The European Chronicles - 2022.3 The Most Beautiful Car Collection In The World

July 26, 2022

The European Chronicles - 2022.3 The Most Beautiful Car Collection In The World

And They May Be Right

The Musée National de l'Automobile - Collection Schlumpf "houses the most beautiful automobile collection in the world with more than 450 exceptional cars. In 1957 the Schlumpf brothers bought a former woolen mill where they installed their entire collection a few years later."

I'll leave this here in case you'd like more information: Schlumpf Museum

It IS a pretty stunning place, with more Bugatti than you can possibly imagine. There is no possible way I can do these vehicles justice, so really this is simply a "photo dump" with a few comments along the way.

You walk across a bridge over a small creek to an interesting entrance.

The flying car theme is carried over inside as well.

Pay the entrance fee, stroll down a hall adjacent to a luxurious sitting area with a few cars along the way. I'm thinking, "is this their display theme?"

Then you enter the main exhibit hall, confronting this:

So here we go, pretty much in my unscientific wander around aimlessly, "oh, look, that's pretty" order:

I will, however, start with something French because it is the polite thing to do...

Bugatti

How do you say "weird" in French? Or, perhaps more apropos, ahead of its time.

More Bugatti

By the way, the Bugatti factory is not that far from here but, unfortunately, they don't do tours. Triste.

Ok, now THIS has some bling!

Not so much for the driver.

They call me "Fenders."

Some Benz

Perhaps the weirdest Aston Martin ever made, the Lagonda

Love the juxtaposition.

Lotus 7 and a Renault Alpine. The Alpine is actually smaller.

Speaking of smaller...

A Citroen SM, the original low rider.

A few Ferrari

A Renault Dauphine, ours was black.

My father bought one sometime around 1963 or 4 as a "station car" to drive himself to the LIRR station and catch the train into the city. He bought it for 2 reasons: he didn't want to buy German (WWII) and my mother could not drive a manual; the Renault offered an "automatic manual" transmission, unique at the time (and since, for good reason). No clutch, but you still had to shift gears. The shifter had a sensor that operated the clutch electro-mechanically and allowed you to change gears.

Or that's what was supposed to happen.

It was rear engined and rear wheel drive, just like the VW Beetle, the main competitor at the time. Water cooled though, and it was great in the snow. That transmission...an absolute piece of junk, the electrical contacts would constantly deteriorate and leave you unable to shift at all. By the way, in the something like 12 years we owned it, my mother never drove it. Not once.