Our visit to Compiègne was a long-overdue debt since their desk at the 2020 Bonhams Auction. The catalogue of their ongoing Concept Car exhibition promised quite a few jaw-dropping specimens, like the Monaco Trossi race car we saw in Turin.
Due to some organisational misunderstandings, we did not get to see that show. In the end, the latest Retromobile gave us a perfect opportunity to catch up with their follow up exhibition dedicated to speed.
The Château de Compiègne is one of the major car museums in France, located on the outskirts of Paris. For centuries, the château served as a royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon.
Today, the Castle is operated as a museum with three distinct segments: the residence (the Château itself in its original function); the Museum of the Second Empire; and the National Car Museum, established in 1927, with a collection of carriages, bicycles, and pre-war automobiles. These segments offer a diverse selection of themes and artefacts, offering programs for everyone with its grand saloons with royal decorations.
Compiègne’s permanent exhibition has a stronger focus on pre-war vehicles, and the Museum hosts the actual Jamais Content. This electric car first broke the barrier of 100kmph in the entire world.
We have seen replicas in every major museum (for sure, we saw one in MAuto Turin, Cité in Mulhouse and Autoworld). Compiègne often receives reinforcements from other Museums for its temporary exhibitions, and the last one ended in March.
The Vitesse exhibition was dedicated to speed and featured pre and post-war race cars and a few oddities scattered throughout the rooms of the château.
The Vitesse exhibition illustrates mankind’s fascination to speed, from the origins of land transport history (Roman chariot) to the present day with over 50 vehicles and over 100 artefacts like stamps, drawings, paintings and sculptures.
The exhibition starts with basics, the oldest mode of transport, and the need for speed from the time before the birth of Christ. Their memories were kept throughout the centuries and had a particular revival in the 19th century. This chariot was presented at the 1889 World Fair in Paris and then at the transport exhibition organised as part of the Milan International Exhibition in 1906.
Next up, the grand hall features a few selected race cars, starting with the Lotus MK33 R9 from 1963. The race car boasts an iconic British racing green livery from the times when car liveries were denied by nationality and not sponsorship.
The 33 was quite successful under Jim Clark, winning the title in 1965 (and this was not the first title of Clark with Lotus).
The next car was a 1957 Maserati 250F in Italian racing colour.
This race car was built by the Maserati factory team and used in Formula One between 1954 and 1960, with legends like Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss behind the wheel.
The blue car is a 1948 Talbot-Lago T26C in France’s iconic blue livery. The T26C is derived from the company’s 1930s racing cars equipped with an atmospheric 4.5-litre straight-six engine paired with a four-speed Wilson preselector gearbox.
The T26C had made its racing debut in the 1948 Monaco Grand Prix and scored several victories in the coming years by drives like Louis Chiron, including winning at the 1950 Le Mans. During the 1950s, José Meiffret broke the bicycle speed record behind a Talbot-Lago.
The green Bentley 4½ -litre supercharged is one of the most iconic cars of the ‘30s. It’s hard to tell from its size and shape, but this mastodon scored five victories at Mans between 1924 and 1930.
The racing success vested Bentley with a reputation as a sports luxury car manufacturer. At the same time, the company founded by Walter Owen Bentley faced severe financial difficulties in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash. These troubles never seemed to stop, despite the generous contributions from its wealthy customers, the “Bentley boys”.
The Blower’s recipe was simple but the opposite of any successful constructor. Instead of refinement, Bentley went for brutality. Take a large and low-tech sturdy car, fit it with a massive engine, supercharge it and give enough fuel to compensate for the excess weight (and hope that the tires will last).
Following the improbable victory, the disappointed Ettore Bugatti was credited with saying, Mr Bentley still makes the fastest lorries in the world…
Next up, a silver arrow from 1939 awaited the visitors. The Mercedes W 154 was a pre-war Grand Prix racing car designed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut (the London born designer manager was credited with creating Merc’s iconic Gullwing 300SL).
The W154 competed in the 1938 and 1939 Grand Prix seasons, and Rudolf Caracciola won the 1938 European Championship. Some of the race cars surviving the apocalypse of the war raced in the late ‘40s with notable success.
The last car in the hall is a 1927 Bugatti 35C. The Type 35 was unveiled on 3 August 1924 and went on to be the most successful Bugatti racing model of all time.
With over 2000 victories, the Type 35 is one also of the most successful racing cars of all time. It is an iconic pre-war model that continues its success at auctions these days.
The Type 35C featured a Roots supercharger, despite Ettore’s hesitation. Type 35Cs won the French Grand Prix at Saint-Gaudens in 1928 and at Pau in 1930.
This hall exhibits a few two-wheelers, Gnome Rhône 175, a DS Malterre 175AMC, a Koekler Escoffier 1000, a Jonghi 350, a Peugeot 500M2 and an Alcyon 350 Zurcher.
Taking the stairs, the next hall takes us to a more diverse selection of vehicles.
