The 24 Hours, all classes - Let's start with one of the special aspects of the 2018 Rétromobile, the 40th anniversary of the win for Renault-Alpine, aptly celebrated at the Renault stand with all four cars fielded in 1978. Among other prototypes that have made their marks on the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (overall as well as in the various classes) can be found the Ford GT40, the Porsche 917, the Rondeau M379 B, the McLaren F1 GTR and the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. Rétromobile offers a fantastic sampling of the cars in other classes that have played their parts at the legendary race: the Bugatti Type 35, the Porsche 904 and 911, the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 "Daytona" and the Morgan LMP2.

Artcurial and the 24 Hours - For the traditional auction on Friday, gentleman-driver and auctioneer (10 participations in the 24 Hours of Le Mans) Hervé Poulain also offered for sale a few notable stars from the history of the 24 Hours. Though the #20 Ferrari 275 P winner at Le Mans in 1964 driven by Jean Guichet and Nino Vaccarella ended up withdrawn from the 2018 Artcurial auction, there were still four cars from the 24 Hours for which Hervé Poulain was able to find new owners. In the chronological order of participations: a Deep Sanderson 301 (#44) and a René Bonnet Aérodjet (#41) from 1963, a Porsche 962 C (#55) from 1986 and a Ferrari F430 GTC from 2008 (#83). Among them, only the 962 C made it to the checkered flag, in 10th place overall with at the wheel French drivers Philippe Alliot and Michel Trollé, and the Spaniard Paco Romero, representing John Fitzpatrick Racing.

PHOTO: Among the winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on display at Rétromobile can be seen the Morgan-Nissan winner in the LMP2 class at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. To its right (#16), the Pescarolo 01 driven by Jean-Christophe Boullion, Emmanuel Collard and Romain Dumas that claimed the third step on the overall podium in 2007.