I'm sure you all know the intricate details of how this museum came into being. You don't? Oh. It includes successful woollen mills, addictive car collecting, secrecy, workers revolt, bankruptcy, fleeing to Switzerland, court cases, Government seizure etc. The museum itself was built by the Schlumpf brothers before their fortunes changed but was never opened. Only a select few people had ever seen what was in there until the workers occupied it in 1977 and the whole caboodle eventually came into the hands of the region.
Visiting the museum was the main reason why our holiday this year was in Alsace. It is simply amazing. I can't properly identify many/most of the cars I saw or photographed but it doesn't matter to me. It is such a fabulous place and and incredible collection of cars that if you are in anyway interested in cars and their history it is a must see. We were there for perhaps four hours. I could go back and spend several more days.
This new entrance hall, reached by crossing new bridges over the canal, was built only a few years ago and is fab in itself.
Once through the ticket hall you enter down a very dark slope with projections of early motoring videos to the sides. The first thing you come across is a long line of glass fronted cabinets filled with bonnet mascots. This photo is about half or less of what is on show.
Walking into the main hall itself is exactly as I expected having seen photos of the place in books/magazines/online.
It is very well organised and you walk up and down the aisles seeing the most of the cars in roughly chronological order. Then there is a separate aisle for racing machinery and finally back towards the beginning of the building, a separate darkened area with the 'cream of the crop'. This is a different organisation to the layout the brothers had it, which was mostly organised by manufacturer but the space and the way the cars are shown are identical to photos in a book I have that was published in 1977, when the museum was first accessible by the press/public.
There are a few extra rooms, the first one you enter being the 'shrine' to mother Schlumpf who was apparently a domineering character. The portrait of her overlooks a pair of pedal sized Bugatti T35 replicas.
So, into the museum proper...
You probably can't read it but I took this one partly for the description which includes 'The museum has no less than seven of them in its collection' The brothers bought indiscriminately.
This 1904 Hermes Simplex was designed/made by Bugatti while he worked for Mathis in Strasbourg. It is white as the Alsace region was German at the time and that was the national racing colour then - silver came later.
Compared to the many other cars of this era, I particularly liked the styling and shape on this 1913 Clement Bayard, the radiator particularly.
A Rolls Royce chassis.
Bugatti prototype BB of what was to become the Peugeot 'bebe', though I particularly liked the parge photograph behind of a lady holding a loose steering wheel while quite cheerily sitting in a crashed aeroplane while the chaps try and work out what to do next.
I found it! The Barrett Pantry Mk 1 !!!
No Joke!
About half way through the first set of aisles (excellently placed to cheer up kids approaching boredom) was the pedal car collection that I don't think was originally a Schlumpf element.
'Wow dad, these are ace!'
'Please can I have on, PLeeease?'
'Look there's even racing ones. Really, really want one daaaaaad.'
'Wait, WHAT! OMG dad! What have you done! I DID NOT WANT THAT ONE. Now I am the laughing stock of the street. I am NEVER talking to you again. EVER. EVER. EVER.
Both myself and Mrs_Seth wanted this contraption.
Moving on to slightly more recognisable '20s/'30s cars now, this really captivated me. Something about it struck a cord. I wonder if there was a photo of it in an old car book I had as a child.
Its a Type 35, basically a racing type car, but with such an amazing swoopy body and much smaller than most of the deco styled cars.
This was used for a cross Saharan adventure.
Some might say that Mr Porsche had only one design of car and hawked it about to whoever would listen...
Splumph! Mrs_Seth wanted to take this home, an Alfa 8C bodied by Pininfarina.
The placard about this car said it was quite special. Front wheel drive I think. I can't remember, not even what make it was.
V. early Traction.
White car was a post war prototype that enver made production.
In fact Bugatti generally struggled after WWII. I'm not sure I've ever seen a post war car in the UK, so it was incredible to see so many variants.
There were a couple of mad styling exercises on show, but very sadly no Arzens 'Ouef' which was something I had really wanted to see but was off being fixed or something.
Yellow car was, I think, a Gregoire prototype that was then used as the basis for the Panhard Dyna shown next to it.
Larger Gregoires. Black 'Sport' has a chassis made up of cast aluminium sections, a blown boxer four engine, rack and pinion steering and FWD.
There was a line up of more mundane vehicles, I expect purchased by the museum to make it more representative of more modern french output but having seen many examples at the small village car show the week before I did not look at them much.
Opposite them were some more 'special' cars.
Disco Volante Alfa.
One that I know interests Mr Barrett, the Alart, which has Simca underpinnings.
There are always slightly bemusing surprises in the museum though. A million pound plus 250LM, shown next to one of the currently least valuable Ferraris.
So that's the end of the first aisle section, next comes the race cars.
1903 Serpollet steamer.
Bugatti 'tank' still wearing its FoS stickers as were a couple of others.
Basically, there's an awful lot of blue here.
We just avoided getting run over by the road train though.
Silver arrows.
Moving into the slightly later era, where the winning cars tended to be red. These look like toys here.
A Bugatti special, with the 'correct' number of back wheels.
There was a friendship with Gordini, leading to many of the factory race cars ending up in the museum.
By the time you reach the sixties the winning cars became more green.
More sports cars too.
I couldn't resist taking this photo, seen in the kids corner.
So, if you're still with me, you then walk back across the end of all the aisles and into the dimmly lit 'special pace for special cars' These photos are dark. It was dark. And I'm not very good with flash so try my best to avoid using it.
Voisin.
Delahaye.
Bugattis. Lots of them.
You can see how tricky the lighting was.
But when you get to the Royales....
...it all makes sense. I thought the pair of them looked grander in this setting than the only other place I had seen a Royale (or four) at Goodwood.
There were far fewer people pushing in for a look so it was possible to take your time and suck up the details.
It was nice being able to stand back and compare the rather staid, Bentley like appearance of the Park Ward to the much more lavish Coupe de Ville that was Ettore's personal car.
There were more Bugattis of course, all those in this photo being Type 57s.
A couple of Silver Ghosts stood up for the English trade.
So that was it. Except there's a bit more. On the way out you walk past the 'seventh' Royale. Bugatti only made six by the Schlumpf brothers, having acquired sufficient parts to do so, built a seventh, the Esders Roadster. The original was re-bodied (as many cars were) when sold on early in its life and so it was recreated from the ground up over a period of about 10 years in the '60s-'70s using a combination of original and specially made parts and an all new body.
And a bit more. More Type 57s in fact including one in bits.
ANd then you walk through the cafe. All eating areas should have replicas of 110+ year old LSR cars.
And then the shop.
the only let down being, of course, the amount of Ferrari gubbins.
And so then you walk out, back across the canal somewhat dazed, confused but satisfied that you can now say 'I have been'
