Meeting at the Star of the South

When we can we participate in classic car events organised by the Association Nostal'10. They were set up to celebrate the old Route Nationale 10 and are based in Sainte Maure de Touraine. We are friends with several of the organisers and the events are just a little bit mad.

Citroen Ami station wagon (Fr. break) in the foreground and a glimpse of some rather charming grafitti on the tiles of the old service station booth.

We were delighted to receive an email saying there would be a gathering at the Etoile du Sud (bring your own thermos and cakes to share). I made choc chip mini muffins. The day turned out to be cold and overcast, but not windy. We nearly couldn't get Célestine to start, but finally we managed it and turned up a good 20 minutes after the allotted time. But cars continued to stream in after us. In the end they had more than twice the number of participants they expected. 

Not Célestine.

Everyone was so excited to be able to meet up, and the organisers had done a really good job of making it safe. They had to convince the authorities it could go ahead safely, and we were all asked to respect the rules. Everyone wore a mask and did their best to keep apart from one another. Nobody drove like an idiot, and everyone was considerate when entering and leaving the site, which is accessed from the busy D910, as the N10 became after the Autoroute replaced it as the national arterial.

L'Etoile du Sud, now a pale ghost of its once ultra-modern space age presence.

The Etoile du Sud is an abandoned service station, a real relic of the mid-20th century. It stands on the side of the former N10, once one of the major routes that French families took on their way to summer holidays in the sun. It was erected in 1956, between Sainte Maure de Touraine and Maillé, and branded as a Total, with red signwriting on the white painted concrete ground. The previous building on the site was the Relais Charles Martel. If you were coming from Paris or elsewhere in the North and had left early in the morning the Etoile du Sud is where you might have stopped for breakfast. Both the road and the service station would have been absolutely packed, because everyone travelled on the same few days to reach their beloved summer residences on the Atlantic coast. There were lots of little accidents along the way, lots of moments when traffic slowed to a crawl and all the small towns on the route were jam packed.

Laurent, the President of Nostal'10, reminding everyone to behave themselves and passing on club news.

Nowadays long distance travellers use the A10.  It's only locals whizzing up and down now on the downgraded D910. Nostal'10 is working with the municipal authorities along the route to promote the historic value of sites like the Etoile du Sud, and the old N10 in general. Laurent, the president of the Association, announced at this meet that they hoped to reglaze the reception booth at the Etoile du Sud, to protect it more and provide some useful indoor space during events. 

The Etoile du Sud is the perfect place to meet up in a pandemic.

At least 120 classic cars turned up to this event, which means there was probably about 300 people there. Because of Covid19 it was simply an opportunity to all park up together for a couple of hours. We arrived from 10 am and had to leave by midday, making sure we didn't inconvenience other road users by causing a traffic jam. All this went off without a hitch. Normally we would drive around in convoy, stage a heritage traffic jam or retro camp. Hopefully by the time the Heritage Weekend comes round again in September all this will be possible again.

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