The history of the Automobile Museum begins well before its official opening in 1982. In the 20th century, Mulhouse was an industrial city. Among his spinning mills, he has that of the Schlumpf brothers, whose youngest, Fritz, will start a large collection of cars. In a few years, he accumulated hundreds of vehicles, but in the meantime the family business went bankrupt and the private collection became a museum.
Despite all its strengths, its success does not match its incredible heritage. Elia Saunier, curator of the museum, the reasons are quite clear. First: a bad reputation of the city, wrongly. In addition, “people from here only come once but don’t return,” she observes.
One of the largest Bugatti collections in the world
However, the museum has something to attract: one of the largest collections of Bugattis in the world, unique vehicles and, moreover, astonishing activities such as car flipping, an attraction appreciated by visitors, or the autodrome, on which the public can take car rides.
And yet, the attendance of Mulhouse residents and more broadly Alsatians is relatively low: of the 240,000 people who visited the museum in 2023, almost half are foreigners and on the French side, a high proportion comes from other regions, indicates Guillaume Gasser, the director.
A new exhibition in December
He and his team have no shortage of arguments to attract visitors. “The Automobile Museum has reinvented itself over time and there is always something to discover,” underlines Guillaume Gasser. For example, he mentions the exhibition which will start in December, dedicated to rally cars. The curator invites Mulhouse residents to take greater ownership of the museum.
