Collectors & Aficionados
Inside the World’s Greatest Classic Car Collections – Part 17: François Perrodo
A Ferrari 250 GTO in one bay, a Renault Clio Williams in another – what unites them is a simple rule: they must be driven.
François Perrodo collects Ferrari, McLaren, and some of the most significant competition prototypes of recent decades, but the point is not to have them sitting in a garage. The point is to find a road, call a few friends, and set off. Or to pull on a helmet and race suit and return a Toyota GT-One, a Porsche RS Spyder, or an Audi R8 to the place where those cars belong: the track.
That is perhaps the most direct way to describe him. Perrodo has never truly separated collecting from driving; the cars he acquires must go on having a life – ideally a loud, fast, and shared one. Some go out on road drives with friends, others return to Le Mans, Spa, or Imola. Even when the car in front of him is a significant piece of endurance history, his first instinct does not appear to be contemplation, but rather wondering how it behaves when pushed to the limit.
