, mostly De Dion-Bouton-engined and mostly from the British Isles, but with some Continental entrants, were entered in the Olympic Cup. Although it did not race, the unrestored 1900 Renaux, an original racing tricycle from the period, appeared as promised and attracted many an inquisitive admirer. A huge amount of effort went into the organisation, and it was a tremendous achievement to pull off which, we hope, succeeded in reviving interest in a significant but overlooked occasion in French motor sport history.

Even though Montlhéry's history begins in 1924, there were plenty of veteran and Edwardian cars to admire, many of them in unrestored condition. The Club des Teuf-Teuf presented a particularly good selection, including a 1903 Richard-Brasier Type H tonneau, c.1905 Clément-Bayard tourer, 1906 Dexter with Grand Prix-style body, 1910 Brasier double phaeton, 1912 Renault limousine and 1913 Delaunay-Belleville tourer. There was another De Dion-Bouton tricycle, presented with a charming wicker-painted trailer chair, but even that was not oldest vehicle on the stand; that honour went to the 1898 Mors, which was one of the first cars ever made with a V4 engine. Other highlights from around the site included a 1920s Le Zèbre boulangère in need of an oily-rag restoration and a 1928 Bugatti Type 35 with a really fetching, dainty coupé body constructed in the style of one driven in period by Ernest Friderich. An especially welcome sight was the 1908 Grand Prix Itala which, as its moniker suggests, was raced in period at the French Grand Prix and later at Brooklands, but which is perhaps most famous for being enthusiastically campaigned by Col. Clutton with the V.S.C.C. during the 1950s and '60s. In recent years it has been very little-seen, as it leads a more sedate life in a Dutch private collection.

Team Jarrott was a deserving winner of the PreWarCar.com Best Club award. Our other awards, for Best Car and Best Motorcycle, were awarded to the 1933 Napier-Railton from the Brooklands Museum, and a beautifully-restored 1930s Koehler-Escoffier.

Needless to say, there was so much to see that we cannot begin to cover it all. Racing cars from Edwardian Titans to 1930s voiturettes were speeding around the banking all weekend, hundreds of motorcycles spanning the first forty years of development added to the spectacle, while early bicycles completed the picture. Extraordinary cars and a sanguine atmosphere are what makes the Vintage Revival one of the best events of its kind.

Words and photographs: Zack Stiling

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