Woodley Park Van Nuys Nov. 2, 2025
by Wallace Wyss –
The Best of France and Italy is a great show. Why? Because of the vibes. I wager that a lot of people that appear are advocates of the country that makes their favorite car. For instance when you are with the French cars you feel more French, you envision each car on the streets of Paris. That was especially true of the two Citroen convertibles, a model seldom seen in the US.
Alfa Romeo TZ 1 works race car – around 100 were made
The same yellow fiberglass bodied Peugeot sports car appeared last year and it’s an amazing car that does not look 25 years old. The beauty of it is that it uses a fairly common engine that is not expensive to replace.
There was a prewar Bugatti in the French section, looks like it was inexpensive compared to the others of the marque when new. There was also only one Citroen 2CV there when I left early on, but probably more showed up. That was a favorite car in many French comedies.
In Italian cars I was impressed to see an Alfa Romeo TZ1 sports car, but there were also some obscure street Alfas.
Citroen 2CV
In DeTomasos the most attractive car to me was a bit of a custom from a stock car, done by a Disney engineer in his spare time. He had the GT4 race car fenders and tremendously wide wheels, much taller than the 15-inchers on the originals. Under the rear section (which he rigged to flip both fenders up with the deck lid, was a Chevrolet V8 that probably had another 100 hp and with an alloy block saved 100 lbs. from the Ford 351 original. And it is no doubt easier to find parts for.
Having seen the real GT/4s at the factory I can say this was a good copy, though it won’t win Pebble Beach because it started out a stock street car.
In Fiats there was a wide variety, from X1/9s to 124 roadsters.
Among the rarest cars was an Iso Rivolta but alas no Grifo and a handful of Ferraris mostly late models except for a brutish Daytona.
This event is recognized by French and Italian car fans as THE event in Los Angeles to go to. I have a feeling the cops look the other way on current license plates, I mean after all some of these cars are ONLY rolled out into the sun once a year. The event is sponsored by a bookshop, Autobooks/Aerobooks, in Burbank whose owners own several French and/or Italian cars.
Citroen SM
This year the model car portion of the swap meet section was greatly increased, but also there were books and rare magazines. And some clothes and hats bearing car company emblems. I saw several cloth signs, some of them no doubt antique age, but no fine art work to speak of. Maybe that’s a future offering.
I would say the swap meet part was more interesting than last year so I hope the new owners of the book shop (they are still looking for one…by the way) continue the show so next year I can buy what I didn’t buy this year.
There was music but alas no Italian or French food (or is a Latte considered French?) You have to go to this show early or the parking lot fills up. You can park on the street but it’s a long walk after 10 am. Admission is free.
One great thing about this show is no restrictions on condition of the cars so there were a dozen or so that definitely looked like “works in progess” but, hey, maybe the encouragement of onlookers will result in more effort in the restorations.
This is the show I look forward to in hopes of finding sports car friends that I lost track of. I did see Kurt Oblinger again, a great photographer, and that made my day.
The same bookstore sponsors a British show (The King’s English) so when I find out about its next date, I’ll let you all know….
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR Wallace Wyss writes, photographs and paints oil portraits of his favorite cars. He can be reached regarding commissions at mendoart7@gmail.com
More photos are in the slide show below.
This is a terrific event, very casual and there are many cars one does not see often. I took the Bizzarrini there in 2008 where I met Jay Leno for the first time and was recorded for an episode of My Classic Car with Dennis Gage as shown in the attached photo.
I couldn’t quite explain it but Pebble does have an Unrestored class and
one such car won Best of Show. That was a car with original paint, battered but all original. I am
advocating for a “used car, such as it is” class, so those of us who can’t afford a treasure restored can buy the car we want and spend money on it our own way. There were a few cars there that qualified for that defination.
The yellow French sportscar is not a Peugeot, it’s a Renault Spider.