A Spanish Surprise: Salamanca

Or “World Heritage Site also has Auto Museum”: Our British traveller Tony never misses an opportunity!

The modestly-sized Spanish city of Salamanca, circa 200km west of Madrid and about 115km from the Portuguese border, is known for it’s history and the old centre, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which consists of many beautiful old buildings constructed of a golden stone, not unlike that seen in the Cotswolds region in the UK.

Those buildings include two grand cathedrals – the old one, the Cathedral of Santa Maria built between the beginning of the 12^th century and completed at the end of the 14^th, and alongside it, the very impressive “new” Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, constructed over two centuries between 1533 and 1733.

The city’s university dates back to 1218, making it the oldest and one of the most prestigious in Spain – equivalent to Oxford in the UK – and the Plaza Mayor is one of the most spectacular town squares in the country.

What it is much less known for is it’s car museum, which my partner and I visited recently, or to give it it’s Spanish name, El Museo de Historia de la Automobile de Salamanca. MHAS for short – an abbreviation I think I’ll stick to!

Opened in 2002, the MHAS is privately owned by the Gomez Planche Foundation, and the collection combines vehicles, cycles both pedal and motor-powered, and other automobilia and historical artifacts from the Planche family as well as the National Collection of the Spanish General Directorate for Traffic – they love their long official titles in Spain!

Spread over three beautifully laid-out floors, the museum traces the history of mobilised transport, and this broad approach results in some delightful surprises. The main strength of the displays lies in the between-the-wars period, but there’s much to enjoy either side of that; let’s take a closer look at some exhibits that really caught my eye.

While Spain has only ever had one major volume motor manufacturer – SEAT – it is also the home of at least two of motoring’s most famous names; Hispano-Suiza and Pegaso, the latter still making the trucks and buses for which it is better known. There is only one Pegaso on display – more on that later – but Hispano-Suiza is well represented here, starting with a 1910 30/40HP, the first car to be declared an Asset of Cultural Interest. A few metres away the evolution of the marque into a high-end, luxury brand can be seen in the shape of a lovely 1922 white Tipo 30 as well as an imposing 1925 3.7-litre T-49 in black with red wire wheels – this is one big car!

Big cars also means American cars, of course, and the MHAS has a good number of these, such as the huge brown 1930 Buick 30-60, a gorgeous 1926 white Chrysler Imperial (displayed next to a very un-American 1926 Avions Voisin C7) and 1950 Cadillac 62 convertible (formerly used by a Spanish Head of State) this last having an exceptionally intriguing car parked alongside – a 1952 Muntz Jet convertible, V8 powered, of course.

Muntz belongs to the same group of honourable failures as Cord and Tucker, with only some 400 cars built in total between 1950 and 1954, of which about 130 are believed to survive. This deep red example is believed to be one of only two in Europe, and the only one in Spain. It has hints of the first Ford Thunderbird at the front and the rear profile reminds me a little of a Citroën DS Décapotable – although the Muntz pre-dates them both. What do readers think?

The black 1970 Cadillac 75, like the earlier Cadillac 62,  served as an official car for a Spanish Head of State, and the 1966 Mercury Commuter Station Wagon was used as a camera car, as function it fulfilled until 1982, hence the tripod on the roof! The black 1970 Dodge 3700 next to the Caddy is, however, despite appearances, a Spanish-built car, manufactured in Madrid by Barreiros, between 1970 and ’78, and was the largest car built in the country at the time.

By way of dramatic contrast, the two smallest – among several contenders – cars on display were a pair of Biscuter-Voisin 200’s, the latter a name not normally associated with micro-cars. These tiny and very basic cars were designed by Gabriel Voisin as a very basic form of transport for a time when raw materials were scarce immediately after WW2, and the licence to build them was acquired by Spanish company Autonacional SA in Barcelona. Some 12,000 examples were built before production ceased in the early 1960’s, mostly sold only in Spain, as more realistic and practical alternatives such as the SEAT 500 and 600 and Renault 4CV became available.

 The duo on show consisted of a (very) small commercial – which would surely have been slowed down even more by any cargo – and a convertible, which was known back in the day as the Zapatilla, meaning “little shoe”. Both were powered by a tiny 197cc, single-cylinder engine pushing out 9bhp and driving the right front wheel only, enabling a top speed of over 50kmh, though there are no figures to show how many minutes they took to get there. These minute curios were completely new to me, and are an interesting footnote to a time in post-war motoring history when micro-cars were one of the key factors in remobilising Europe.

Another small-engined Spanish car but this time with sporting pretensions, at least in terms of styling, was the cute little 1958 Clúa 500 roadster, which contrasted starkly with the car alongside, a red 1955 Pegaso Z-102, Spain’s fastest and most glamorous sports car, this example being one of a handful built by the Spanish coachbuilder, Serra.

Where the Pegaso-inspired 500cc Clúa could just about hit 80kmh (and the original 250cc version managed quite a bit less than that), the Z-102 was a 200kmh-plus car, one of the world’s fastest at the time. While their performance capabilities were very different, one other thing the two cars had in common besides styling cues was that they both found fewer than 100 owners.

Other gems scattered around the museum included classics from France, the UK and Germany – I really liked the very pretty white 1935 Citroën Rosalie Sports Tourer, the red Vanden Plas Princess stood out for, well, not being black, and the 1953 Opel Olympia Rekord, almost a scaled-down American car, such were its styling influences.

It’s worth noting that just about every car displayed was in outstanding condition, and there was much else to enjoy around this charming museum, as I hope the gallery below will show – if you ever find yourself in Salamanca, it’s well worth the €5 entry fee.