SHOPPING AROUND

If you happen to be in Eastern France, Selection RS has opened a new Porsche gift shop, with related ephemera to suit everyone. If you’re not passing by, you can always lookon-line

Dropping in on all new Porsche emporium, Selection RS

Words: Johnny Tipler Photography: Antony Fraser

Suits you, sir! I try on a slinky Jo Siffert bomber-jacket, and check myself in the mirror. Oh yes! But my colleague shakes his head: ‘You need a hat to go with it,’ and if I look around I’ll probably find something suitable. We’ve come to Vesoul in the Haute-saône region of eastern France to attend the opening of a brand-new Porsche souvenir shop, Selection RS, where the world of Zuffenhausen is your oyster.

Selection RS’S new premises is a combination of toy shop, fashion boutique and designer outlet, selling every conceivable slice of Porcine ephemera that might appeal to you and me, the Porsche fan-base. Located beside a hill road in the Vesoul hinterland, the industrial unit is fronted by a car park where a Porsche tractor stands sentinel, and within the showroom, a Carrera GT and 918 Spyder grace the proceedings, borrowed from a couple of local owners for the day.

There’s a surprisingly large variety of Porsche-orientated artefacts, ranging from casual clothing and race apparel to scale models – in ready-made and construction kit form – books, magazines, posters, artworks; and then you get into the more bizarre stuff that bears no relationship to Porsches, such as vintage headlight- shaped table-lamps, kitchen knives, beach towels, watches, cuff-links, tea services and clocks; strange fruit for all but the most hard-core Zuffenhausen buff to aspire to, but still you wonder who’s going to patronise an out-of-town shop that’s marketing single-marque paraphernalia. The real answer to the success of a place like this, which is all about models and clothes and ephemera, is the internet: it’s all mail-order, so you can locate it anywhere you feel like. ‘We could live without any showroom at all says founder, Bertrand Vien, “because with the internet we don’t need it, but we are really passionate about Porsches and we want to see our customers, we would like to laugh and chat with them, so we have created a nice meeting point here.’

While he bustles around making final preparations for the opening I take a closer look at his wares. I’m drawn to the long run of scale model Porsches lined up in a cabinet: it’s a history of the marque in miniature, presented as 1:18 scale models, from the earliest 356 right up to the very latest 991 Coupe, plus Turbo, GT2 and Cabriolet, 718 Boxster and Cayman. Racing cars, too, including the obligatory 917, 906, 910 and Carrera Cup cars. Bertrand is enthusiastic: ‘it’s a nice presentation, so people can see how the company evolved, through the 2.7 RS and 996 GT3, and so on.’ Some are pretty rare, too. As Bertrand says, ‘you cannot buy some of them because they have not been produced for maybe 10 years now, so those are coming from our own collection, but the ones with prices marked are the ones which are in stock. People who know the models can say, “oh, I had this one, I remember that,” and those who don’t know Porsches that well can discover the extent of the model range.’ There’s a good cross-section of manufacturers, including Spark, Minichamps, Tecnomodel, Norev, Schuco, GT Spirit, Cult, Autoart, plus kits, of course, by Tamiya, Revell and Gunze Sangyo, and

Selection RS is a toy shop, fashion boutique and designer outlet

there’s a working model of a flat-six engine by Franzis, with all the moving parts visible.

There’s a certain amount of take-it-orleave-it in the shape of Porsche logo’d crockery and cutlery and stuff you don’t really need, but the artworks and fashion are of interest. Among the artists whose work is featured are modern-day French Impressionists, including watercolourist Laurence Henry, and Caroline Llong who produces dramatic large-scale acrylics of Porsches. There are a few originals hanging, but mainly prints, because, as Bertrand admits, ‘until now we’ve sold only prints rather than originals, whatever is easy to sell on the internet, so we are not selling pieces for 4000 or 5000 euros, though maybe we can in the future, but first we must see if there will be enough people coming here.’

There’s Porsche Design luggage as well as other case-makers, all calculated to fit in one Porsche or another, and different ranges of apparel, from Hunziker T-shirts through Porsche Spirit own-brand jackets, plus driving shoes, hats (though none to my taste), ties, belts, scarves and hoodies. I particularly like the leather armchairs, which are not only comfortable but quite spectacular, upholstered in the coloured liveries of 917 race cars. ‘The seats are a big success,’ claims Bertrand, ‘especially because the price is good, and there is also a special offer: we sell them individually for 250 Euros, or two for 450 Euros.’ He’s got all bases covered: there’s even a range of car covers and car cleaning products, mundane items, in contrast to the general timbre of the items on offer, but it’s rather like when you graba litre of oil at a gas station, just in case.

The library on the mezzanine floor features a collection of Porsche books, and I thumbthrough the collection of tomes on hand; these aren’t for sale, though he does stock a selection of marque literature, including, I’m delighted to note, a couple penned recently by your correspondent. Magazines too, including this one, so it is a pleasant area to relax in, sustained by an espresso from the downstairs café-bar, and maybe it will grow as a rendezvous for local petrol-heads. The surrounding glitz and glamour should certainly convert any waverers to the cause of Porschedom.

Bertrand describes how he got Selection RS off the ground: ‘I had my own collection of 1:18 scale model cars, and seven years ago I found a 997 Turbo for a very good price and I thought, let’s buy four of them, keep one for me and sell three, so I sold those, and then I found some 1:43 scale cars, and I also sold those as box sets, and gradually, month by month and year by year our garage filled up with Porsches in little

The glitz and glamour would convert any Porsche waverers