A few questions to François Allain, presenter of Vintage Mecanic

Vintage Garage becomes Vintage Mecanic and starts in just over two weeks. We told you about it in this article. At the helm we will find François Allain, already in charge of the first season. The opportunity to ask him a few questions.

We are now in season 5, the program is there.

We are not going to redo his complete CV. François Allain, you see him regularly on TV, in Vintage Garage and his reruns on RMC Découverte, but also on the side of M6 where he appears in Turbo as soon as you have to talk about the old ones. Apart from the small screen, one can also read his books, where he speaks indifferently of DS or Peugeot 204 and 304, his cute sin.

Hello François, Vintage Garage becomes Vintage Mecanic, why this name change?

Season 2 of Vintage changes its name, because the show opens up to other collectible vehicles such as motorcycles and tractors, for example…

We will also see new vehicles in the program. Is it a request from the fans or a personal desire?

Both of us had quite a few fans who pushed us in this direction and, personally, I am very happy that we are opening up to other types of collectible vehicles. Even if the automobile will remain the major part of our emissions.

Three new restaurateurs too. How are they chosen? Do you have to have the most beautiful workshop?

We are expanding our family of vehicles, so we had to widen the circle of our restorers a little. Motorcycle restorers are generally not the same as car restorers, for example...

The question came up again last year, and the mechanics are also asking themselves it in front of Wheeler Dealer: do you show all the stages or do you choose certain “talking” stages of the restoration?

The restorations are more or less important and more or less long, but summarizing several days or several weeks of restoration in one hour necessarily implies summaries and the simplification of certain steps, it is mathematically mandatory... We cannot do everything to show.

Last question, will the taxi still be there?

Yes, the English Taxi is clearly the mascot of the show and it becomes the emblem of "Vintage Mecanic", so it is more present than ever! It is unavoidable (well, they are unavoidable, because we have two different ones, but very similar, which are used for filming!).