Inside the racing area of the Cité de l'Automobile, scenery, sound effects, images, and even smells recreate the atmosphere of the starting line of a circuit. Ancient car models constructed by Panhard, Bugatti, Mercedes, Maserati, or Lotus are aligned on each side of a central alley. Some of them sometimes circle the rings of the nearby autodrome to entertain the thousands of annual visitors to the museum opened in 1982.