For the Love of Fritz Part 2

Auto biographie – Pour l’amour de Fritz Broché – 10 avril 2009
de Arlette Schlumpf (Auteur), Bernard Reumaux (Collaborateur)

• Broché: 352 pages
• Editeur : La Nuée Bleue (10 avril 2009)
• Langue : Français
• ISBN-10: 2716507473
• ISBN-13: 978-2716507479
• Dimensions:24 x 2.6 x 15 cm

A summary and review by Gijsbert-Paul Berk
Part 2

Read Part 1

The time of happiness

Soon after they started courting, Fritz began teaching Arlette to enjoy the thrills and pleasures of fast driving and to discover the ideal lines for taking – in the shortest possible time but with a minimum of risk – the many curves on the roads in the Vosges area. They often competed, each in a separate car, just for the fun of it.

Arlette also remembered that Fritz took her to the Motor Shows in Geneva and in Paris. The couple stayed in the Hotel Royal Monceau and dined at the Restaurant Castel near the Boulevard Saint Germain, where one always met interesting and famous people. In the summer they drove to St. Tropez where Arlette suddenly stood eye-to-eye with Brigitte Bardot and both of them shyly smiled at each other.

From the book photographer unknown

Although Fritz could afford to stay in expensive hotels and have diner in the most exclusive restaurants – which they both enjoyed – Arlette discovered that he also liked simple things. In Gérardmer Fritz converted a boathouse where he kept his sailing boat into a very small but well-equipped studio, and they regularity spent their weekends there.

There were also the trips to the famous circuits; Reims, Montlhéry, Le Mans, Monaco and Monza. Fritz knew a lot of drivers and greatly enjoyed talking with them. At these racetracks he also met and became friends with Amédée Gordini and Enzo Ferrari. Both men would help him with his collection.

A weakness for Bugatti

Fritz was determined to bring together the most interesting cars ever made. In his heart he had a special weakness for Bugattis. Not only because it had been his first car or because these cars had been conceived and produced in the Alsace, his adopted country. But he very much admired the genius of Ettore – who he had personally known before the war – and of his talented son Jean Bugatti.

Being a methodical man, he wrote to all the Bugatti owners who figured in the register of the Bugatti Book published in 1954 by Barry Eaglesfield and C.W.P. Hampton. Fritz established good contacts with a number of dealers, brokers and collectors. Among them Erwin Eckert, Henri Malartre, Serge Pozzoli, Georges Fillipinetti, Antoine Raffaëllli, André Binda, Lucien Mette, Jo Siffert and the American John Shakespeare. In February 1964 Shakespeare sold Schlumpf a collection of 30 unique Bugattis for 85,000 USD.

In his book the Memoirs of a Bugatti Hunter, Antoine Raffaëllli recalls doing business with Fritz Schlumpf. “He often visited owners accompanied by the seller or middleman ‘à l’improviste’ (unannounced). After a short inspection of the car he immediately made an offer and showed the money. Of course, this did not always work. But Fritz was patient! Sometimes it took two or three years before the owner agreed”. Then, resumes Raffaëllli, “I received a check from Schumpf with the commission on the sale of a car I had completely forgotten”.

A number of the Bugattis Fritz acquired were in a mediocre condition and Fritz, who already had bought a stock of old spare parts from the former Bugatti plant in Molsheim, agreed with the management to have them restore these cars. This worked to prevent the dismissal of a number of Bugatti employees.

A similar agreement was made by Fritz with his old friend Amédée Gordini. When in 1965 Gordini sold his name and his services to Renault, they were not interested in his old sports and racing cars and had no employment for the mechanics that had so long worked for him or so long. This was a great disappointment for the ‘sorcier’ and it worried him to leave his men on the dole. Fritz proposed that he would pay Gordini’s men to restore and prepare these competition machines for his exposition. A grateful Amédée bequeathed his cars for free to the new Museum.

Sometimes Fritz was offered a rare automobile for nothing. This happened when he tried to buy a prewar Voisin from an old gentleman in Villefranche on the Riviera. Fritz had seen the beautiful conserved car and told owner that he would love to have it for his museum. But, as the man did not react at all, Schlumpf resumed. “You probably don’t want to part with it … “ Then the gentleman replied. “That is not the case. I am most flattered that you want to have my Voisin for your museum. But I do not want to sell it to you….. I think that l ought to give it to you! Because I know that you will take good care of it”. The Voisin is now one of the stars in the museum.

In her autobiography Arlette states that over the period from 1961 up to 1967, the Schlumpf brothers spend a total of some 6.7 million FRF (roughly 1 million Euro), not including the cost of restoration and import duty, to purchase their more than 550 cars. Later in the book she gives a figure of 2 million Euro, all in, and observes that at least three quarters of these cars was fully restored to their original state. She also stresses that 2 million (12.7 million FRF) represented only 0.5 % of the yearly turnover of the Schlumpf group of enterprises (estimated at over 400 million).

The most extraordinary car museum

Fritz not only started collecting car like a fanatic but he also spent a lot of time and energy to prepare the museum. In 1957 the brothers had bought HKC (Heimann, Koechlin & Compagnie), an old wool mill with large production halls, in the center of Mulhouse. Fritz thought this an ideal site for the Schumpf’s new enterprise.

According to Arlette’s book, in the beginning the local authorities of Mulhouse were not very helpful with providing all the necessary permits for converting the old factory into a state- of-the-art museum and create sufficient parking space. Thus, for a while the Schlumpf brothers considered alternatives. Switzerland was one possibility. Fritz and Arlette were even invited by Prince Rainier of Monaco, who also was a car enthusiast and even had a small private collection himself. With him they discussed the possibility to establish the museum in his Princedom. Somehow the media got wind of this visit and their articles plus a letter that Fritz had written to the Prefect of the Department Haut-Rhin alerted the Mayor and municipality of Mulhouse sufficiently to improve their attitude. So in the end Fritz and Hans decided that the collection would remain in Mulhouse.

It must be admitted that Mulhouse was not the most obvious choice to establish a prestigious museum. But Arlette explains in her book that Fritz and Hans had their reasons. They wanted the museum to become a monument for their beloved mother Jeanne who was born in Mulhouse and until she passed away in 1957, had been so happy there. Also, both of them had grown up in Mulhouse. Furthermore they believed that such a venue would stimulate tourism and thus create employment, not only for the hotel and restaurant trade, but for their own workers as well. This was quite important to them, as they also were fully aware that the future of the Alsatian textile industry did not look too bright.

Fritz’s ambition was to establish the most prestigious industrial museum in France. What he had in mind was not just an exhibition of classic cars, but the ‘Louvre of the Automobile.’ His ideal was a multifunctional center with a cultural and educational mission of emphasizing the role of the automobile in the industrial evolution of the world, and its influence on society.

Arlette recounts that in 1964, she and Fritz purchased an enormous mechanical Mortier organ made in 1910. For many years it had stood in a ‘maison de rendez-vous’ (exclusive brothel) and was completely restored by a specialist in Belgium. It had thirty-two boxes of music that contained national hymns but also popular tunes such as ‘Mamy Blue’, a favorite of Fritz’s, and ‘Vous permettez Monsieur’ from the repertoire of the singer Adamo. The latter was played when in 1978 François Mitterrand visited the museum. The French president obviously liked it and it brought a smile on his face. Fritz also acquired a 1936 Douglas DC 3, which he wanted to put on the roof of the building.

In 1975, the Schlumpf brothers registered the Societé Annonyme Musée Schlumpf, in order to legally separate the museum from the industrial activities of the group. Fritz intended the museum to be open for its first paying visitors in the week before Easter 1976. He invited over 600 journalist and expected some 1400 friends, business relations and authorities to attend the grand opening. Fritz persuaded his friend Robert Dumas, head of the design team of the emblematic Maison Hermès, to produce an exclusive scarf for the occasion. He had also stocked 3500 bottles of Schlumpf Champagne for his quests.

However, the financial problems of the Schlumpf wool mills forced him to postpone his plans. What then followed is history and has been told many times before.

Next week Part 3, The crash...