Believe it or not, by the time I reached the end wing of the museum where the racing cars were displayed, I'd already been there a couple of hours. I was aware of the time, and the fact I only had another hour or so before the museum closed, and as a result, I probably didn't spend as much time in this area as I would have liked. When I return, I'll spend less time in the veteran car section, and more time in the racing car section. But because this first visit I knew I'd be sharing on here, I wanted to try and cover the whole museum.
Anyway, this end wing is dedicated to the history of motor racing, and more to the point, Grand Prix racing, which, of course, began in France. The museum manages to cover almost every era of Grand Prix racing, including a couple of cars from the pre-Grand Prix era. The Schlumpf brothers had accumulated racing cars dating back to 1904, and through to the 1970 Ferrari 312B I posted earlier in the thread. Since the brothers fled in the 1970s, the collection has been added to with the addition of more modern racing cars.
Grand Prix racing began in 1906, and evolved into the Formula 1 World Championship which began in 1950. But it was essentially created because of manufacturers being dissatisfied with the rules of the big international race of the time, the Gordon Bennett race, which focused on countries being represented, rather than brands. As such, only one entry per country was accepted, which the manufacturers didn't like, for obvious reasons.
Grand Prix racing rules changed regularly, and the collection here manages to have at least one representative of almost every era up to the 1970s. From there its a little more loose.
In addition are a great selection of sports cars, with Le Mans being such an important race to the French.
This is looking from one end of the racing car wing, starting with the oldest cars.
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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes
