En voiture, Simone – the race pioneer

You may have heard this week’s popular French expression, ‘En voiture, Simone’. It means “let’s go!”… but, have you ever wondered where it came from? Or who Simone is or was?

The splendidly named Simone Louise de Pinet de Borde des Forest was born in Royan, Charente-Maritime and in 1929, at the age of 1919, she was one of the first women to obtain her driving licence.

A year later she became the first French woman to race a car, when she took part in the Côte de la Baraque road race near Clermont-Ferrand. She later won the Monte Carlo Rally, set world speed records at the banked circuit at Montlhéry and drove a Red Cross truck during the war.

Her confidence and success in the male-dominated racing world was admired by many people, especially Argentinian race champion Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s. This racing fame is not, however, the reason the expression featuring her name is so popular: like many a modern-day catchphrase, it comes from TV.

Game show presenter named Guy Lux started the trend when he and co-presenters Léon Zitrone and Simone Garnier presented Intervalles in 1962. To start one of the show’s regular games, Lux would tell Simone “En voiture, Simone!” meaning, “Start the game!” as a reference to Simone des Forest.

Nowadays, the phrase is used to signal the start of a game, or is simply used as a way to say “let’s go” in a humorous way.