French Automobile Museum

On a very rainy Sunday afternoon we ventured off to Mulhouse, France (about 25 minutes from Basel) to take in the Automobile Museum. The entrance line was out the door so we knew it must be good & we were not disappointed.

The history of the Fritz Schlumpf collection is quite a story & the collection is now housed in the factory building he once owned. The building is masterfully laid out & even with a throng of visitors it wasn't cramped. We could look at the cars on both sides of the aisle without missing anything & at the end of each aisle there were special exhibits (new Bugatti models and filmed test track demos, a film on how cars are assembled, a movie about the racing industry).

Over 400 cars (all of which are in working order and fully restored) come from as far back as the late 1800 pioneers to present day race cars. Plaques in French/German/English are displayed in front of each model giving you a brief overview of the car. Some cars have an audio guide number and provide more information about a particular model. A history of many famous car companies (Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Maserati, Bugatti, etc.) as well as many companies that are now out of business are detailed in audio guide 'extras' if you really want to get into the weeds (which were well worth it). The last aisle of cars was what we called the 'gangster cars'. All those huge cars from the 1930's with huge swooping fenders and wide running boards - you can almost see Al Capone firing his Tommy gun out of them. See pictures here.