Lost Roadside Attraction Sequel: 1970 Salon de l'Auto at the Parc des Expos

  

Three years ago we posted a nostalgic review* of the spontaneous car show we saw every day on the streets as college students in France, along with photos my housemate took of the Paris Auto Salon we saw in  October 1970, not long after the semester began.  An automotive writer contacted me about publishing the photos, but I had to explain they weren't mine.  When I finally got in touch with my college friend, he mentioned that there were more photos and emailed them.  I decided there were enough to justify a post of their own; also, I'm lazy enough that I didn't relish the idea of re-writing that first post. So here, courtesy of Ron Budde, is the rest of that car show story from over half a century ago…

 

Though the star attraction of that Paris show over 50 years ago was the new Maserati-powered Citroen SM, Ferrari was still at or close to the top of many car enthusiasts' wish lists, and the crew from Modena brought a fleet of desirable cars. In the photo above, three mid-engined 246 Dino coupes, foreground and at left, wrap around a metallic brown 365GT 2+2 and a yellow 365 GTB/4, otherwise known as the Daytona. The 2.4 liter, 4-cam Dino V6, a product of an engine deal with Fiat that allowed them to use the same power plant in their front-engined Fiat Dinos, was part of a successful program to bring Ferraris to a wider audience than the big, V12-powered cars had found.

Another new face at the Paris Salon that fall was Alfa Romeo's Montreal, originally designed as a show car for the 1967 Montreal Expo by the young Marcello Gandini at Bertone, who had designed the spectacular mid-engined Lamborghini Miura in '66, and the 4-passenger Espada lurking in the background a couple years later.  The new Alfa GT, which had made its debut at the Geneva show in March of '70, substituted an aluminum, cross-plane 4-cam, 2.6 liter V8 for the familiar twin-cam 1.6 liter Giulia engine in the show car. It adopted that show car's nickname, Montreal, and derived the new engine from the 2 liter V8 in the Type 33 Stradale, and also in Alfa's endurance racers. The chassis of the Montreal, though, was the tried-and-true Type 105 from Alfa's sweet-handling GTV, and featured 4-wheel disc brakes and a well-controlled live rear axle. Another car on the Bertone stand was the Shake dune buggy prototype below, based upon the rear-engine, front-radiator Simca 1200S GT coupe, then in series production, for which Bertone supplied the Giugiaro-designed bodies. This was the era of the dune buggy.  While the Myers Manx was already selling many copies to fans in the US, especially California, Europeans took notice after one appeared with Steve McQueen at the wheel in 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair.  In an effort to get another production contract from Simca, Bertone built 2 Shake prototypes, and race car builder Matra made 2 more.

Another car making its debut at the show was Ligier's JS2.  Race driver Guy Ligier* had already built a couple of successful mid-engined JS1 road racing coupes with glassy Frua-designed bodywork and Cosworth Ford twin-cam 4 cylinder engines. His intention was to offer a production GT coupe using the 60-degree V6 engines (around 2.6 liters) made by Ford of Germany.  Mid-engined cars were trendy in this era, and the use of a mass-produced engine would have cost advantages.  But after this prototype made its debut with the Ford V6, Ford declined to provide engines, and Ligier adopted the 90-degree, 2.7 liter, 4-cam Maserati V6 and 5-speed transaxle from the new Citroen SM for his production cars. Ligier's company would build around 250 cars, including 7 Series 2 models with a 3.0 liter Maserati V6, before the fuel crisis of 1974 ended their GT car program. 

Porsche displayed the air-cooled, 4.5 liter, flat 12- powered 917 that had finally won the Le Mans 24 Hours four months earlier after years of chasing Ferrari and then Ford.  The rain-drenched event was depicted in Steve McQueen's heavily fictionalized film Le Mans*. The 917 engine was over twice the size of the flat 6 in the white 911 behind the racer.  Behind that 911 is a line of new mid-engined 914s, a project designed to give VW something sporty to replace the Karmann-Ghia, and Porsche an entry-level car.  It was, in that way, something like the 1965 Ferrari-Fiat agreement that produced Fiat and Ferrari Dinos, though those cars competed in a pricier category.

The Porsche 914 styling, with its flat sides and rectangular form, was not without its critics. The Heuliez 914/6 made its debut at the Paris Salon, and Jacques Cooper's design proposed a fastback coupe form that was more aerodynamic and more practical.  The nose displayed a lower profile, and the windshield was steeper. 

At the rear, a hatch provided access to luggage and the flat 6 engine.  The project had begun at Brissonneau & Lotz, which produced bodies for GM's Opel GT starting in '68. When B & L ran into financial troubles, Heuliez, known for making commercial bodies on Citroen chassis, took over and finished the car. Around the same time, Italian designers Frua and Giugiaro produced their own 914 alternatives. Because none of these designers had managed to convince Porsche management to build their cars in series, all their prototypes remained one-offs.  This Heuliez car was recently restored and sold at auction...

Even though that autumn show was called the Salon de l'Auto, motorcycle makers like BMW couldn't resist plugging their wares.  When I got back from an architectural tour of the Low Countries and Scandinavia in a Fiat 1500 shared with 2 other students, we look a look at Paris traffic, assessed the parking situation, and decided to sell our Fiat (think it was a '63) at the American Express.  One classmate wound up with a BMW R-50, but students with thinner budgets often went with French Mobylette mopeds.  Students with still thinner budgets, like mine, opted for the mainstream, classic bicycle.  Seem to recall that mine was a Roland Superluxe, which I recall leaving with our landlady in springtime when our sojourn in France was at an end...

*Footnote: 

The first part of this Lost Roadside Attraction post appeared here on April 19, 2021 under the title "Lost Roadside Attraction: 70s Car Shows on Paris Streets, and at the Parc des Expos."  We posted a brief history of Guy Ligier's race and road cars on November 15, 2020 entitled "Forgotten Classic: Ligier JS1 & JS2", and a review of Steve McQueen's film Le Mans on March 5, 2021.

*Photo Credits:
All photos were generously supplied by Ronald Budde.