MUSEU DO CARAMULO
Richard Heseltine takes a tour of the best car collection you’ve never heard of
Our genial host Tiago Patrício Gouveia ponders the question as he surveys the ground floor of the Museu do Caramulo (the family’s world-class art collection is housed next door). “My favourite car here? It depends on my mood,” he muses. “I love the 1930 Bugatti Type 35B because it is so visceral to drive. I have raced the car a few times and loved every moment of it. For touring, I like the Rolls-royce Phantom II Sports Coupé from the same year. It has a big 7.7-litre engine and is the perfect machine for carrying family and friends on long journeys. We have been just about everywhere with that car.”
Warming to the theme, he adds: “For sheer thrills, our 1902 Darracq 12CV Open Tourer takes some beating. It was an advanced car for its era, with what we now take for conventional pedals – clutch on the left, brake in the middle and so on – which is unusual. It was originally capable of 60kph, or at least that was the manufacturer’s claim, so one day I decided to find out for myself. I managed 55kph, downhill, with the steering wheel shaking violently and the brakes not doing much to slow the car down when I needed them to. It felt as if I was doing 300kph – I don’t think I will do that again!”
So just how did Portugal’s premier motor museum come into being? “Caramulo was originally a sanatorium resort. There were 22 sanitoriums, 1600 beds, several laboratories and so on, but advances in medicine such as antibiotics and penicillin meant that people no longer needed to recuperate for long periods. As a result, there was a change of direction and Caramulo became a tourist destination. My great uncle, Abel Lacerda, instigated what became the museum, first hosting an exhibition of vintage motor cars in 1953. Sadly, he died in a car accident in 1957 before work on the museum was completed. He was only 36 years old. It fell to my grandfather João Lacerda to continue his legacy and complete the construction.” The museum officially opened in 1959.
The collection comprises a remarkably diverse spread of machinery, from pre-1900 horseless carriages via royal conveyances and supercars to recent LMP1 sports-prototypes.
Among the most striking exhibits has to be the 1938 Mercedes-benz 770 Grosser. This armourplated saloon was ordered new by the PDVE (the local secret police) following the thwarted bombing of Portuguese dictator António Salazar: “The car was later sold to a fire department with the intention that it be converted into an ambulance. For a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen. The car ended up with a well-known scrapyard owner in Lisbon and in the ’50s and ’60s he sold a lot of interesting cars to collectors, which is how our family came across it.”
Post-war exotics feature prominently, the standout for many being the one-off 1951 Ferrari 195 Inter with bodywork by Alfredo Vignale. The car has lived in Portugal its entire life and been in the family since the late 1960s. It sits next to a Pegaso Z102B that was once gifted to Portuguese president Craveiro Lopes by General Franco: “My brother Salvador likes this car because it is so challenging to drive. I must admit that I don’t enjoy the Pegaso precisely because it is so challenging. The steering is rather vague, and the gearbox has a reverse-pattern shift and no synchromesh. The styling by Touring is masterful, though.” More recent fare includes a Lancia 037 Stradale and a Ferrari F40, both of which our guide admits to enjoying on the famous Rampa do Caramulo course, the active hillclimb that most of the time is the main road out of town.
It isn’t all vowel-laden exotica, however. The Portuguese motor industry is well represented via such rarities as a ’52 Alba sports-racer and a 1958 IPA 300 microcar, the former having given blue-blooded imports a bloody nose in competition back in the early ’50s.
There are also several military vehicles, ranging from a 1943 Volkswagen Kübelwagen to an altogether larger Autocar M3 half-track. Then there are the assorted motorcycles, the toy collection and a lot more besides.
What’s more, there is a regular rotation of temporary exhibits, with 120 years of Renault and 70 years of Porsche among themes planned for 2018. Just make sure you set aside at least a day to take in both the car and art collections (do be sure to check out the 16th-century Tournai Tapestries, works by Dalí, Picasso, Miró…). You’ll need at least that and ideally more.