By Graham Gauld
All around the South of France there are former racing drivers tucked away in villages, or otherwise holed up in Monaco trying to preserve their race winnings. As a result one (this author, at any rate) tends to meet up with them from time to time and chew the fat. One of them who has become a good friend is Bernard Consten, best known for his multiple wins on the old original Tour De France event with his Jaguar 3.8 and Alfa Romeo. Bernard managed to combine rally driving with racing.
Consten has all the charm of a Parisian whose father ran a successful Renault dealership that allowed Bernard to follow his passion for motor sport.
He was born in the Courbevois district of Paris in 1932 and almost as soon as he had his driving license he began competing. His first event was the circuit de Bressuire with a little Renault 750 sedan. When competing on rallies he normally took his cousin, Jean Hebert, who was himself to become a successful driver with Alfa Romeo. The Consten/Hebert duo soon began to win a number of events which eventually led to Consten becoming French Rally Champion for the first time in 1958. He also became Champion in 1961 and 1962, on both occasions with a Jaguar 3.8 sedan, and finally in 1967 with an Alfa Romeo GTA.
The Tour de France wins are the ones that remain in the memory.
” In 1951 the Tour de France restarted and when I was a student I dreamed about competing on that event. The following year my mother was keen to buy me a Triumph TR2.
“It was very difficult to buy new cars in France at that time as it was not long after the war. You had to have the right currency as the French importer was only allowed to import about five or six cars a year. When I went to order the car the dealer asked me all the things I wanted. I told him it was to be white with red upholstery with wire wheels – even the heater was an extra. He then asked me how I was going to pay: American dollars, German marks or English pounds. When I told him I wanted to pay in French francs he said it was not possible to have a car.