Visiting Fritz Schlump's dream - 02-02-2009
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by Mike Wraith
The Cité de l’Automobile at Mulhouse is a surprising sort of place: around 400 beautifully restored cars spanning the complete history of European motoring fill an enormous room lit by decorative street lights. And the story of how wool magnate Fritz Schlumpf built the collection in semi secret within the confines of his own mills has the flavour of an Alsatian ‘Citizen Kane’.
A cold February Sunday morning saw a group of seventeen ESC members, with an age range only slightly less wide than that of the cars on display in the museum, leave Strasbourg station to check out the dream for themselves.
For the car enthusiast the temptation to linger for days must be overwhelming. And even the most casual observer is struck by the rapid transition from the first ‘soap box on wooden wheels’, through the stately limousines of the 1920s, to the present day sumptuous Bugatti.
There is also scope to get yourself photographed in period costume in some of the exhibits, or (for the most adventurous) to be strapped into a modern model while it simulates a multiple roll. And of course there’s a cheerful self service restaurant for when you start to flag.
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