Turning on the magic again, Sacre bleu, this is one true experience to behold

Show Info: Retromobile 2025 was held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, 5-9th Feb

Anyone who thinks that motor shows are on the decline clearly hasn’t been to Paris to witness Rétromobile. Now in its 49th year, Rétromobile is a world-class show that celebrates classics in a unique and inventive style, as perhaps only the French know how.

Being staged in Paris, there’s a special and obvious emphasis on French marques. At the same time, Rétromobile is also very much about top-level exotics and historic cars (both classic and modern). We are definitely talking A-list here.

All that, along with an exceptional collectors’ market for posters, books, models, paintings, spare parts, you name it, puts Rétromobile unmistakably on the map.

Every year, there is a large and fascinating Artcurial auction. Ferraris seem big in Paris. This year, a couple of Ferrari 275s sold for over 2 million euros a piece.

Sotheby, however, sold the Ferrari 250 LM that famously won Le Mans in 1965, driven by Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory, for a record $36 million.

Back at ground level, Rétromobile also has another equally absorbing area (for me, at least) of everyday cars of the past.

Click on any image for slideshow

Here’s a Gallic version of the UK’s Festival of the Unexceptional, if you like, although cars here are for sale and some of the prices I saw were pretty keen…

Centrepiece of Rétromobile 2025, bien sur, was a special display marking 70 years of the iconic Citroën DS 19. The Deese (‘Goddess’) was launched in Paris back in 1955 and has been a source of wonder and admiration ever since.

Not least for me, as my dad had one, a blue DS 21 Pallas, a car he absolutely worshipped and always seemed especially at home over long holidays in Europe.

That extraordinarily sleek design by Flaminio Bertoni, the car’s super advanced self-levelling hydropneumatic suspension, with high pressure hydraulics to power the brakes, steering and to actuate the gearbox and clutch, the DS, with its famous single spoke steering wheel and sci-fi interior, was like nothing else before.

Twenty years ago, in 2005, for the DS’ 50th, there was a huge gathering in Paris of DS models and their owners. In a surely once-in-a-lifetime moment, the Champs Élysées was filled with DS’. It was an amazing sight. How is it possible to top that?

At Rétromobile 2025, maybe they managed it. Back in 1959, Citroën’s commercial director Claude Puech came up with the “DS 19 Balloons” idea.

He got a DS19, took the wheels off, smoothed off the wheel arches and underside, then installed a balloon at each corner, to symbolize the comfort and sophistication of the DS’ advanced suspension. It became a marketing phenomenon across Europe.

The Rétromobile car was a skillful recreation and looked totally magnificent amid a stand full of DS models and concepts to mark the icon’s 70th birthday.

Renault is a company that always takes Rétromobile seriously and usually has the best manufacturer stand. Here was your chance this year to see the new electric R5, the similarly electric new wave R4 and the interesting R17 EV coupe concept (with the original petrol-powered R17 also on hand for comparison).

With a new electric Twingo recreation also in the works, Renault is carving out a new and compelling niche for retro EVs that absolutely hits the mark.

Then, there was the Renault Filante Record 2025, a big, outlandish tribute to Renault’s 40CV record breaker from 1926. Naturally, this big concept is electric and houses a lot of future tech for tomorrow’s Renaults.

Historic Formula One cars? Check. Oh, how I lusted over the small, delicate Matra MS120D as driven by Chris Amon, the sublime Ferrari 312B of Jacky Ickx and the BRM P160B with which Jean Pierre Beltoise so memorably won a soaking wet 1972 Monaco GP (which was also BRM’s last ever F1 victory).

Rétromobile also had a special and impressive celebration for 75 years of Formula One, plus well-attended talk show sessions from the motorsport world.

Mazda had an excellent stand to mark 35 years of the MX-5 sports car in Europe. A big, black, very grand Citroën Traction Avant formerly used by President Charles de Gaulle drew the crowds on another stand.

Elsewhere, a team was restoring a Peugeot 204 ‘on site.’ You could also take your pick of electric converted Citroëns, with perhaps the most jarring being Citroën’s classic SM coupe from the ‘70s turned into a modern-day EV.

Hmmm. Would you really give up the delights of the SM’s 2.7-litre Maserati V6 for a modern, anonymous battery box and motor? Well, somebody did…

Delightful obscurities remain another Rétromobile staple. This year, they had a whole long walkway devoted to prewar Citroën Kégresse half-track explorer vehicles. Not sure too many people have ever seen that before.

Last year, Rétromobile initiated a Preservation trophy. Their idea: to celebrate and pass on to future generations symbolic vehicles that are as close as possible to original condition.

The first winner was a Mercedes Simplex HP 60 from 1903 that had been in the same family for 121 years. Amazing…

This year, there were both pre and post-war prizes. One of the Citroën Kegresse half-tracks that crossed the Sahara in 1922 won the prewar prize.

Post-war, it went to a 1965 Toyota Sports 800, possibly because the twin-cylinder Sports 800 has been featured with experimental powertrains (EV and gas turbine) through the years.

When I first started going to Rétromobile in the ‘80s, the show ran for two weeks. These days, it’s a tight five days. I went on Day One this year and it was PACKED.

Essen in Germany, the NEC Birmingham and Auto e Moto d’Epoca in Bologna are all big, well-attended shows in Europe.

But for me, the ever glamorous Rétromobile remains the ace in the pack (and besides, it’s always a great excuse to spend a few days in Paris, ne c’est pas?).

Already looking forward to the Rétromobile 50th anniversary in 2026. That should be one epic show.

The 2026 Rétromobile 50th Anniversary will be on the January 28th – 1st February – Held at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles

Peter Nunn

Motoring writer

As a motoring journalist, he’s been writing about cars for a long time, starting in London in fact around the time the Sex Pistols first began limbering up….

Thereafter his journalistic remit has covered both new and classic cars, some historic motorsport reporting plus a long spell in Tokyo, covering the Japanese car industry for a range of global media outlets. Peter is a car writer and tester in the UK. Gooner, Alfisti and former Tokyo resident. If it has wheels, then he is interested.