Before we left the UK, having seen a feature about vintage car racing around the ramparts of the historic centre of Angoulême, we decided to make that one of our stops and booked up for Circuit des Remparts. Our base for the 5 days was the municipal campsite just outside the city and next to a reservoir/ base de loisirs. As always, the site was very well managed with good facilities, buses nearby and a cycle route around the reservoir to the city centre.
The events start on the Friday evening and we did some reconnaissance ahead of time whilst event preparations were underway to get our bearings in the city that sits at the top of a hill, and to find out where things would be happening. At the campsite we also got talking to a lovely English couple from near Deal in Kent who had also made this event a part of their holiday in France. Angoulême is very attractive and more to follow about the city itself. The Circuit des Remparts (circuit des remparts.com) is an event that was first held in 1939, enjoyed its glory years in the late 1940-50s and was relaunched in 1978. This year was the 49th edition of the event, having been cancelled last year due to the pandemic.
Cars from the Edwardian era, pre-war and up to the 1970s are on display and are raced on a circuit of public highways with climbs and hairpin bends along the ramparts of the city. The roads are closed on the Sunday and high steel barriers are put in place and grandstands set up along the route. In the city centre around the magnificent Hôtel de Ville there are cars on display, exhibitions and merchandise stands, all set up amidst the city’s bars, restaurants and cafés. The event has always attracted British vintage car owners and racing drivers and there was certainly good representation this year. If anyone is familiar with the Goodwood revival, it’s a similar event but run around city streets.
On the Friday evening we were very kindly given a lift with Steve and Yvonne to the edge of town from where we then had a climb uphill to the centre. The main event that evening was the Concours d’élégance with about 40 cars, with owners in period costume, vying for various categories of best turned out cars. We watched some of the proceedings and then retired for a drink in the cobbled back streets of the city centre.
On Saturday a rally is organised for around 200 vintage and performance vehicles, not only those involved in the event, but also cars from other car owner clubs, both French and UK. The rally starts in the centre of town and then follows a route out into the Charente countryside. The weather didn’t look great and, whilst we had thought of going out on the bike, Steve offered to drive us to see if we could catch up with the cars at some stage on the route. Having found what we thought was the route for this year we headed off to the advertised lunch stop village. Once arrived and finding no-one but a group of 5 hunters in their hi-vis jackets, we did some more searching online and found we were in the wrong place – looks like we had picked up the route for a previous year. Steve was happy to drive on to the correct lunch stop which was in exactly the opposite direction to where we had set off from. At Château de La Rochefoucauld there was once again no sign of any cars but we did have the consolation of a beautiful chateau and our own very good lunch stop in a local restaurant. When we asked the waiter whether the cars were expected he told us they had all passed through that morning!
Undeterred, we decided to give it one last shot by driving on to the planned afternoon stop at Montbron. This looked more promising when we passed a few cars en route and then groups of people lining the road at Montbron. After parking we were then able to watch from the roadside as pretty much all 200 cars came past us – success!
After an early morning shower, the Sunday weather brightened up and became sunny and we cycled as close to the city as we could get and walked up to the ramparts. A huge amount of work goes into preparing the event without being able to close down the city completely, and with an emphasis on safety for spectators and managing a pandemic thrown in for good measure. We had booked seats in one of the grandstands and after watching some of the qualifying from the general areas we installed ourselves in our seats for the rest of the day. Our grandstand was situated on a hairpin bend, looking uphill towards the beautiful cathedral facade and downhill towards another bend, so there was plenty of action. The afternoon progressed with a continuous series of car parades and races with different categories for pre-war, Bugattis, GT cars and even old Minis. This circuit features probably the largest number of Bugattis racing at any event. Despite the age and value of some of the cars, the racing was fearless and exciting with top cars racing nose to tail. There were a couple of non-serious prangs and a some of the older cars didn’t make it to the end of the circuit so the breakdown truck was kept busy.
A really enjoyable weekend and a unique event with a wonderful backdrop and atmosphere, very much appreciated by everyone. And big thanks to Steve and Yvonne for enabling us to make the most of the weekend.
Seeing the classic cars (eventually!) must have been great fun. I’m sendingSalli Thwaite a link to your blog so she can read your post as her husband had quite a number of classic cars and she attends the Goodwood revival and other events so I’ll suggest she goes next year (as a competitor of course!).
I think Sally would love it Jill. There were a few lady drivers so she wouldn’t be out of place at all.
Thanks Claire and Jill, I’m going to forward this onto my son, Henry, who may well be interested in the future! He drives, I’m the navigator!
Hi Sally it’s certainly a wonderful event to base a trip or holiday around. Hope you’re well. C