Hans Schlumpf

Hans Schlumpf, officially Giovanni Carlo Viterio Schlumpf ( born February 21, 1904 in Omegna in Milan, † 1989 in Basel) was a Swiss textile manufacturer and automobile collectors from Mulhouse in Alsace.

Life

Smurf was the son of textile engineer Carl Smurf and his wife Jeanne Becker. The textile manufacturer Fritz Schlumpf was his brother. 1908 moved the family to Mulhouse, Alsace. Smurf lived there until the flight of the brothers into exile in Switzerland in 1977.

The brothers Fritz and Hans Schlumpf wore 1945-1977 a huge collection of classic cars together, including 87 vehicles of the Bugatti brand. To finance this hobby they loaded their business such that it became insolvent in 1977, and had to be dismissed in the following over 2000 people into unemployment. The unknown up to this time, the public car collection was discovered during riots in the context of a strike by the former workers of the textile work.

With the proceeds to be obtained from the sale of vehicles the claims of creditors could be served, but could the collection - especially by the intervention of the French government - are preserved in their entirety.

The former factory buildings of the textile factory covering an area of over 25,000 m², of which 17,000 m² in a large hall, now occupied by the Cité de l'Automobile - Musée National - Collection Schlumpf. With over 500 mostly very old and fine vintage cars, it is not only the largest classic car collection in France, but also one of the most important in the world.

The desire and work of the brothers Schlumpf is contradictory to rate: Their economic and social responsibility, both themselves and their employees against, completely leaving out of account, they left behind for posterity one of the largest and most fascinating automobile museums in the world.