DeLorean, Batmobile… Behind the scenes of the arrival of iconic cinema cars at the Paris Motor Show

A few hours before the opening of the 90th edition of the Paris Motor Show, scheduled for Monday morning, the exhibition center at the Porte de Versailles is like a beehive, where dozens of workers are working to assemble the stands of each brand. The vehicles arrive slowly. Among the traditional road cars, curious people must have rubbed their eyes when they saw cars coming straight out of cult films or series. Behind hall 7, the Pontiac Firebird of K2000the Jeep Wrangler of Jurassic Parkthe black Dodge Charger of Fast & Furious 7or even the famous Batmobile from Batman or DeLorean from Back to the future.

“After having the YouTubers Crankshaft during the last edition this year we wanted to once again offer an event of the same type”we explain in the organization of the Paris Motor Show. The show therefore invited Franck Galiègue, a cinema enthusiast and great collector of iconic vehicles of the 7th art, to come and present his most beautiful models. In total, 25 of them, out of the fifty that the forty-year-old from Ile-de-France owns – the most important collection in Europe – will be visible throughout the coming week in pavilion 7.1, in an exhibition called “Pop Culture” . The show is counting heavily this year on this type of entertainment to attract a new audience, younger and less knowledgeable.

But before that, the famous 25 vehicles must be transported this weekend from Étréchy, in Essonne, 40 km from Paris, where Franck Galiègue stores his collection in a museum, opened last June. “Even if we take them out quite often, this step remains complicated”recognizes the man, who has a huge following on social networks (125,000 subscribers on Instagram, 350,000 on his YouTube channel). Of the 25, around fifteen arrived… by road. Notably the legendary DeLorean DMC-12 from the film trilogy Back to the future. “People look at us, take photos. Such cars cause joy and smiles»enthuses the collector, who also offers to rent his models to individuals, as well as piloting sessions on board.

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“Don’t damage them”, a real challenge

The other models arrived by truck. “On the Batmobile, there are no mirrors for example, so it wouldn’t be very practical”laughs the collector. He continues: “The rarest and most precious ones, we don’t want to drive them, so as not to risk any problems on the road.” Despite these precautions, “the hardest part is not to damage them”confides Franck Galiègue. Of the 25 vehicles transported to the World Cup, only one damage was noted, “a damaged bumper”.

Once arrived on site, at the Porte de Versailles, the machines are installed in their hall, pell-mell. Before being then ordered by theme. “There will be small explanatory and context panels” in front of each car, explains Franck Galiègue. But visitors will not be allowed to sit in the vehicles, which are too fragile. They will only be able to admire their shapes from the outside, and observe behind the windows the legendary interior of some of them: the temporal convector of the DeLorean, the futuristic interior of the Pontiac Firebird of K2000 or the “Michael Schumacher” gear knob of the Citroën Xantia of Jean-Claude Convenant (played by Yvan Le Bolloc’h) in Coffee Camera.

Julien Da Sois / Le Figaro

Franck Galiègue does not hide his pride at seeing his private collection, started in 2007, be exhibited in one of the largest car shows in the world. For the forty-year-old, it’s also a nice nod to history. “Already in 1994, the show presented film cars. At the time, I was around ten years old, and I was super impressed. I still have photos of me as a child posing in front of the models. And thirty years later, it is my collection that is on display…”