As I mentioned earlier, I ventured on a quest to discover the most important European car museums, but that doesn’t mean, that I will not take the time to regularly revisit those that I already saw. This is particularly true to Autoworld, as the Belgian national museum is one of the closest located museums, and gives plenty of reasons to go for a subscription. I am planning to write a more comprehensive post on the permanent exhibition of Autoworld at some stage, but the real deal is the series of guest exhibitions in the annual calendar. The Museum usually hosts four-six major exhibitions a year, where several dozen cars occupy the main gallery on the first floor.
In between the main exhibitions, two ground floor exposition spaces are available for smaller (sometimes ad hoc) exhibitions encompassing about a dozen cars. These shows often serve as warmups, e.g. before the quite impressive Ferrari 70 exhibition, the ground floor welcomed a surprisingly comprehensive expo about the 50-year-old Dino engine and the short-lived Dino brand. Today’s post is about such an interim show.
The current expo is about Belgian racing success in Le Mans and is already open for a while, you can still catch it until the end of the month. In case you are wondering, this will be more than just a couple of cars that Jacky Ickx drove to Victory. The history of Belgians in the world’s greatest race goes back to 1923, when the very first race took place. The Museum noted 101 drivers with 296 participations resulted in 12 overall victories (okay, six goes to Le Mans legend Ickx alone), 24 podium finishes, 48 class victories and one Ladies’ Cup. Swaters, Beurlys, Bianchi, Frère, Gendebien, Mairesse, Rouselle and Dubois played a leading role in the first ‘yellow armada’. The first set of cars by the entrance provides a few beautiful examples of pre- and post-WW II cars.
For the second wave the organisers highlighted drivers like Ickx, Boutsen, Dieudonné, Van de Poele, Duez, De Drijver, Witmeur, Libert, “Christine”, Regout. From the press photos, I saw a press event with many of them personally present. The collection on this side is usually more fancy, this is no exception. Porsche 906, the Peugeot 905 (I saw one in action recently at the 2018 Spa Classic) the evergreen 911 and the legendary D Type, the selection is quite diverse.
What I particularly like about the Autoworld, is the love for little details, such as the small scale models that accompanied almost every exhibition, but in this case also cups, helmets and a complete race outfit from Thierry Boutsen.
FOR AN OVERVIEW OF ALL THE CAR MUSEUMS I EVER VISITED, CHECK OUT THE INTERACTIVE MAP:
