We discovered this 2006 collection of 4 cars of Tour de France race managers on eBay, which is to please Tour fans, young and old.
Take a closer look at the small cars on eBay here
However, this collection of only 4 director cars tells much of the history of the Tour de France. However, it turns out to be a small mistake, as the charming Hotchkiss 686 S49 of 1949 is related in the presentation box to Tour founder Henri Desgrange, when Desgrange died in 1940, passing the reins to Jacques Goddet.
Goddet also has his own car here, a 1966 Peugeot 404, while Jean-Marie Leblanc’s 166 Alfa Romeo 166 and outgoing director Christian Prudhomme’s 2006 Skoda Superb complete the entire collection.
Cars and the Tour de France, of course, go hand in hand; many other people wouldn’t have liked it. There are also a number of more discreet motorcycles buzzing in the convoy: motorcycles with TV camera, race judges and the designated slate fixed on a motorcycle, which scribbles the time periods between the groups on their board to show the drivers and the audience at home, but groups have cars to bring the motorcycles and have their sports managers yell at their Array racers as the race staff leads and follows the race in his remarkable red cars, leading the race and offering data on Radio Tour.
Why red? In fact, we don’t know, even if we didn’t let it go through the red logo of the L’Equipe newspaper. The newspaper had life under the name L’Auto, the newspaper that the Tour de France had invented to announce, and became L’Equipe after World War II. L’Equipe’s founding editor Goddet, who succeeded the editor of L’Auto when Desgrange died in 1940, also succeeded Desgrange as tour director.
Leblanc became director in 1989, and is still at the highest motorcycle race rate in the world when Skoda took over as official car supplier to Alfa Romeo in 2004. That year, Prudhomme began to stick to Leblanc on the Tour, and to organize the other ASO Races, such as Paris-Roubaix and Paris-Nice, in a position to succeed Leblanc at the head of the race in 2007.
By the way, I know for a fact that Jean-Marie Leblanc’s Skoda Superb from the mid-2000s had a central console that folded to reveal a bottle of champagne and glasses. Not only is it reserved for special events such as the Tour de France, as it “experimented” with gratitude in the now defunct Critérium International.
The UK-based seller is looking for £80 (US$100) for the case of four cars. We’re probably not the first to think that they’d look great lined up on a shelf in convoy alongside some of those die-cast metal mini cycling figurines that have been all the rage in France for decades and decades, but can also be found elsewhere with just a little internet-looking.
Take a closer look at the small cars on eBay here
We’re constantly on the lookout for unique and rare cycling relics on eBay. If you have any suggestions or leads, please send them to [email protected] with ‘eBay Finds’ in the subject line.
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