Beauties and a beast at Artcurial's Retromobile sale

It’s the Dolo Type JB 10. Those who saw it at the Paris Motor Show in 1946 where it had its debut were told it was the next big thing in small cars.

Its manufacturer, BDG, spent a year raising funds to put it into production and went back to the Paris Salon in ’47 with the first finished car. Then in 1948 two Type JBs toured France spreading the Dolo word.

It was all in vain, though surprisingly BDG and its Dolo fell in a heap not because everyone ran away from the car screaming when they saw it, but more because making the car proved much too difficult. Dolo quickly went the way of the dodo.

Proving you can’t always judge a car by its appearance, the Dolo was, in fact, advanced for its time. It was front-wheel drive, had a light alloy body on a steel box chassis, and uniquely featured a Plexiglas canopy offering 360-degree visibility. The structure was said to be impressively rigid and with an all-up weight of 400kg it could top out at 75mph.

Now we can see this one (the only survivor) is not in the best shape and lacks a few essentials, like an engine, but, well, it’s still definitely odd-looking – odd enough, in fact, to be sought-after. 

No less an auction house than Artcurial will be auctioning this Dolo at its flagship Retromobile sale in Paris on 9-11 February. Since 1967 the car has been part of a collection of French curiosities assembled by Maurice Broual and displayed at the family museum in Briare in the Loire. The Dolo is one of 47 cars and cyclecars from the collection that will be auctioned by Artcurial, all with no reserve. With rare Chenard & Walcker and Amilcars among them, they are far from all ugly flops.

One thing for sure, the Dolo won’t be setting any records in the sale, where it is estimated to make the equivalent of £5-10,000. And you could buy 4000 Dolos for what Artcurial’s amazing sale megastar is expected to fetch… 

The 1964 Ferrari 275P from the Bardinon Collection is expected to set a record, tipped to beat even the Ferrari 335S Scaglietti which Artcurial sold at auction in Paris in 2016 for €32 million (£24.7m at the time). Unlike that car, the 275P actually won at Le Mans – in fact it was the last Ferrari works car to do so. Read our story on that car here.

There are plenty of other beauties at the Retromobile sale, as befits what’s become known as “Europe’s Pebble Beach” sale. The 275P may be in a class of its own, but there are three other big-ticket Ferraris – 250 GT cabriolet (€7-9m), FXX (€2.6-3.2m) and Enzo (€1.8-2.2m) – as well as a brace of A6G Maseratis (between €2.5 and €3.6m) and a 1938 Bugatti Type 57 C Atalante – which is expected to make up to €3.5m.

All lovely of course, but here are three more, all very different, that caught our eye in Artcurial’s sale…

1965 Citroën DS 21 Chapron Le Dandy coupe, €250-350,000

There are lots of Chapron coachbuilt DSs in the sale this year, from the Richard Reinders collection, and some of them (like the Palm Beach convertible) sell for up to €600,000. We love this coupe version, though, at half that price. It’s as rare as hen’s teeth – fewer than 50 Le Dandys were made between 1960-68, and this is the more powerful DS21 version. Chapron’s coupe styling is certainly eye-catching, as is the luxury interior. The ex Paris Salon car of 1965, it’s said to be in exceptional original condition after a pampered life with just four owners and under 16,000 miles from new.

1993 Renault Clio Williams, €30-40,000

Everyone loves the Clio Williams but what about owning the very first one? The car here was delivered on January 21^st, 1993 to its first owner, Renault’s Formula One engine genius Bernard Dudot. It was a thank-you to Bernard for making Williams-Renault’s F1 foray so successful. The car is now with only its fifth owner and has covered 68,000 miles from new. Williams Blue, the 2.0-litre 150bhp pocket rocket with sublime handling comes with a certificate of authenticity issued by Renault. 

1952 Gordini Type 16 Formula 1, €900,000-1.4m

Gordini fans, this could be your lucky day. It is said there are only two Gordini Formula One cars in private hands – most are in the Schlumpf National museum – and this is one of them. it’s a race winner as well. It beat Ferrari in the 1952 French Grand Prix in Reims, driven by Jean Behra. Its racing provenance between 1952-55 comprises 47 world championship races in the hands of drivers including Trintignant, Schell, Simon, Frère and Bayol, as well as Behra. In French F1 history, it doesn’t get much better than this.