Celebration continues in Mexico, now in

the "International Concourse d'Elegance"

On 13th and 14th May took place the "XX Gran Concurso Internacional de Elegancia" in Huixquilucan, organized by the Jaguar Club; this is the main event in Mexico for enthusiasts of the oldtimer cars.

Due to our participation in the "Gala del Automovil" last March, we were invited by Mr. Enrique Vila and Mr. José de la Peña of the "Club Jaguar Mexico" to continue the celebration of the 50 years of the Princess in their event; we gladly accepted their nice proposal and started working in the preparation.

Our good friends Francisco Miranda - the most enthusiast Dauphinist in Mexico, and Miguel Angel Cacheux - collector and restorer of some of the most beautiful Renaults in our Country - contacted the owners of the nicest Dauphines in the area, and organized them to participate in the party.

Being part of the "celebration organizing team", I took the responsibility to design and build a proper scenography for the show; taking advantage of my experience working in exhibitions.

Finally the show started on May 13th, we meet very early with some friends of the Renault and Alpine Clubs in the usual corner - Palmas and Reforma - and drove our recently washed Renaults in the Highway to Toluca for half hour, taking later the small and plenty of curves road to Huixquilucan, arriving to the show ground around 9:00 am.   The places for the Dauphines were prepared in advance, having information posters all around, and a small file with the information of each car next to it.   We had some of our friends as neighbours,  the Renault club in the left side, the Alpine Club in the right side and the "Grupo Auto Francés" in the back.

Weather did play some funny games with us, so we had very sunny sky, followed 5 minutes later by rain, again sun, then hail ! (yes, 2 times on Saturday), again sun...   on Sunday it was more stable, only some light raining at noon, but weather was not a problem for the visitors, which had the event permanently crowded.

As part of the program, the organizers gave us 30 minutes in the main stage to speak about our celebration, it was on Saturday afternoon; we drove-up the nice Ondine of Pepe Ramos, a beautiful black sunroofed R1090A with a Mexican flag licence plate.   There we spoke a little about the history of the Princess, in France and also in Mexico, about its technical characteristics, different versions, etc., we were happy answering questions from the public and enjoyed their interest in the Dauphines.

On Sunday Francisco brought a nice and delicious "50 years cake", which we shared with the friends of the surrounding Clubs after blowing the candles.

We received many visitors during the week-end, a lot of them having questions and comments about Dauphines; it has been a great experience for us, and we are sure has been also interesting for the attendants to the event.

Special thanks to José Luis Ramos, José Luis Escárcega and Ángel Gómez for bringing their beautiful Dauphines to the party, to  Mr. Enrique Vila and Mr. José de la Peña of the  "Club Jaguar" for the invitation, to Frank Name, Salvador Galindo and Horacio Chousal of Promoclave for their logistic support, to the "Club Renault" and the "Club Alpine" for allowing us to invade part of their areas, to Mario and his brother for keeping nice our Princesses after every rain, to the beautiful Constanza Blanco for her special dedication cleaning all the Renaults, and to all our visitors for the great moments together and the richness of their comments.

Miguel Garza - May 2006

CLICK in the pictures to see them in large format, they are high resolution!

CLICK HERE to go to the first celebration in the GALA