Art Of The Day Weekly

Bodywork of the past

PARIS – They look like relics straight out of an American ghost town. They are rusty, dusty, with flat tires, the work of remarkable decorators to re-create a mining town suddenly rich at the time of Roaring Twenties. But, that’s not it at all! The vehicles put up for sale for the Rétromobile fair are real cars! They look the way they do because they spent a long period in a garage in Western France, where a car lover had stored them in order to open a car museum someday. That day never came and when Mr. Baillon’s cars were discovered last autumn they created an international bug. It is not very commun to run into a Talbot Lago T26 Grand Sport or a Ferrari California which belonged to Gérard Blain and then to Alain Delon. The prices cover a wide range, between the touching Citroën Type C 5 HP torpedo « Trèfle » from 1924, estimated at €800, up to the superstar, a Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider from 1961, which could go for more than €10 million. This event could convince those who are not yet convinced that automobile design can attain a level of high art.
• Vente Baillon at Artcurial on February 2015.

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