Category: Cultural Travel

Paris (2): The undiscovered Panhard Levassor X73 Cabriolet

At Retromobile in Paris there are many historic cars on show to be auctioned during the show by Bonhams.
Lot no. 141 the Panhard Levassor X73 Cabriolet was undiscovered, because it had been several decades in storage. It is amazing to see a car with such patina. The storage coverage dust stil in tact.

It fetched €37,950.- in the auction.

To compare: Lot number 138 A, 1931 Panhard et Levassor 3½-Litre SS Special Saloon Chassis no. 80141 Engine no. 80141 was not sold (offer With Reserve) and was estimated at €80,000 – 100,000.

Bonhams’ notes:

Panhard et Levassor’s Type X73 first appeared in 1934. Designated ‘CS Special’, it superseded the 2½-litre 6CS model. The Type X73 was powered by a six-cylinder sleeve valve engine with a capacity of 2,861cc, which was rated at 16CV for taxation purposes. Its larger engine made the X73 a better performer than its predecessor, the top speed going up from 125 to 135km/h (84mph). After September 1934, the range was updated with more modern styling and the X73 continued in production until June 1938.

Panhard et Levassor offered a ‘Velun’ convertible on the X73 chassis. Exclusive even by Panhard’s standards, it was built in limited numbers: only one was sold in 1934, 31 in 1935, 25 in 1936 and six more in 1937. But the ‘Velun’ coachwork, built by Jansen, was different from that of the car offered here, so it seems reasonable to assume that this particular car’s is the work of another coachbuilder.

Close inspection of this car’s coachwork leads us to believe that it was produced by Meulemeester Frères, whose office was located at l’Ile Robinson, in Clichy-sur-Seine and the workshop at 7 rue Traversière. This coachbuilder exhibited for the first time at the 1927 Le Salon de l’Automobile and in 1933 offered an aerodynamic convertible on a Peugeot 301 chassis, very similar in appearance to our Panhard convertible. It is expected that further information will be available at time of sale.
Preserved in remarkably original condition, having been stored for several decades on chassis stands, this Panhard et Levassor X73 convertible evokes the typically intense feelings of nostalgia associated with such ‘barn find’ vehicles. The car affords four-seat accommodation under its folding soft-top, while the two doors are hinged at the rear as was customary at that time. In short: it represents a unique and elegant variation on a reliable and sporting chassis from that most celebrated pre-war marque, Panhard et Levassor. Deserving a high quality restoration, this rare car would make a worthy addition to any collection dedicated both to technology and aesthetics.

Lot Notice
The coachbuilder is Gangloff not Meulemeester

Real Nostalgia!

The Bonhams sale included some extraordinary results:

€3,417,500 for the Ex-Earl Howe 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalantiuq;
€2,427,500 for ‘Black Bess’ – the ex-Roland Garros Bugatti Type 13; and
€337,500 for a Citroen DS23 EFi Cabriolet.

BTW this is the third way of presentimng a slide slow…just copy and paste the embed code from Flickr..What do you think?

Paris (1): Retromobile

retromobile-poster

I spent a couple of days in Paris for the first time in 36 years. Last time I visited it was in February 1973, on our honeymoon. I visited it also in 1969 a year after the 1968 student revolts. For various reasons we decided to skip it ever since. In the meantime I had visited it on various business occasion, but when on business you actually don’t look at a city as you do when you spent some holidays. My conclusion now is that back in the late 60ies ans early seventies we didn’t have enough money to spent and stayed in the wrong districts. Especially the Montmartre district looks a bit seedy to stay in as it was seedy already in those days. But now we have decided that we will be back.

This time we stayed in the vicinity of the Eiffel Tower (XVI), but more about that in later posts.

Paris is an excellent city for cultural travel. I believe Historic cars do belong to our cultural heritage, so traveling to see them is part of cultural travel.

Therefor I would like to tell a bit about my visit of the 34th Retromobile. According to the Historic car aficionados (several of my friends) it is a must see. One of the biggest shows in its sort in Europe.

The 2009 theme is very much on topic: New forms of Energy that are already more than one hundred years old:

Depending on the different periods, generations of inventors have imagined steam, petroleum gas, compressed air, alcohol, electricity or hybrid powered vehicles…

The twenty or so vehicles on exhibition, some which will be able to be driven all have one thing in common: they are the forerunners of clean energy vehicles of today!

2009-retromobile-a-paris-p1030602-jamais-contene-1

Among the photos I made is the Jaimais Contente (never content):

The “Jamais Contente” (1899) is the star of Rétromobile’s 2009 poster

The ”Jamais Contente” was created by the engineer Camille Jenatzy and was an electric car which was in the shape of a torpedo on wheels. The bodywork was carried out by the coachbuilder Rothschild and was made of partinium, an alloy of laminated aluminum, tungsten and magnesium.

2009-retromobile-a-paris-jamais-contente-2-p1030601

Mind you this car drove over 100 km / hr in 1899 on electricity!

It was the first French car to break the barrier of 100km/h, on 1 May 1899 in Achères (the Yvelines region, near Paris). Its characteristics were impressive: it had two electric engines which were placed at the back of the car behind its wheels, (Postel-Vinay ones), its maximum horsepower was 50kW (that is to say 67 hp), its power was provided by Fulmen batteries (80 pieces constitutingy nearly half of the vehicle’s total weight!). The “Jamais Contente” which is exhibited at Rétromobile is a replica which was made in 1992 and belongs to the Lions Club.

See for more photos of the show my Flickr set Retromoblie à Paris

Villa Cassel an Amazing History

Villa Cassel Riederalp Switserland P1020956

Oops, I did it again, punching the publish button in stead of the save button.

For the last 8 glouriously sunny days I have been skiing around in the Bettmeralp region. Villa Cassel is standing there in the midst of a ski slope at the edge of the UNESCO World Heritage site Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn.

Currently Villa Cassel is the home of Pro Natura.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Villa Cassel was built to be the chic summer residence of the rich Englishman, Sir Ernest Cassel.

After Cassel’s death the house was run as a hotel from 1924 to 1969.

You can follow its history at the Pro Natura site.

The 25 room mansion was built there at a hight of approximately 1700 m with all the building material and interior being transported merely by man craft and mules, Imagine the piano being transported that way.

Among the guests there used to stay many well known people. The young Winston Churchill stayed there at least four times. He used the time spent there writing, including the biography of his father.

A daughter of Cassel was the later lady Edwina Mountbatten.

After the exploitation as a hotel ceased in 1969, Villa Cassel hardly escaped demolition. The historic building was bought and rebuilt for more than three million Swiss Francs by Pro Natura, formerly called “Schweizer Bund für Naturschutz”, Switzerland’s nature conservation organization.

On July 10, 1976, it was re-opened and inaugurated as the conservation center for the Aletsch forest.

In the summer it has extensive opening times, but during the winter only one afternoon in the week. I’ll have to see whether I am able to visit it.

Last year I promised already to disclose this mystery home.

Photo Plugin Galore: First Try – Two 12 ft Dinghies in Love

The new WordPress 2.7 version makes it much easier to find Plugins. I had a project on my back burner for which I need a decent Photo or Gallery Plugin.

I have shown already some interest here for Yachts and Yachting. I have not divulged yet that I used to be an avid dinghy sailor and used to race dinghies as well. Alas ever since I ventured into our Hotel business, my own clinker built 12 foot Dinghy dating back from 1944, is stored safely without much attention lately. I’m even not sure my old stiff legs will be able to endure a regatta anymore.

On the original date of this post I used a plugin, Tylr Slidr enabling me to show you a couple of photos that I uploaded recently, but took in 2005 in Venice during the Biennial of 2005. There I found two Italian 12 ft Dinghies in the Arsenal. They were berthed opposite each other and were giving each other signs with lamps. It was an Art installation. A sort of act of love. Very poetic and I would never have thought of such use of two old dinghies in a basin that was used for maintenance of submarines.

The Artist, Laura Belem, born in 1974 in Bele Horizonte and working there, was able to make this installation with the help of a stipend from the Ministry of Culture of Brazil.

The 12ft Dinghy is a typical One Design Class. It was designed in 1913 by George Cockshott, an amateur boat designer from Southport, Lancashire, who won a competition organized by the Boat Racing Association (BRA). The BRA wanted a new sailing dinghy that would also serve as a yacht tender, and Cockshott’s design with its single, high-peaked lugsail fitted the bill.

It became an IYRU Dutch Class in 1914 and an International Class in 1920. It was even used for sailing competitions in the Olympic Games of Antwerp of 1920 and of Amsterdam of 1928. In 1920 they sailed on the North Sea with a lot of wind. The gold medal was won by the Dutch brothers Jan Hin and Frans Hin. In the 60ies I had the honor to sail against Jan Frans Hin – well, competing …. actually it was more of looking to his backside:-) The Silver medals were also won by two Dutchman (Van der Biesen and Beukers). In Amsterdam in 1928, on an inland lake near Amsterdam with not much wind, the medal winners were all of Scandinavian origin: 1)The Swede Sven Thorel, 2) Norwegian Henrik Robert and 3) The Fin B. Broman.

Recently we saw the International 12 ft Dingy class association being incorporated.
There are still several fleets:

  • In The Netherlands there is a fleet of over 200 active enthusiasts,
  • North Germany has fleets mainly around Lubeck and Hamburg,
  • Italy has several fleets and is very active,
  • To my knowledge there are also fleets in the UK, Japan, Switzerland and Turkey.

Dutch compete in Italy and in Germany. Japanese and Italians come to The Netherlands for a race sometimes. The class becomes more and more international nowadays, 95 years after it’s creation. Amazing huh?

I found a PDF file with 2007 draft Class rules in English at the site of an Italian Fleet.

This exercise in nostalgia was just to test this plugin and it seems to be what I needed for this post, although the loading of the whole seems a bit slow. What would you think? [Added: And sadly it didn’t work out as anticipated]

Added January 5, 2008: The next Slideshow of the same photos is as per the advice of Heather from Heather on her Travels and used by her at a slideshow of the Turtle Fountain in Rome. It loaded a lot easier, and was also very easy to copy and paste into your blog, but has not the full screen view mode as the other plugin….Thanks Heather! [Update: Unfortunately Slideshow has closed down]

Added July 14, 2009
Oops When I reviewed this article there appeared some hiccups and parts of the post including the two slide shows simply disappeared completely. Grrr recovering it from previous revisions must be done piece by piece as apparently a later update of WordPress (or the theme) seems to garble text into executable code…. done…it was the link to the Swiss fleet that did it!. Those Swiss:-)

Added November 9, 2009
Since this post I’ve had to delete the plugin. We now are waiting for the 2.9 version of WordPress, wich has been promised will handle media much better than it does prsently.

Added March 11, 2012
It appears Slideshow has closed its doors permanently as of March 6, 2012. Revisiting the site of Heather learned me she has now incorporated a Google + thingy…I’ll put this on the back burner for a while to look into it further.

Plans for Salzburg Sound of Music hotel hit sour note | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

The photo, featuring Maria von Trapp, 94, the second eldest daughter, center above, with her brother Johannes von Trapp and their sister-in-law Erika von Trapp, at the opening, belongs to a NY Times post stating that they opened June 29, 2008….

VIENNA – The former home of the Trapp family, made famous by the 1965 film “The Sound of Music,” will not re-open as a hotel after all following opposition from residents and politicians, the owners said.

The villa in Aigen, near Salzburg, failed to receive final approval Wednesday from the city after neighbours complained it would bring hordes of tourists to their peaceful suburb.

“It seems like the Villa Trapp, the original Sound of Music family home, is not getting a permission to open as a hotel, although all legal conditions have been complied with,” the owners, Marianne Dorfer and Christopher Unterkofler, said in a statement received by AFP.

“Local politicians… are obstructing the permission,” they added.

Local councillor Traudi Lackner told the daily Kurier: “The owners wanted to open not only a hotel, but also to use it for events: the house would have become a magnet for day tourists.”

Some 300,000 fans of “The Sound of Music” visit Salzburg every year, taking part in special themed tours, and local residents feared the small villa would soon become a tourist spot as well.

The Villa Trapp, which was inaugurated in July, needed formal approval as it is located on protected land.

Dorfer and Unterkofler said they planned to appeal the decision.

They said all previous city assessment reports had been positive and that politicians had supported their project until residents pressured them to turn it down.

“All the politicians we contacted were positive and motivated us, saying how important this project was for Salzburg tourism,” they said in their statement.

“There is no objective or legal reason to block a 14-room hotel in Aigen,” they added.

The villa was the home of Captain Georg von Trapp, his seven children and their governess Maria, later known as the Trapp Family Singers, from 1923 to 1938.

as of 12/05/2008 1:20 AM

Plans for Salzburg Sound of Music hotel hit sour note | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

Update

I found a later article that claimed the original Von Trapp residence is available as a B&B at a blog Visit Salzburg, a guide to Salzburg written by locals.

Last edited by GJE on December 3, 2011 at 11:01 am