Remember Beaumont well, as described. Nice stuff parked up and chaps on the cafe terrace overlooking the junction. There would always be something nice or funny there, D-Types/Astons, or the Gulf-liveried Reliant Robins in latter years!
The newish motorway from Rouen is convenient, but we still take the old N138 route to/from Le Mans from about Sees, just for a bit of variety, the history of it, and for pre-motorway times sake. Still nice to do, although the villages that used to be full of people waving on the way back have virtually nobody out on the streets now.
MG Mark