Satan's barge - 1983 Ferrari 400i
Discussion
Somehow, I'm finding the strength to get through this.
A tip for anyone attending Angouleme for the first time. Our tickets were booked and paid for online, and we received a receipt by email. But the tickets themselves had to be collected in-person from a stall in the town, where you show your email receipt, sign a huge ledger (which may then become part of a historical archive deep in the catacombs - I can't think of any other reason they would do it this way), and they hand you an A4 envelope containing a single wristband for admission to your allotted grandstand area.
We had two tickets, so that was two signatures and two A4 envelopes. It's quaint, but I'm glad we stumbled on this on the Saturday when we had plenty of time and the queues weren't too bad. This is a mere trifle, though. The whole event was wonderfully organised and terrific value.
We left this morning and drove east to Vichy. From the passenger seat, I took the opportunity to survey things from a different angle.
As another poster noted, the fusebox in the passenger footwell is right up against the bulkhead and exposed to volcanic heat that can cause things to melt, so we are running with carpet peeled back and the fusebox lid open.
The headlining is a sort of soft tweed
Plenty of space in the back
and easily enough room for luggage for a two week holiday
En route, we took a detour near Clermont-Ferrand to drive the roads that formed most of the old Circuit de Charade, a five mile track which hosted the French GP in 1965, 1969, 1970 and 1972, eventually replaced by a closed circuit half the length
It's a beautiful setting, and was completely deserted.
It must have been a wonderful place to race a single-seater. This is the view from the infield across to Clermont-Ferrand
A tip for anyone attending Angouleme for the first time. Our tickets were booked and paid for online, and we received a receipt by email. But the tickets themselves had to be collected in-person from a stall in the town, where you show your email receipt, sign a huge ledger (which may then become part of a historical archive deep in the catacombs - I can't think of any other reason they would do it this way), and they hand you an A4 envelope containing a single wristband for admission to your allotted grandstand area.
We had two tickets, so that was two signatures and two A4 envelopes. It's quaint, but I'm glad we stumbled on this on the Saturday when we had plenty of time and the queues weren't too bad. This is a mere trifle, though. The whole event was wonderfully organised and terrific value.
We left this morning and drove east to Vichy. From the passenger seat, I took the opportunity to survey things from a different angle.
As another poster noted, the fusebox in the passenger footwell is right up against the bulkhead and exposed to volcanic heat that can cause things to melt, so we are running with carpet peeled back and the fusebox lid open.
The headlining is a sort of soft tweed
Plenty of space in the back
and easily enough room for luggage for a two week holiday
En route, we took a detour near Clermont-Ferrand to drive the roads that formed most of the old Circuit de Charade, a five mile track which hosted the French GP in 1965, 1969, 1970 and 1972, eventually replaced by a closed circuit half the length
It's a beautiful setting, and was completely deserted.
It must have been a wonderful place to race a single-seater. This is the view from the infield across to Clermont-Ferrand
Mr Tidy said:
Some great photos there OP. 
That Delage looks fantastic and I always loved the looks of the 504 Coupe, especially with a V6! The nearest I ever got was a 2.8i Capri.
I was surprised. I thought they were all four pot engines. It was a beautiful thing. Lashings of golden velour.That Delage looks fantastic and I always loved the looks of the 504 Coupe, especially with a V6! The nearest I ever got was a 2.8i Capri.
Vichy was very agreeable and there was far too much to see in just the evening we had. It was great weather today for a fairly long trip from there to Mulhouse on the Swiss border. Superb and mostly empty roads. We stopped halfway in Beaune, and got some mustard at the mustard joint
and did some early Christmas shopping in the wine shops. Since leaving Angouleme yesterday, I've eaten a lot of raw meat and bought a lot of petrol. I'm not completely confident that my fuel pumps are both working properly and the fuel gauge and odo definitely aren't, so I'm stopping regularly for top-ups and put in around £200 of super today. Some of it was even Italian, for extra performance
bought from an old fashioned garage where the shop smelled of engine oil and Kitkats.
The car has been faultless, and is so well suited to these roads and the auto transmission makes perfect sense for this sort of driving. Just cruising for hour after hour at a constant speed.
Arrived in a little town near Mulhouse just after 6pm.
and did some early Christmas shopping in the wine shops. Since leaving Angouleme yesterday, I've eaten a lot of raw meat and bought a lot of petrol. I'm not completely confident that my fuel pumps are both working properly and the fuel gauge and odo definitely aren't, so I'm stopping regularly for top-ups and put in around £200 of super today. Some of it was even Italian, for extra performance
bought from an old fashioned garage where the shop smelled of engine oil and Kitkats.
The car has been faultless, and is so well suited to these roads and the auto transmission makes perfect sense for this sort of driving. Just cruising for hour after hour at a constant speed.
Arrived in a little town near Mulhouse just after 6pm.
jeremyc said:
Rumdoodle said:
Very smart. Is that a non-UK plate?
No, it's a UK 'plate DUK3F.Owned by Merlin McCormack at Duke of London. His instagram has many pictures of the car (and it's restoration): https://www.instagram.com/duke_of_london/
Crossed over to Germany today to the Vitra Design Museum near Basel.
As far as interior decor is concerned, I'm mostly a Chesterfield, shag pile rug and candlabra man, but apparently there is a world of colour and light out there. I was heartened to find that the Austin Powers / Ron Burgundy style is very much "in". That is a big egg in the corner. Just a big egg.
This is a slide. You slide down it. I slid down it.
And, in the giftshop, a book that is not afraid to tackle the big topic of our times.
Tomorrow, a trip to Molsheim and then an afternoon at the Schlumpf collection.
Nice, cool weather today for a short trip to Molsheim, the home of Bugatti. There are a couple of Bugatti-themed rooms at the Musee de la Chartreuse, a name more associated with this
which, in my younger days, might have been the cause of some long, strange, introspective experiences. Two of the three cars on show were, inevitably, on loan from the Schlumpf Collection. Last weekend was the annual Molsheim Bugatti festival.
It clashed with Angouleme, where there were probably more Grand Prix Bugattis competing in one event than ever before.
which, in my younger days, might have been the cause of some long, strange, introspective experiences. Two of the three cars on show were, inevitably, on loan from the Schlumpf Collection. Last weekend was the annual Molsheim Bugatti festival.
It clashed with Angouleme, where there were probably more Grand Prix Bugattis competing in one event than ever before.
I've only really started taking an interest in Bugattis in the last few years, and had concluded that if there was one car I would really like to drive that I haven't already, it would be a Grand Prix Type 35. (That was until last weekend, when I saw the straight eight Delage at full chat and relegated the Bugatti to second place in my affections - it was glorious.) However, there is one model that has always fascinated me, and that was the Royale. During the late '80s classic car investment bubble, a Royale achieved the highest price ever for a car at auction, at around $6.5m. This was long before I got my driving licence, and when I was amassing mountains of books and magazines about cars. Such an unfathomably valuable thing attained an almost mythical status in my imagination. The classic car magazines in 1985 reported that all six Royales had been brought together for the first time, at Pebble Beach, which must have been magnificent. Until today, I had never seen one in the metal.
For those who might not be familiar with the Schlumpf brothers, they were two of the most influential figures in the history of Bugatti and in French motoring heritage. Hans and Fritz created a textile empire in Mulhouse, an area of France that changed hands between the French and Germans at various times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After the war, they began buying up all the Bugattis they could find, and many other veteran and vintage cars. When the Bugatti company was sold to Hispano-Suiza, the Schlumpfs bought up all the assets, including whole cars, parts and toolings. In the 1960s, they bought thirty Bugattis from an American collector called John Shakespeare, including a Royale, for less than $100k for the lot. They ended up with two of the six Royales built in a collection totalling over 120 Bugattis and hundreds of other cars, including a Mercedes 300SLR, of the type used by Moss and Jenkinson to win the 1955 Mille Miglia and one of which was sold for $140m last year, and two pre-war Mercedes Grand Prix cars. This immense private collection was intended to one day be opened as a museum dedicated to their mother. But, when their textile businesses went belly up in the late '70s, they fled to Switzerland, their disgruntled workers broke into the workshops and storage halls, and found what was almost certainly the most valuable car collection in the world. It was appropriated by the government and ultimately became the French National Automobile Collection. When it became known, this saga was unlike anything ever heard of in the classic car world. Denis Jenkinson was one of the first journalists to visit after the flight of the Schlumpfs, and wrote an excellent book that is still a useful reference work forty years later.
So, I finally made it to the Schlumpf Collection this morning, and it was absolutely amazing. First, in the car park, for you Mercedes lickers
some crazy fool appeared to have driven a classic Ferrari all the way from the UK
and this Dutch registered Healey had come from the Lonville Classic, a rather exclusive annual European Tour
For those who might not be familiar with the Schlumpf brothers, they were two of the most influential figures in the history of Bugatti and in French motoring heritage. Hans and Fritz created a textile empire in Mulhouse, an area of France that changed hands between the French and Germans at various times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After the war, they began buying up all the Bugattis they could find, and many other veteran and vintage cars. When the Bugatti company was sold to Hispano-Suiza, the Schlumpfs bought up all the assets, including whole cars, parts and toolings. In the 1960s, they bought thirty Bugattis from an American collector called John Shakespeare, including a Royale, for less than $100k for the lot. They ended up with two of the six Royales built in a collection totalling over 120 Bugattis and hundreds of other cars, including a Mercedes 300SLR, of the type used by Moss and Jenkinson to win the 1955 Mille Miglia and one of which was sold for $140m last year, and two pre-war Mercedes Grand Prix cars. This immense private collection was intended to one day be opened as a museum dedicated to their mother. But, when their textile businesses went belly up in the late '70s, they fled to Switzerland, their disgruntled workers broke into the workshops and storage halls, and found what was almost certainly the most valuable car collection in the world. It was appropriated by the government and ultimately became the French National Automobile Collection. When it became known, this saga was unlike anything ever heard of in the classic car world. Denis Jenkinson was one of the first journalists to visit after the flight of the Schlumpfs, and wrote an excellent book that is still a useful reference work forty years later.
So, I finally made it to the Schlumpf Collection this morning, and it was absolutely amazing. First, in the car park, for you Mercedes lickers
some crazy fool appeared to have driven a classic Ferrari all the way from the UK
and this Dutch registered Healey had come from the Lonville Classic, a rather exclusive annual European Tour
Edited by Rumdoodle on Friday 22 September 21:12
As for the exhibits - there are plenty of much better pictures online than the ones I took. In the main Bugatti hall, the lighting is not great for photos. So, I'll just post a few here. Finally seeing these two Royales was wonderful.
I stood looking at this for ages, just thinking, "This is - CAR"
So many other Bugattis, such as this extraordinary Type 46
and another Type 46 that was bought secondhand by a family that then did 300,000km in it before sending it back to the factory rather than to the breaker's yard
So many examples of obscure veteran makes that I had not heard of. Some of the most remarkable products by companies whose names have such romantic historical resonance - Delahaye
Voisin
Pegaso
Hispano-Suiza
And other highlights, the utterly charming Panhards
An immaculate Lagonda
Mercedes Grand Prix cars - a 1937 W125 and a 1939 W154, each nearly 500bhp
And the greatest temple to one of the motor industry's geniuses
And here's an unusual picture of a man who seems reassuringly in control of what he is doing, whatever that is. And, may I say, very well dressed for the occasion
So - go and do Schlumpf. These flawed eccentrics unintentionally bequeathed to the world a magnificent treasure, much of which might otherwise be locked away in private collections.
I stood looking at this for ages, just thinking, "This is - CAR"
So many other Bugattis, such as this extraordinary Type 46
and another Type 46 that was bought secondhand by a family that then did 300,000km in it before sending it back to the factory rather than to the breaker's yard
So many examples of obscure veteran makes that I had not heard of. Some of the most remarkable products by companies whose names have such romantic historical resonance - Delahaye
Voisin
Pegaso
Hispano-Suiza
And other highlights, the utterly charming Panhards
An immaculate Lagonda
Mercedes Grand Prix cars - a 1937 W125 and a 1939 W154, each nearly 500bhp
And the greatest temple to one of the motor industry's geniuses
And here's an unusual picture of a man who seems reassuringly in control of what he is doing, whatever that is. And, may I say, very well dressed for the occasion
So - go and do Schlumpf. These flawed eccentrics unintentionally bequeathed to the world a magnificent treasure, much of which might otherwise be locked away in private collections.
bolidemichael said:
I'd highly recommend the Bugatti Trust at Prescott Hill Climb, too. If you visit on a quiet weekday, as I did once on my (upcoming!) birthday, you might have a personal tour by the collection's curator and chief archivist. The Bugatti Trust was actually formed during Ettore's lifetime and Jean Bugatti even visited and tackled the hill climb.
I've been meaning to get to Prescott. It's on the list for next year!bolidemichael said:
La Vie en Rose is the hallmark event, but it's a great atmosphere irrespective.
I did once read a review of the Royale, by an individual that was tasked with limbering it up prior to the auction -- the one in Monterey/Pebble Beach that you mention must've been the one, as it was an archived review from the 80s iirc. He says that it was wooden and leaden initially and he was so disappointed to have 'met his idol'; yet, after a few days driving and a few miles under its belt, the Italian tune up worked its magic and it was lithe and sprightly, completely defying its enormous stature.
Ettore's genius was in the visualisation of the chassis flex points; his extreme dyslexia made him a powerful visual thinker and that translated well to his creations.
Somewhere, I have a copy of either C&SC or Classic Cars featuring a road test of a Royale by one of their journos. Might have been Mike McCarthy. I'll dig it out when I get home.I did once read a review of the Royale, by an individual that was tasked with limbering it up prior to the auction -- the one in Monterey/Pebble Beach that you mention must've been the one, as it was an archived review from the 80s iirc. He says that it was wooden and leaden initially and he was so disappointed to have 'met his idol'; yet, after a few days driving and a few miles under its belt, the Italian tune up worked its magic and it was lithe and sprightly, completely defying its enormous stature.
Ettore's genius was in the visualisation of the chassis flex points; his extreme dyslexia made him a powerful visual thinker and that translated well to his creations.
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