2001 Louis Vuitton Classic

Parc de Bagatelle, Paris, France September 9, 2001

A romantic Chateau built in the 18th century and a beautiful English style garden in Paris’ Bois de Bologne presented the perfect stage for the Louis Vuitton Classic.

The Parc de Bagatelle, once frequented by colourful people like Louis XV, Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon III, was chosen some years ago by the prestigious French fashion house as the venue for their annual Concours d’Elegance. The connection between Louis Vuitton and automobiles goes back to 1907 and 1908, when the company equipped cars with tailor made luggage for the Peking–Paris and the New York-Paris rallies respectively. Nowadays, the Louis Vuitton corporation annually organizes highly regarded concours events in New York, London, Beijing and Paris.

Ferrari at the Concours

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The Winners
“Best of Show”
As a finale to the traditional prize giving ceremonies on Sunday afternoon, the outrageous Alfa Romeo 1900 BAT 7 was presented with the “Best of Show” award. This particular car debuted at the 1954 Turin salon as the second of three design studies by Franco Scaglione of Bertone. It’s easy to understand why this car is nicknamed Batmobile.


Public’s Favourite
The “Classic Cars Prize” for the public’s favourite was presented to the 1952 Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale Coupé, chassis # 0197EL, of Sir Anthony Bamford. During a recent restoration by DK Engineering the bright yellow and black livery it had worn for a number of years, earning it the nickname “the wasp”, was replaced by a more period elegant pale yellow and black rendition, that must have drawn everyone’s eye to the beautiful Vignale bodywork.

Art Cars
In the main courtyard of the Parc de Bagetelle a display with six cars around the theme “Art & Automobiles” was presented. These included the 1967 Matra that was done by Sonia Delauney through 3 Le Mans competitors respectively a 1995 McLaren F1 done by César, a 1977 BMW 320i done by Roy Lichtenstein and the “Psychedelic” Porsche 917 LH that competed in the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hour race.

Prototypes
The prototype display showed the biggest contrast one could imagine with the neighboring 1894 Benz Victoria. Wild and flashy prototypes were shown almost as operational business cards for the designers. Personally, the most interesting exhibit was the Maserati Buran designed by the Californian studio of Italdesign. A very luxurious, high class MPV, equipped with a 3,2 liter, 370 horsepower engine is about the wildest thing we could image to come from the Modena factory. Let’s see what the future will bring.

Ferrari
Two colorful Ferraris were entered in class 5, the Berlinetta’s, the previously mentioned 212 Inter Vignale Coupé that won the prize for public’s favorite, and a 250 GT LWB Interim Berlinetta, s/n 1509GT.  This Scaglietti bodied car wears the Madagascar race colors of its first owner, Jo Schlesser, and was driven in the Tour Auto by its current owner at the beginning of this year.

The Competition class presented a 166 MM Fantuzzi Spider s/n 0264M, recently restored in the style of a Touring Barchetta, a 500 Testa Rossa s/n 0638MDTR bodied by Scaglietti, and Brandon Wang’s 250 GT California Spider, 2383GT, that was painted dark grey metallic earlier this year, and is raced in the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge series.

Two grand Ferraris were presented in the Grand Tourismo class. A fine dark red 365 GTB/4, better known as the “Daytona” and the 500 Superfast of Schermerhorn’s ISC collection, that had been awarded “Best of Show” in Apeldoorn, Holland a week earlier.

Concours d’Elegance
To be perfectly honest, I personally prefer to see the Ferraris racing. Nothing can beat standing at trackside, enjoying the 12 cylinder symphonies, smelling the warm rubber, tarmac and burned fuel. But Ferrari would never have become the legend they are today, if they had not been selling cars for normal street usage, to the rich and famous since the earliest days of the marque. In that respect, the Louis Vuitton Classic is the perfect event to enjoy these cars in a mixture of wealth and fame of the past and present.

Edwin van Nes

7/14/2018, 7:42:27 PM cet