Story and photos by Sean Smith
When Mitch McCullough was in junior high school, he was reading Autoweek instead of doing his homework. The magazine was covering the international rally scene. Mitch fell in love with the images of A110s sliding around on foreign roads. It was exciting; exotic. He had dreams of one day driving a rally car. That happened in the early 90s when Mitch raced in the California Rally Series as well as the SCCA Pro Rally series.
Dates with his future wife Kim were at rallies in 1993 and 4. So Mitch knew he had a girl who dug cars, A match made in geared heaven! For years they made the pilgrimage together to Monterey; cars were in their blood.
In 2006 the couple decided to get their first vintage car. It had to be an A110. Kim had a love as strong as Mitch for the diminutive sports car. They found a real deal 1970 Group 4 rally A110 in Biarritz, France owned by an Alpine works driver. It was shipped home, and the couple tested their love even more in the tight quarters of the Alpine on the Copperstate 1000.
‘07 came along; now it was time for a vintage race car. A Lotus 23 joined the club. They started realizing their love of these small displacement cars with similar backgrounds and the visionaries who created them, Colin Chapman and Jean Rédélé.
In 2008 Mitch and Kim went to Retro Mobile in search of parts for their A110. A walk on the Champs-Élysées took them to the Renault Cafe. A special Alpine exhibit was going on at the time and the couple was mesmerized by an A210 prototype. They had never seen anything like the finned racer before. They never thought a private citizen, let alone an American, would ever be able to buy a French national treasure like the A210.
In 2016, Mitch had come into some money and started thinking about Alpines again. As a lark he went on the internet and started searching. He came across a Le Mans class-winning car on the Artcurial auction website. Could this be real… could this be true… was one of these mythic cars really coming up for sale? And was it really happening in two weeks?
He yelled to Kim in the other room. “Get on your computer and take a look at this!”. He thought at the time it was something they would talk about, then follow the auction on line. Kim got on her computer. A few minutes later she calls from her room, all business.
Did Mitch really think he’d ever set his tail into this cockpit?
“Pack your bags. We’re going to Paris.”
They grabbed their bags and race engineer Graham Long and headed across the ocean; both skeptical that they would be able to buy the car, but an automobile auction in Paris would be a boffo trip, one way or another.
The group arrived at the auction site. There was the M64, front and center. Mitch tried to keep his cool and appear disinterested, but he almost cried with joy upon seeing the blue racer.
The rear plexiglass had been broken during shipping—Mitch hoped this would put some people off and lessen competition during the auction.
Graham started crawling all around the car. Except for paint, the Alpine seemed to be in amazingly original condition. The trio huddled up on the other side of the room. It was the real thing… it was very original… it was a piece of history— and Graham could definitely make it race worthy. They had to have it!
The auction went off the next day, and it was all in French and a bit confusing. There were three happy auctioneers all talking at once and taking bids at the same time. Mitch may have even bid against himself a few times, but the smiling auctioneers laughed and happily said it was still monsieur’s voiture.
It was a surreal experience when they won. The auctioneers placated the audience. It was going to a good home, and Mitch and Kim would bring the car back to France for the Le Mans Classic. The car came back to the US; Mitch admired it for a few weeks in his garage, then sent it off to Graham’s shop to start in on the restoration.
Shakedown at Lime Rock, getting the M64 ready for the Le Mans Classic in 2020.
When they started to dig into the car, it was better than they hoped for, #1711 had great bones. Still, new hardware was added along with custom fuel cells, but anything that wouldn’t compromise safety was kept original.
With some shakedown laps at Monticello Motor Club, they were planning to run the M64 at the 2017 Rolex Monterey Motorsports reunion. During the pre-reunion Mitch did 3/4s of a lap, had engine problems, and dove into the pits. They realized they were not going to be able to race that weekend, and the Alpine was scheduled to be at the Quail, so they rented a crappy open U-Hail trailer and dragged the M64 over the Laureles Grade, then pushed it onto the show field. The blow of not being able to race #1711 was softened when the M64 won the editor’s choice award from Octane magazine.
The Gordini-modified Renault engine was tiny; note the size compared to the twin Webers.
The car came back to the east coast and it was entered and accepted at Amelia Island.
Their engine builder Peter Marcovici found the internals of the engine were made up of many production car components. The crankshaft especially wasn’t up to the task of racing, let alone endurance racing. But there was no time to get custom parts made in time for the Florida Concours. So the engine was rebuilt with the production parts. The Alpine then graced the 2018 Amelia show field and won its class of race cars from 1958-1966.
The engine was rebuilt again with the proper race components and given another day of shakedown laps at Monticello. The car performed brilliantly! On May 31 and June 1, 2018, M64 #1711 was on track at Lime Rock Park with the VSCCA competing against other cars for the first time in over 52 years.
To get the Alpine its Historical Technical Passport, the shocks would have to be changed to original spec. As you would expect, these parts are not sitting on the shelves at NAPA. Koni will be custom making a set for M64. Again, there was not enough time to get the car ready this year, so it’s on to Circuit de la Sarthe in 2020.
Bon Voyage, bonne chance petite voiture bleue!
We will all be watching and waiting to hear of your travels.
Read Part 1
Roy Smith’s excellent series of books on Renault Alpine are currently on a special sale at Veloce Publishing.
Click here to check this out!