Vintage Revival Montlhéry is a bi-annual event for pre-1940 cars, motorcycle, and bicycles at the famous banked concrete track about 20 minutes south of Paris. It’s the only original 1920s banked race track still in use, as all the wooden tracks are long gone, and the rest are destroyed or no longer in use, like the Sitges motordrome on Spain, and the rotting banked oval at Monza. The Autodrome de Linas Montlhéry opened in 1924, as the brainchild of industrialist André Lamblin, who purchased the forested acreage and hired engineer Raymond Jamin to design the track.Unlike Brooklands, which used an earthen banking when built in 1906, Montlhéry is an engineered track, with a steel understructure supporting the concrete paving: one can walk beneath the track while the racers are going at it. It took six months to build the Autodrome, and two thousand workers were employed: steelworkers, concrete teams, carpenters and truckdrivers, who used 1100 tons of steel and 10,500cubic yards of concrete. Most of the steel grid was prefabricated – a very advanced building technique for the day.The main oval has two steeply banked curves with fairly short 180-meter straights between them, as well as a longer, flat ‘road’ course which bypasses one banked curve. The banking has a concave profile, which was calculated using a spiral logarithmic curve, which means it’s fairly flat at the bottom and very steep at the top, where a vehicle needs to travel at over 90mph or so. The banking is calculated so a car of 1000kg can safely travel at 220km/h (132mph) at the top.I’ve only traveled at about 100mph on a motorcycle (Velocette Mk8 KTT) at the top of the banking, and it’s pretty bumpy over the expansion joints. I’ve also hitched a ride in the ‘pilot’ car that clears the track between race sessions (with a professional rally driver at the wheel) at about 110mph, and can’t imagine what an extra 20mph feels like, because the ride was very exciting – in a not necessarily pleasant way! It’s also a disorienting to ride the ‘top line’ on the banking, as you pass over the heads of slower riders below, who are nearly vertical while you are nearly horizontal.The facilities at the track are primitive, and the only ‘official’ spots to watch the racing – a set of concrete bleachers on one side, and the balcony over the starting grid – are the least interesting points on the circuit: the short straightaways. Otherwise, watching the action on the banking or the chicanes means tromping over grass and peering through a cyclone fence. There’s no access at all to the ‘road’ circuit used by the cars, which is too bad, because they’re an exciting place to ride and drive.Perhaps its spare facilities keep the crowds at bay, because unlike other such events (Goodwood comes to mind), there is no crowd to contend with at the VRM: everyone seems to be a rider, driver, support person, family, or vendor, plus a few spectators to fill in the gaps. Like the old Brooklands quote, VRM has managed ‘the right crowd, and no crowding,’ in spite of being a unique place to mingle with hundreds of amazing racing cars and motorcycles, many of them in single family ownership for decades, and sometimes since new.Organizer Vincent Chamon took on the task of organizing VRM while in his mid-20s, in 2011, and this year is the 5th running of this bi-annual event. From the program: “For a whole weekend we will go back in time to the golden age of motoring at the heart of the last banked ring, born in 1924 and still in use in Europe. There are over 500 sports and racing vehicles, cars and bikes all pre-dating 1940, which will take the track in the tire traces of our competition forebears.”VRM is the world’s largest pre-War motoring event, and with over 500 machines circulating on and off the track at all times, it’s a glorious kind of chaos to walk the grounds. Machines are being worked on, tires changed, engines revved, and vehicles driven on and off the track, back to their tents or pits, and there are no velvet ropes between visitors and competitors. It’s an incredibly democratic, all-access event, a kind of paradise for an arch enthusiast who loves the sound of a rare and highly tuned Vintage motor in use, and loves the sight of a fast machine taken up the banking on such a historic track.I’ve caught every edition of VRM, because the combination of the venue and the vehicles is magical. I was one of only two Americans present this year (the other was Somer Hooker, on his first visit), and it’s amazing to me that for the price of three overpriced nights at a Monterey motel during Pebble Beach Week, one could fly to Paris, and experience the most interesting Vintage event on the planet.
Totally wonderful article. Thrilling and fascinating on many levels.
Great article / photos but …. no 2019 Villa d’Este article ?
Don’t tell me the bums didn’t send you an invite this year ! If so …. a thousand shames upon their gear infused souls .. and may their oil reserves run dry mid run
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The Villa d’Este report is coming…
Good to see you again Paul,see you at Goodwood….