Musee National de l'automobile 2015

Musée National de l'automobile 2015

Musée National de l'automobile 2015, Cité de l�Automobile, Collection Schlumpf is an automobile museum of classic automobiles and largest and most comprehensive collection of Bugatti motor vehicles in the world.Gallery 1

04/10/2015

Mulhouse,

France

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GALLERY 1

GALLERY 2

Cité de l'Automobile, Musée national de l'automobile, Collection Schlumpf is an automobile museum located in Mulhouse, France, and built around the Schlumpf Collection of classic automobiles. It contains the largest and most comprehensive collection of Bugatti motor vehicles in the world.

It is not easy to render the passion animating these two brothers who - at a time when old cars were scrapped- came to the idea of buying, repairing and refurbishing 437 cars representing the epic of the European luxury car. All these jewels are now arranged in groups on washed gravel, crossed by tiled terracota coloured paths in a 17 000 sqm room, lit by 845 lampposts identical to those of the Alexandre III bridge in Paris, and voiced by a mechanical Mortier organ contemporary to the cars. It is the fulfillment of a dream. The work of the Schlumpf-brothers, testimony for the future generations will remain in Mulhouse for ever.

After three days, at the French authorities instigation, the SCHLUMPF brothers are brought to the Swiss border, in Basel where they officially took up residence. The H.K.C. factory is then occupied and the whole world discovers and admires a prestigious collection which is quickly envied. Some people claim that the collection could be collected only to the detriment of the industrial activity of the Schlumpf companies, which is inaccurate. Others, especially the authorities, see at once the immense benefits it could generate for Mulhouse and the Alsace region.

Schlumpf affair In 1978, the government ordered most of the Schumpf collection put on the historical register.

Cars are then sold in 1982 by the property managers appointed during the sales of all the possessions of the SCHLUMPF brothers for an absurdly low price of 44.000.000,00 Francs to the association owner of the National Museum of the Motorcar- the aforementioned association being essentially constituted by state, regional and local authorities such as the city of Mulhouse, the Alsace Region , the Haut-Rhin département , the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, etc-. The SCHLUMPF brothers are thus deprived of all their possessions.

Another association, responsible for the management, has to run the Museum on a daily basis.

On July 10, 1982, the Museum opens its doors officially. In ten years it will receive over four million visitors and will be consecrated as "The first car collection in the world ". Countless procedures marked the judicial column of what has been called " the tremendous legal battle of the SCHLUMPF case ".

After the interventions of the presidents of the Bar Wachsmann and Schreckenberg and of Mr. Martin Meyer attorney in Strasbourg, the Court of Appeal of Paris, presided by the man who became the highest Magistrate in France some months later, officially reintroduced the SCHLUMPF patronymic in the naming of the Museum in May 1988.

After having visited the museum, the magistrates wanted to do the founders of the Museum justice. They determined : " That the action of gathering and collecting and the passion that inspired their authors constituted and continues to constitute a message and a testimony the creative initiative of which deserves protection as being the expression of a right of the personality close to the moral right ". They underlined Fritz and Hans SCHLUMPF's personal initiative, considering that it deserved a judicial protection and that it was " the work of a man testifying of a specific time and of a creative genius ".

Bentley Cabriolet 4.25 1937

Bentley Cabriolet 4.25 1937

Bugatti 35B-8 Type 43 1931

Bugatti 68B-4 1942