It's been the best Corvette season yet on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean. It started perfectly when Chevrolet chose the Geneva Salon for the world launch of the C6 convertible. Geneva is the most prestigious of all motor shows. Apart from some excellent specialized tuning shops, there is no Swiss motor industry so all the exhibitors are foreign. There's no patriotic bias to customer choice, and the Swiss are major buyers of all kinds of exotic and performance cars. Their three native languages are German, French, and Italian, plus the international technical language that is English (which you call American), and this lends a satisfying international feel to the show.
Without doubt, Press Day is the best time to visit this massive indoor event. Closed to the public and with passes strictly limited to bona fide journalists, there are no barriers round any of the stands except, of course, for Ferrari, which traditionally tries to keep aloof.
Having watched the Detroit launch online, I wanted to see and touch the new coupe and be among the first to see the new power top in action. For the press launch, Chevrolet took over the Restaurant Parc des Eaux-Vives overlooking Lac Leman with the twinkling lights of Geneva on the far shore. The dinner and wines were superb and, sitting opposite Dave Hill, the company could not have been better. Dave is a real car enthusiast, full of great engineering and auto stories. He kept our table entertained long after he should have retired to nurse his jet lag. We crawled all over the new convertible, played with the touch-sensitive door opening, just about wore out the power top, and were sent back to our hotels with a press kit that even included a 11/418-scale Hot Wheels model of the convertible.
The star attraction on the stand the next day had to be the cutaway C6 chassis. Most manufacturers at Geneva keep their hoods firmly closed, and if you open one to check the front suspension or count the camshafts, a nearby attendant will close it again immediately. Chevrolet encourages the inquisitive. The C6 chassis was beautifully and proudly presented (the company knows its buyers are really interested in the oily bits) and this was the best chassis at the show.
French politicians have not done well recently, but the French people don't care much for the Parisian elite anyway. But, undoubtedly, the French organize the two best and possibly the largest sporting events of their kind in the world, and this year both events were dominated by American teams. Each June the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race is held largely on public roads to the south of the city of Le Mans.
Despite the headlines you may read in the States, Corvette has never won overall at Le Mans. Unfortunately, the fastest cars are LMP prototypes, which are out-and-out race cars. Currently, the best of these are the factory Audis. Cadillac ran in this class bravely for four years with good finishes but no wins. Corvettes race in the production-based GTS Class. This year they won that class for the third time in four years; but, better still, the Oliver Gavin/Olivier Beretta/Jan Magnussen-driven No. 64 car finished Sixth Overall, bettering the previous best finish of Eighth Place set by John Fitch and Bob Grossman in 1960. Englishman Oliver Gavin was at the Geneva launch too, and I reminded him the 1960 record had yet to be beaten and he kept his promise to do something about it. The winning LMP Audi was Japanese-entered, but the three other classes were all won by U.S. teams. Well done, guys!
Le Mans is an ancient city and its surrounding towns and villages have hundreds of inns, hotels, restaurants, and even chateaux to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of fans who drive there from all over Europe. Since the Corvette team returned five years ago, hundreds of our cars assemble for the week of the race, encouraged by some superb organisation by the Corvette Club de France. This year I arrived with my '98 convertible the Thursday before the race. I met up with a line of Classic Corvette Club UK members waiting to board the Eurotunnel car-transporting trains that shuttle the 24-mile tunnel under the English Channel. The best part of the trip was driving the network of minor "D" roads, fast and empty, well-surfaced, and with endless curves. I set my Garmin eMap for Le Mans and relied on the arrow to guide me in the general direction, stopping for occasional real coffees and a gourmand lunch.
The other great French race is, of course, the three-week-long Tour de France cycle race in July, won this year for a record sixth time by a man the European press call the world's greatest athlete, your very own Lance Armstrong. He is sponsored by the U.S. Post Office and Berry, a Belgian flooring company. If ever a man should wear Chevrolet on his race jersey, it should be him. What a missed opportunity.
Next month, I cover the CCCUK nationals, NCRS UK Flight 2004, and Corvettes at Goodwood.