As every year, The International Concours D’Elegance, a very important event that the Jaguar Club puts together, took place last May 18th & 19th at Huixquilucan, Estado de Mexico. Huixquilucan is a nearby town to Mexico City about 70 kilometers away. It is the event that gathers more attendees both public and collectors, and most of us take some time to prepare our cars so they show their best qualities.
The club members met near the highway entrance to ride together. Some of us started before, because with our 845 cc engines, going uphill, we cant go over 60 Km/hr. Miguel Garza had the idea of towing his 1093 with his 1090, so he was actually the first to start the way, and we shortly overtook him. It is a very nice road, the last part very winding and downhill, so you have the chance to speed up a little and a last check-up of the car!

This year the Renault Gordini Sport Club was invited with 34 spaces, but only 24 of them were Renaults, as other members drove other makes or did not showed up. The new Alpine Club was invited as well, with 16 cars. As we were parked lets say back to back, the attendees saw 40 Renaults all together! We had a great spot of the event, as we were right at the main pedestrian entrance. People coming in saw us first, so we had plenty of attention from most of them.

The event had 543 classic cars in total, 15 car manufacturers were on display, so you can imagine it was very car-full weekend. Nearly 20,000 people attended during the weekend. Saturday was a bit hazy but on Sunday the sun shone strongly. Both days’ temperatures were on the 75-82ºF (24-28ºC). Our friends Alfredo and Zaida that all Gordini Club members brought some food and drinks, so the informal party was very cheerful organized it. It is always great to have a toast with friends while enjoying a nice red wine.

The "Renault de Mexico" stand was also in front of us, so we could appreciate the new Laguna, Clios, Scenic and also the history through the years with the Dauphines, R5, Dinalpin, R8’s, R10, etc. A nonmember of the club brought a Juvaquatre, not in original state, but it looked nice. Also an R21 was on display.
The voting this year was like this: Every member had a voting ballot and you had to vote for all Renaults of the Club registered for exhibition, in a 1 to 10 scale depending on the state of the car, carefully watching details and overall presentation. Three categories were open, so we had Sedan, Dinalpin and Alpine (Which included modified Dinalpin, with racing looks or modified engines).

The cars of the Gordini Club members’ were: 4 Dauphine (2x 1090, 1x 1091, 1x 1093) 3 R8S 15 Dinalpin (2 Cabriolet, 13 Berlinette) 1 R10 1 R4L The results of the contest were: Sedan category: 1 Francisco Miranda 1960 Dauphine 1090 2 Fernando Roldán 1974 R8S 3 Samuel Gutierrez 1970 R10 Dinalpin category: 1 Alfredo Doc Sevilla 1966 Cabriolet 2 Alejandro Rubio 1967 Cabriolet 3 Alejandro Marín 1966 Berlinette Alpine category: 1 Jesús Ramírez 1969 Berlinette 2 Jorge Escobedo 1973 Berlinette 3 Alberto Pedroza 1970 Berlinette

A nice trophy of a shiny metal jaguar leaping fixed on a wooden base was granted to the winners and in our case handed by Patrice Ratti, CEO of Renault de Mexico, but the President of the Jaguar Club amongst other personalities of the automotive world were also in attendance. The Best Car of the Show this year was a 1928 Cadillac Roadster. We thank our friends of the Jaguar Club for making us part of their important event and we look forward for next year contest.

Very knowledgeable persons of the Renault Sport world recently formed the Alpine Club. Alberto Gironella is a good example of them as he even worked in Dieppe at the Alpine factory. Alejandro Konstantonis, Roberto Wolf, Juan Calvillo, are some of the founding members. They have unique cars in pristine condition as the R8-Gordini, Clio V6, and Alpine 1600S, Alpine 1100G, R5 Turbo. I would safely say that it is the first time ever; we had the chance to see all of these beauties together. Three of the cars were brought from Monterrey, about 800 kilometers away from Mexico City. I can tell you it was worth all of the efforts with the impressive display made. Congratulations to the new Club.

The cars on display by the Alpine Club were: 2 (1966 & 1970) R8-Gordini 1 (2001) Clio V6 7 (1984-1985) R5 Turbo (1 Turbo & 6x R5 Turbo II) 1 Alpine 1600S 5 Dinalpin with assorted engines (1x 1100G, 2x 1400cc hemi-head, 1x 2 liters, and 1x 1300).

The Import show at the Carlisle Fairgrounds takes place each May. It is becoming an annual meeting place for the club. This year’s event looked promising. As I left Tennessee on Friday afternoon it was 82 degrees, but by the time I arrived in Pennsylvania that evening the temperature had dropped below 60 and it was starting to rain. By the time I woke up Saturday morning the temperature was down in the forties and the rain was still hanging around. I arrived at the fairgrounds shortly after 8AM and by nine I had my Fuego Turbo in the show field and began to set up the Club display.

It was kind of lonely as I was the only Renault, but that would soon change as Ray and Nancy Dietz drove up with two R18i wagons. As we were getting reacquainted, John Vogler and all the local Renault owners drove up. In four GTAs, an Alliance Convertible and a Sportwagon. By noon we had two more arrivals, Bob Robinson in his Medallion Wagon and Les Woods in his four-door LeCar. After checking out some of other cars in show field and the vendors, it was time for the Car show.

As I passed out the ballots, Eric Tegler from Autoweek Magazine arrived. He was doing a story about my Fuego for a future issue of the magazine. As Eric and I discussed the car everyone made their selections and then Ray and Nancy tallied up the votes. The final results were: Honorable Mentions for John Mullins in his White GTA and me in My Fuego Turbo. Third place went to Mike Allen in his Sportwagon, while the first runner-up was Dan Hawn in the other White GTA. This year’s winner was John Vogler, who displayed both a black and a silver GTA.

Following the car show, we had a couple hours before we had to go to the swap meet and picnic. So I decided to check out some more of the show cars, when I came back another Renault was pulling into the field. It was Jeffrey Masoner, in his two-door LeCar that he recently bought from Brent Bartley. It was a very slick car with only 43k original miles. I would say he would have given John a run for his money in the car show if he had arrived in time. We had one last surprise visitor before we left the fairgrounds. Clayton Hoover and his father showed up and stayed for a short while. Clayton drove his Silver GTA, but he didn’t bring it to the show field.

By now it was nearly 3PM and the weather had improved slightly. It had stopped raining and the wind died down a bit. We were ready for the Caravan to John Vogler’s house for the swap meet and picnic. We enjoyed a scenic ride to John’s house, and then he directed traffic to get everyone parked at his house. At this point everyone unloaded his or her wares and the trading began. I was able to sell a few parts and traded with Ray Dietz for several R17 gaskets I needed as well as a manual. All and all business was a little slow but we had a good time. Once we packed all our newfound parts into our cars it was time to eat. John and his wife had done a fabulous job getting everything ready, and I must say it was quite a spread.

After filling up on food, it was nearly 5:30 and Les Woods and I went back over to the fairgrounds. We talked for a few minutes and then Les headed over to a Citroen Club Dinner. I packed up all the club’s display items and headed back towards Greencastle, PA. I was really tired and went to bed about 9:30PM. The next morning I woke up early and had some breakfast, cleaned some dead bugs of the car and headed back to Tennessee. I made it home shortly after 4PM and had the car nearly unpacked by dinnertime. I had traveled a little more than 1100 miles, and except for the bad weather had a pretty good weekend. I look forward to returning to Carlisle again and especially want to than John Vogler for all his hard work. Carlisle will continue to be an annual event for the Renault Club. If you ever get a chance to attend, I highly recommend it.

On Sunday March 18th., we were invited to 9th edition of the "Elegido del Público 2002" or "People’s Choice 2002" that the Chevy Corvette Club organizes. We shared a very nice spot with our friends from the French Automobile Group and those of the Italian Club. A very friendly atmosphere with great cars to see, like MGs (A, B, Midget, TF), Alfa Romeo’s, Peugeot (403, 404), and of course Renaults (R8S, Dinalpin (GT4 and Berlinette), Dauphine (1090, 1091, 1093) R5 and R4L).

This year the winner of the Gordini Sport Club was an R5 (turbo look-alike) from Sergio Nicolai and another club member, Ernesto Gonzalez, owner of a ‘62 1091 also won, but this time with his Alfa Romeo. It was very hot and sunny day to spend with family and friends, at Plaza Cuicuilco, a former paper factory. They offered diverse activities for children and grownups as well, with plenty of restaurants and shops, and for the car enthusiast plenty of unique samples to enjoy. We thank the Chevy Corvette Club for organizing and inviting us to such a nice event.