I believe the general consensus as to why the Mafac Racers and the lettered Competitions are despised - mechanical ability aside - is the fact that the finish on them is less then spectacular. Rough is more like it.

I've seen some Mafac Competitions on eBay that are finished off better then the lettered version though - those aren't too bad, visually, but I rarely see a VLW with these variants mounted to it.

-Kurt