Some time ago I discovered that one of the popular things for people to do, as they stroll up and down the Champs-Élysées is to pop in to the various car showrooms which are on the side of this famous Boulevard. Although I am sure you could buy a car from any one of the five, the reality is that each of the represented manufacturers is using the real estate for some brand awareness more than to help directly with local sales targets. A constant stream of people throng through the doors of each, most appearing to have little interest in the cars, but some clearly do take the opportunity to have a good look at whatever is on display. And, as I have found out from my visits over the years, the manufacturers do put plenty of effort into not just the cars but the displays surrounding them, so if you are genuinely interested, you can easily spend a couple of hours between the five showrooms. And that is what I did on a gloriously sunny October day during my time enjoying Paris in what felt more like high summer than mid autumn.

CITROEN

Citroen’s showroom, C42, is the most spectacular from a building point of view. A glass fronted multi-storey building, they have chosen to create a series of display platforms on each floor and mezzanine,  to hold  a single car, with a staircase going around the perimeter, affording a variety of views of the cars on show. Those on every other level can be accessed directly, and are usually open for visitors to get a good look. The display tends to be populated with a mix of cars either from the Citroen Conservatoire (the collection of historics) or brand new models, and there is usually a reminder of Citroen’s activities in motorsport. On this occasion, the focus was very much on new models.

The basement contained the motor sport feature, with the latest C4 Élysée WTCC car.

The next few floors were given over to the Cactus. On the ground floor, and hence the first car that people would see, was the concept Cactus which did the rounds of many a motorshow a few years ago.

Production C4 Cactus models were on the next few levels.

Above this were a duo of the new C1 model. I am still not a fan of this car, finding the frontal styling a bit awkward and the interior to be rather cheap, but they are starting to appear on the roads of France.

On the top storey was a car that I did not instantly recognise. When I got to the back of it and saw the Chinese badge, I realised why. This is a C3-XR and it is designed for the Chinese market. A brand new design, it is unlikely to be sold in Europe. I then looked out of the window at the street below and spotted another example of the car parked right outside, which had not been there when I arrived. When I got downstairs, it was clear that this car was there for a publicity shoot. I left them to it, thinking that a crowded Sunday was perhaps not the best day to choose!

FIAT GROUP

The Fiat Group showroom is not actually on the Champs-Élysées, but at the end of a row of buildings just a hundred meters or so to the north side. It includes a cafe which was buzzing with activity at the time of my visit. The floor area is small, but there are several storeys to visit, so you don’t know what you will actually find on each floor til you get there around the winding central staircase. The ground floor contained two examples of the brand new 500X, so there was a chance of getting a second look at this important new model having first seen it at the Salon de l’Automobile a couple of days earlier. By common consent, this one looks “better” than the 500L, though it is also a much larger car than the traditional 500, and is really something of an abuse of that name. It is nicely finished inside, very much in Fiat’s current style, and I predict it could do quite well.

The ground floor also contained the wooden styling buck used for Dante Giacosa’s original “Nuova” 500.

There were examples of the current 500 in the display cases on a couple of the floors.

The larger and less chic 500L was also here

In the basement, I came across three models, from three different brands from within the Group: a Lancia Ypsilon, in Elle guise, an Alfa Romeo Mito and the brand new Jeep Renegade.

Highlight of the display, though, were the pair of cars that were upstairs. Sadly not that easy to get to from any place other than the stair well, were two variants of that Nuova 500, the Giardinetta estate and the open model.

MERCEDES-BENZ

I had hoped there might be a Mercedes-AMG GT in here. but there was not. Its absence was more than compensated for, though by the presence of two of the iconic 300SL models, a Hardtop and a Roadster. Fabulous, both of them.

That’s not an epithet that I could honestly apply to many of the current range, whose styling I find over fussy. The CLA has had a rough ride from the press (partly because of its rough ride), but it does not appear to have harmed sales as much as it should have done. A car that trades style over just about everything else, you would have to like its looks to want one, and not to care about the appallingly bad access to the back and lack of space, or that it is an expensive car.

Also present were the latest SLK and S Class.

PEUGEOT

Peugeot have the smallest showroom of the five, and they seem to have remodelled it since my last visit, taking away even more of the display space. There were just three cars in here. One was the facelifted 508, and this was attracting plenty of interest. Predictably, I saw a comparison test in one of the French mags which rated this car as better than the 3 Series BMW and C Class Mercedes. Only in France………..

The other two cars were quite a contrast with a 1905 car in the front of the display and the very futuristic looking Onyx concept on a plinth in the middle.

RENAULT

The Atelier Renault contains a rather nice brasserie upstairs and a display area downstairs. No surprise in guessing that the focus for the latter was the new Twingo, which has recently gone on sale. Several examples were displayed, so I got a better chance to look at them than I did at the Show. Whilst the outside is quite appealing, the interior does not do it for me, comprised lots of very hard and nasty plastics that just look Renault are trying too hard (and failing!) to be funky and trendy. It will be fascinating to see how the market takes to this car.

Other models on show included a couple of the latest Clio (a very blobby looking car, I find) and the Captur, as well as – tucked away at the back to one side, a Zoe.

The front of the display contained a reminder of Renault’s presence in Formula 1 with the Infiniti Red Bull RB8 Renault car acting as the crowd puller to get people in.

TOYOTA

Toyota had an example of the i-Road, their take on the Twizzy, you could say, as the first vehicle you encountered on their premises.

The rest of the ground floor was given over to the new Aygo. The same idiotic marketing strapline, in English, “Go Fun Yourself” was plastered all over the place just as it was on the billboards of Britain when the car launched in the summer. It’s a stupid slogan, and the car is not for me, either, with some particularly unpleasant customisation options available to go with the odd Hot-Cross bun front and a truly nasty interior with horrid coloured plastic around the air vents. It’s certainly more distinctive than Toyotas of recent times, but not necessarily in a good way.

The upstairs was dedicated to the facelifted Yaris. Toyota were emphasising very much that this is “made in France”, presumably in the hope of persuading some of the xenophobic customers of Clios and 208s to look a the small Toyota instead. I don’t like the new bold front on this one, either

As ever, therefore, an interesting diversion for a couple of hours, before I returned to the sunshine outdoors.