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ALPINE
Jean-Luc Thérier (1945-2019)
Jean-Luc Thérier, who was crowned French Champion four times and World Champion once with the Alpine team in 1973, won 64 rallies, including 5 in the World Championship. He also won the Acropolis Rally in Greece in 1973 in a magnificent Alpine-Renault 1800cc Group IV berlinette.
His exceptional gifts as a driver and engineer, his human qualities and his strength of character in the face of adversity made him an endearing character who was admired by all motor sport enthusiasts.
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CITROËN
Bob Neyret (1934) and Jacques Terramorsi
Famous and inseparable DS crew. For more than ten years, they participated in the world's most beautiful rallies, including the London-Sydney raid in 1968 (16,000 km) and the Wembley-Mexico raid in 1970 (26,000 km). This was a time when rallying was a real adventure, a discovery and an exploration of the world.
Jean Malard (1920-2016)
Jean Malard, an optician from Orléans, fell in love with the 2CV and took possession of it in 1952. He immediately had the idea of founding a club the same year to bring together his friends who also drove 2CVs. It was to be the first 2CV Club in the world. The activities are numerous, varied and convivial with a monthly meeting, banquets, belote competitions, surprise rallies, fishing parties. Jean Malard organised a rally in Auvergne in 1953 during which the participants covered 1000 kms in 24 hours!
MATRA
Philippe Guédon (1933)
Inventor of the Espace, he participated and presided over the destiny of Matra Automobile for 37 years, from 1965 to 2002. Philippe Guédon is a unique personality in the automotive world. A design engineer, technical director, deputy general manager and chairman of Matra Automobile, Philippe Guédon is a man of culture, passionate about the history of 20th century painting and literature and a great admirer of original creators such as the iconoclastic Le Corbusier, the flamboyant Ettore Bugatti and the unclassifiable Gabriel Voisin. His vision of the automobile takes into account culture, the environment and fashion.
PEUGEOT
Ari Vatanen (1952)
Ari Vatanen, who started competing in professional rallies in 1970, was hired as a Peugeot driver by Jean Todt in 1984. He gave Peugeot its first victory and won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1985. His kindness, his elegance, his sense of challenge, his teenager side taking with him his mascot in the form of a small stuffed lion, made him a driver loved by the general public. His very serious accident in Argentina in 1985, followed by a real resurrection, made him a unique and mythical driver.
RENAULT
Jean Vinatier (1933)
Jean Vinatier, French Rally Champion in 1969 and 1972, then official driver of the Régie Renault, won the first competition victory for the R8 Gordini in the Tour de Corse in 1964. This victory was followed by dozens more in international rallies such as the Coupe des Alpes, Lyon-Charbonnières and Monte Carlo, always with the robust, manoeuvrable and versatile R8 Gordini, which was equally at home in dry, snowy and wet conditions.
THE MYTHICAL EUROPEANS
Bernard Consten (1932-2017)
Bernard Consten, five-time French Rally Champion, won the Tours de France in the Jaguar MK II from 1960 to 1963 in the Touring category. He also took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times between 1957 and 1962.
In 1968, he was elected President of the FFSA (Fédération Française des Sports Automobiles).
Bernard Darniche (1942)
From 1975 to 1981, it was for Barnard Darniche, the true seven-year state of grace. Thanks to the team set up by André Chardonnet, he became the absolute record holder of victories in his blue Lancia Stratos: 41, including 4 world victories. In 1979, he won a Homeric victory in Monte Carlo, where he had come back in the last night from a deficit of more than six minutes. He also won the Tour de Corse five times, as well as several French and European Championship titles in 1976, 1977 and 1978.
Michel Le Paire
At the age of 24, Michel le Paire joined the Paris-Presse daily newspaper, in the sports department, before landing the car section in the same newspaper, a godsend for this mechanics enthusiast. At the end of the 1970s, while he was setting up a company newspaper agency, he became director of public relations for Volkswagen France, before climbing the ladder to the position of chairman of the board, which he held until December 2000.
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