A celebration of French voitures from the veteran to the Veyron
This annual festival of French motoring takes place over the Bank Holiday weekend at the Bugatti Club HQ in the idyllic Gloucestershire countryside just north of Cheltenham. Entertainment, is distinctly French themed with the beautiful and talented can-can dancers, live music, a Parisienne 1920’s Renault bus, brave stilt walkers, an accordion player – reminiscent of Monsieur Alfonse played by Kenneth Connor in the 1980’s television show ‘Allo Allo’; Perhaps you may spot Renee Artois loitering in the café or chasing the waitresses! Even the Gendarmes will be there! ‘Le Shopping’ – a French style shopping village with food, art, and of course French berets. Food and drink will be French influenced with crepes and plat du jour. Also on site are an excellent museum detailing Bugatti history, paddocks where spectators are encouraged to get up close to the competing racing cars, competitive hill climbing events, cavalcades up the famous hill and much, much more. We are once again concentrating our efforts on the Sunday so please come along and show all the Francophile car enthusiasts what CPUK is all about. Please contact Alison in advance to get your car parking pass for the CPUK enclosure. Please purchase your entry wristband directly from http://www.prescott-hillclimb.com/la_vie_en_bleu.aspx before turning up at the gate. A car park pass from Alison will not be sufficient to get past the course marshals and it is cheaper if wristbands are bought in advance. Special Offer-Family Tickets Weekend pass for 2 Adults and up to 3 children -£35 - saving £15 on the usual advance prices. Daily tickets for 2 adults and up to 3 children -£20 - saving £10 on the usual advance prices You can usually tell when it’s time for the La Vie en Bleu weekend at the Bugatti Owners’ Club just outside Cheltenham; the sun will have been shining and the grass will be firm and dry. Not this year! Heavy rain in the preceding days had turned the marked routes across the field from that suiting a car show into something more akin to what is associated with Glastonbury Festival. Faced with driving through mud that would have caked the bottom of the car, we sought – and found – an alternative way to the CPUK parking area. This may have involved ducking under some of the marking tapes but we had a happy and clean 305! Unfortunately, some mishap had obviously occurred when the marshals had done their pegging out job. Our reserved space for 20 cars was actually only big enough to park 5!! Oh dear! As CPUK members arrived, we began to surreptitiously and judicially move the marker pegs. We couldn’t get enough space to all be parked in a row but it wasn’t a problem to make two rows and block each other in. So, cheek by jowl, (or should that be wing mirror to wing mirror?) we found room for a wide range of Peugeots. From Stephen Lloyd’s 190 through to Roger Turner’s 508, our cars spanned 9 decades of production. In between, we were delighted to welcome a 203, a 504 cabriolet and pick-up, two 205s, a 206 and a matching pair of 607s. The sun shone all day and members took full advantage of it to enjoy the many attractions on offer. There were Peugeots in the paddock area too and it was a pleasure to see Kraig Mycock’s 172 on display as well as two other early cars. In fact, Kraig’s car caught the eyes of the can-can girls! With the live music, stalls selling everything from crepes to auto memorabilia, the gendames, the pierrot mime artists and the Parisian bus, there’s plenty to keep everyone entertained and that’s without mentioning the whole raison d’etre of the weekend, the hill-climb racing. From a threatened soggy start, we had a thoroughly enjoyable day and La Vie en Bleu truly anchored itself as a key event in our calendar. If you haven’t yet been, why not pay a visit in 2015? What’s not to like about a weekend in the Cotswolds?
