The car event season kicked in so fast that we hardly had any time to visit old trusted places that held the line during the past year of confinement. In the past months, Belgian national museum Autoworld kept on with temporary exhibitions, so it was worth coming back from time to time. Our visit last week allowed us to catch up with two exhibitions with one go.
In addition, I had the opportunity to revisit the Spa Museum in the Abbey of Stavelot.
The 2018 article was refurbished with a few additional photos from the 2021 visit and received a layout more fitting to the website’s new design.
The Spa Francorchamps’ Museum is a worthy detour from the heat of the action
This August, Autoworld conjured some 35 race cars and motorbikes to pay tribute to the 100th anniversary of Belgium’s most famous race track, the Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps.
The cars are brought together were laid out along three major themes: the Grand Prix of Formula 1, the 1000 Kms/Spa 6 Hours and the Spa 24 Hours.
In order to cope with the need for additional space, the museum transformed the Sport & Competition and Design Story zones on the first floor into a large paddock where visitors have the opportunity to immerse themselves into the history of our Ardennes circuit.
In the F1 category, a few additional cars joined the permanent exhibition, including a classic Lotus, a Benetton, a Ligier and a De Tomaso.
The selection includes modern vehicles, like a 2004 Williams BMW and a 2008 Renault factory team car.
The gallery also hosts a lineup of classic touring cars, including European classics like BMW’s Batmobile 3.0 CSL, a Ford Capri, and an NSU 1200 TT.
There were even a few Japanese cars, like a Mazda RX7 with a Wankel engine and a Toyota Celica.
There is a series of modern endurance cars on a podium. The most astonishing is the charming Porsche 992 GT2 Juliet, rebodied as a Beetle wearing a Herbie livery, that raced at Spa in the 2019 season.
The new layout also meant that some exhibits were removed or relocated to other corners in the ground floors.
This allowed me to photograph a few interesting exhibits from several angles.
The 1938 Bugatti Type 57 redesigned by Jacques Brown was among those on my wish list. The car owes its existence to French sculptor Jacques Brown coachbuilt an old Type 57 chassis into a more aerodynamic form in line with the spirit of the ‘50s.
He used polyester for the body panels, thus saving weight and increasing performance. He was a well-known figure in the design world of that time, and his vision was highly praised for its modernity.
The other car that was brought a bit closer was a 1927 Packard Eight de Luxe Cabrio. This car is an Art Deco icon and a quintessence of the roaring twenties.
Autoworld honours the 100th birthday of Gillet motorcycles
In parallel with the exhibition celebrating the Spa Circuit, Autoworld pays tribute to another centenarian: the Gillet motorcycle brand.
To celebrate the event, the organisers promised no less than 80 motorbikes. I did not count them all, but I saw a lot of exhibits indeed.
In addition, five bicycles, 15 engines, and documentation and illustrations of the period supplement the exhibition in the gallery.
For an overview of the museums we visited, check out the interactive map:
