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Bugatti has a small collection of heritage vehicles at its chateau<\/a>, alongside its atelier in Molsheim, France. It brings them out for client events, car shows, and\u2014on occasion\u2014to allow journalists like us to drive them<\/a>. But if you really want to dig into the metaphorical crates of the company’s history, you need to drive an hour or so north of HQ to the Schlumpf Collection, also known as the Mus\u00e9e National de l’Automobile<\/a>.<\/p>\n Housed in a former wool mill in the Alsatian river town of Mulhouse, the collection is staggering. It contains 80 Bugattis, the world’s largest such amalgamation, tracing the history of the brand and its genius founding family, from before their namesake company was incorporated in 1909 up through the present day.<\/p>\n Lest you think this isn’t reason enough for a visit, the collection also contains well over 300 other vehicles, charting the entire timeline of the auto industry. Its approach, as you might imagine, is European and encyclopedic, with a Gallic bent.<\/p>\n It contains the earliest French cars\u2013including an 1878 Jacquot steam car, a (replica) 1884 Delamare-Debouteville Et Malandin that predates Benz’s Patent Wagen by a couple years, and a Daimler-powered 1894 Peugeot Phaetonnet Type 8. It has all manner of mass-produced vehicles from the earliest decades of the 20th century when Phaeton, Double Phaeton, Vis-\u00e1-Vis (face-to-face), Dos-\u00e1-Dos (back-to-back), Tonneau, and Torpedo body and seating styles dominated the emergent French roadways.<\/p>\n It also has dozens of Classic-era Rolls-Royces, Hispano Suizas, Isotta Fraschinis, along with grand Mercedes-Benzes, Horsches, and Maybachs with extremely problematic wartime provenance. There’s also at least one Voison and one Delahaye, and a bunch of profound race cars, including an original 1955 Mercedes 300SLR, a Ford RS200, and an F1 machine driven by Michael Schumacher and Nelson Piquet.<\/p>\n The museum collection follows through the last decades of the 20th century with more modern oddballs such as a Tatra T87, a Trabant 601, an Alpine A110, a rotary-powered NSU Ro 80, a Citroen SM, a Renault R5 Turbo, and an Aston Martin Lagonda.<\/p>\n