Cité de l'Automobile

The story of the Schlumpf Collection is one of the strangest in automotive history, and it begins not with cars but with wool. Fritz and Hans Schlumpf ran a textile business in Alsace that made them very wealthy. What they did with that wealth, in secret, over roughly two decades, was acquire the finest automobiles in Europe — Bugattis in particular — by any means available to them, including purchasing cars directly from the estates of deceased collectors, from struggling museums, and from private owners who didn't fully understand what they were selling.

By 1977, the Schlumpf brothers had assembled approximately 560 vehicles in a converted textile factory in Mulhouse. Their workers, who had not been paid for months, broke in one night and found the collection — illuminated by gas street lamps Fritz had installed inside the building as if to create his own private city. The revelations triggered a national scandal in France. The collection was nationalized, the brothers fled to Switzerland, and in 1982, after years of legal proceedings, the collection opened to the public as the Cité de l'Automobile.

Today it remains the largest automobile museum in the world by vehicle count, and the most significant single concentration of Bugattis anywhere on Earth. Of the six surviving Bugatti Type 41 Royales — the vast, pre-war grand tourers Ettore Bugatti built for royalty — the museum holds two originals. The building retains something of its original character: a vast single floor, those famous lamp posts still standing, and a density of significant vehicles that makes sustained attention nearly impossible. Plan multiple visits if you can.