Paris:- Wednesday, 2. October 1996:- Down at the Porte de Versailles, I have my 'press' pass and two cameras in my spiffy new bag, to do a 'pro' job at the second 'press day' at the 'Mondial de l'Automobile,' as the semi-annual Paris Auto Salon is called.

Last night when I looked at this pass they sent me, it said it was only good together with the real, government-granted, 'official' press card - and mine ran out of validity in 1991. So, in case of refusal - since it is a nice day I am perfectly prepared to slip into plan 'B' and do the usual Bistro and Posters-of-the-week photos - and do this Salon gig on Friday, along with the public, instead of 488 TV crews.

But, my upsidedown press card said 'press' on the downsideup and they let me in to see the shiny new cars with my esteemed colleagues - who have gathered from all around the motorized world for this event.

I really thought they had pretty well filled this place up for the Salon de l'Agriculture - but there are more cars today than there were cows then. Coming out of the press office, with at least four kilos of press dossier, honestly, I go in the nearest door to find one of the smallest real cars I have ever seen: a Ligier 'Ambra.'

As everybody knows, the French invented the automobile - and the word itself no doubt - so there is a long history of odd cars in this country.

In 1971, Guy Ligier brought out his 'JS 2,' which had a Maseratti motor. Somehow, this seems to have lead to the production of the formidable Citroen SM Maseratti the following year. In 1977, Ligier threw a Formula 1 car into the world championships. In order to support this, Ligier began production of cars that required no driving permits, and the first one was the 'JS 4' model. It looked like a telephone kiosk with four headlights and four tiny wheels.

Fifteen years later, this is no joke, every large automobile concern in the world is racing to build micro-cars - Mercedes Swatchmobile! - and they are showing 'prototypes' - while Guy Ligier is building cars like his '162 Monaco', that you can buy right now.

In all, Ligier builds cars that require no permit, slightly larger 'city-cars,' requiring permits, and F1 cars. With the F1 technology going into the little cars, they are not the cheapest - but they are as attractive as anybody else's 'prototypes' - as you can see from the photo of the 'Ambra.' It is 2.5 metres long, 1.4 metres wide, has 50 horsepower, variable automatic transmission and because of low weight - polycarbonate body - like F1 cars! - it knocks off zero to 100 kph in 10 seconds. The hopped-up version, called 'Monster,' does the sprint in eight seconds.

I am not a great fan of how cars look these days - straight lines are out! Ovals are in! - and most cars, no matter where they are made, are starting to look like cartoons I did in 1970 - egg-shaped. The exception to this, is when French constructors want to make a variant of their standard four-door bread-and-butter models - a coupé or a convertible, for example.

The Peugeot-Citroën group, which is a private company, goes to Italy for design and production; specifically they go to Pininfarina and they come back with the Peugeot 306 convertible, or as in the photo, the new Peugeot 406 Coupé. It does not look like a bread-and-butter car, although it is pure Peugeot underneath. This is an idea that deserves to catch on: good-looking cars with off-the-shelf mechanicals.

State-owned Renault, on the other hand, seems to believe that following the herd is the right thing to do. If ovals are in, their design committees choose ovals - without bothering to consider that all ovals look pretty much alike - made in Japan or made in France - especially if you put too many of them on any one car.

Renault has spent a lot of money lately on publicity for another spin-off of a car called Mégane - which is itself a mutation of the Renault 19, I think. For a long time all Renaults had numbers for different models: R4, R5, the famous R16, and the later R20 and R25 are examples, and you could keep up with their evolutions. But this has been dropped in favor of invented names like 'Mégane.' Their 'Twingo' looks like a twingo, but what can a mégane be?

Whatever it is, the Mégane is a complete series of cars: a hatch-back sedan, a sedan with a trunk proportional to its size, a coupe that is extremely unproportional, a nifty convertible - and what the recent publicity money was spent on - a 'monospace.'

A 'monospace' is a type of car - in this case, the name is 'Scenic' - that Renault has been trying to make synonymous with 'van-with-windows.' Renault already has one; the highly successful 'Espace.' The monospace 'Scenic' is a Mégane station wagon, or estate-car or 'van-with-windows' that is small.

It could be useful for running a car-pool load of small kids to schools and back, but would be dubious if you had to include a week's worth of groceries for them at the same time, or if they became teenagers. As for going on holidays in it - you probably need an Espace instead.

For people who are sentimental about Renault, be assured that the good old R5 is still in production, and it looks pretty much like the original. In the brochure it is called the 'Renault 5 Bye Bye' which might be a hint to get a Twingo instead. There is also a 'Clio,' which is a more modern R5, probably for people who think a Twingo is too frivolous. Then comes Mégane and its variants; the 'Laguna' which replaced the R21; the 'Safrane' which replaced the R25; and finally the Espace. No, not finally, because there is a new, bigger, 'Espace,' which is described as being a 'new dimension' - but without its own new name. Maybe 'Superspace' would do? One version of the R5 was called 'Super Cinq' after all.

For those who have read this far in hopes that I will throw in a little car-talk instead of marketing gibberish, here goes: Citroën's medium-sized car - which has gone through its name changes too and is now called, 'Xantia,' and was not designed by Italians, but could have been - has just had a V6 motor plopped into it. Three cubed litres, 24 valves, four overhead cams and 194 horsepower worth. It also has the 'Activa' suspension - the new version of the old Citroën hydro-pneumatic - plus an active rear-end set of wheels, that turn into corners. This is coupled with active anti-roll and a five-speed gearbox. Citroën stresses increased passenger comfort from all this but we know that this stuff has been put on the car for drivers who like fast speeds on narrow roads.

This version of the Xantia is a police 'sleeper.' Outside of the marketing department's idiotic idea of putting a stuck-on wing on the lip of the short trunk deck, the only signs of its potency are a tiny 'V6' at the back and 'Activa' logos in the side trim, almost too small to read. Oh yes, there's also telltale twin exhaust pipes peeking out discreetly at the back.

All the goodies add up to a fair amount of weight, resulting in high gas consumption around town - 15.L/100 km - but it is supposed to do zero to 100 in 8.3 seconds and it tops out around 230 kph. If it works on the street like it does on paper, this is a sneaky car for rich school teachers looking for fun fun fun on the autobahn.

For high class bodies I go back to Pininfarina. While Peugeot uses this Italian company to add cool lines to its standard fare, few Italian mass-producers do. Ferrari does though, with stupendous results. Alfa Romeo, which makes a lot of bread-and-butter cars these days that are truly ugly - had a stunning vehicle done by Pininfarina named 'Nuvola' - that sort of looked like a large Italian version of a late '50's British hardtop roadster - done extremely right. A sort of up-to-date Bugatti Royale coupé, if I may mix nationalities a bit. I have no idea if it has a motor in it and I don't care. Just looking at one of these things can make a person actually like cars again.

For this article I intended to stick with the French manufacturers - with these little comments about 'help from the Italians' - but before anyone forgets, this show is the world's international car show of this year - and all the other manufacturers have their latest offerings on view here as well. There are supposed to be something like 20 world 'premieres' altogether. Metropole is not a car magazine though, so I leave these out for you to see on TV or in your favorite car magazines.

The Americans are slowly coming back to Europe as the world goes over to global marketing and standardized technology. I was lucky to find, sort of off in a corner of Chrysler's stand, a perfectly preserved 1925 model four-door sedan. It was their 'B70,' which stood for 70 mph and it cost $1825 when it was new 71 years ago - without airbags.