June 13, 2008

Musée Automobile de Provence.

The Musée Automobile de Provence is a museum with several interesting vintage cars inside (with a 5EU admission fee) but also an ever changing collection of old cars in various states of repair and disrepair outside, most of them for sale. This is a small sampling of what they had to offer a couple of days ago:

1940s Talbot Lago Record.. a rare specimen from the days when Talbot was one of the most prestigious car makers in France (as opposed to making Peugeot clones), this one was in its juice but was all there.

1947 Paris-Rhone electric car. The same people who make the regulators in my Renault 4 made this, I don't know much else about it but it makes a BMW Isetta look like a Saab in terms of safety.


1965 Trabant.. the notoriously polluting Trabant, straight from the ex-East Germany. At 500 Euros I was (and admittedly still am) tempted.


1960s Triumph Herald 1200. I've voiced this before, I'm not a fan of British cars, but I would love one of these. Built to compete against economy sedans at the time but never caught on.

1960s Lancia 1500S Vignale.. a rather rare car to have sitting around like that. The textbook definition of "ran when parked", this one is a steal at 1,500 Euros.


Finally, a 1980s LNA and a 1970s Peugeot 204 Break.. at 600 and 300 Euros respectively, these are the unloved cars of France's past. Likely doomed to never find their public as in the collector's market, they're great bargains for the few who appreciate them.

2 comments:

andrew said...

That Trabant is fantastic! I really, really, really want one of those.

Ian Rothwell said...

ha... meanwhile former G.D.R. drivers can't wait to see them all gone...