The best cars at Retromobile 2022

Gordini Racing Tribute

Know locally in period as ‘le Sorcier’ (the Sorcerer), French racing car supremo Amedeo Gordini’s famous competition workshop was ultimately based just across the road from the Paris exhibition center on Boulevard Victor in what is now the Porte du Versallies Mercure Hotel.

Born in Italy in 1899, blacksmith Gordini’s first love of boxing frequently took him to Paris in his twenties. Falling for the place, he finally chose to settle there as an apprentice mechanic at a small garage in Surenes, located opposite the main Talbot factory, near Paris. He later set up a Fiat agency and quickly built a fine reputation for tuning Fiat-derived Simca engines for racing, winning the 1933 Mont-Valerien hillclimb himself in a Fiat 514 (which became the Simca 6).

In 1936 Gordini signed an agreement with Simca-founder Henri Pigozzi to tune his cars and start winning races for the marque, which he achieved pre-war, winning the Simca 5’s class at Le Mans and setting 22 world endurance records at the banked Montlhery racetrack . Immediately post-war, Gordini-tuned ‘production’ and single-seater Simcas were back winning races, with Gordini possessing an added flair to sift out new and unknown racing talent, such as his Argentine discovery, Juan Manuel Fangio!

Once Simca withdraw its factory support in the early 1950s, astonishingly Gordini managed to keep winning races on a shoestring budget, before Renault commissioned (saved) him in 1957 to develop a performance derivative of its new Dauphine model, plus successfully create new V6 and V8 competition engines.

In a special homage display at the 2022 Retromobile, an impressive line-up of Gordini race cars was presented, including a 1930s Simca 5 single-seater, the victorious Gordini Type 16, a gorgeous Type 15 S and 18 S, plus the huge Works Laffly team support truck.