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Rosso Bianco Collection
13/04/01
The Rosso Bianco Collection (in Aschaffenburg, near Frankfurt) was a collection of over 200 vehicles and was the the largest sports car collection of the world. The museum called its main area "“two-seat sports cars for road and competition"”.
The idea to found a museum of sports cars began with the private collection of Peter Kaus in the beginning of the 80s. A group of friends who collected similar vehicles offered their vehicles to expand the collection. Through an automobile club Peter Kaus got to know his partner, Hans-Holger Frenzel, whose experience in advertising helped realise museum. Peter Kaus originally intended Frankfurt to be the home for the museum, but in 1987 it found itself housed in Aschaffenburg, 30 minutes from Frankfurt at the Bavarian border, located in an empty factory building.
The name Rosso Bianco reflects Peter Kauss' love of Italian and German cars - in the traditional colours red and white. Kauss concentrated on sportscars because they reflected the technological possibilities of their age. Marques included: Abarth, Adler, Aston Martin, Auburn, Audi, Auto Union, Austin Healey, Avion Voisin, BMW, Bugatti, Chenard Walcker, Chevrolet, Chevron, Cisitalia, Cooper, Cougar, Daimler, Delage, Delahaye, De Tomaso, Elva, Ferrari, Fiat, Ford, Gebhard, Gulf, Horch, Jaguar, Jensen, Kaiser-Darrin, Lagonda, Lamborghini, Lancia, Lola, Lotus, March, Maserati, Mazda, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Mors, Osca, Pegaso, Porsche, Rally, Renault, Rolls Royce, Rondeau, Sauber-Mercedes, Sbarro, Shadow, Siata, Stanguellini, Talbot, Toj, Triumph, Veritas, Wanderer, and Zakspeed
In the course of its 10 years, the museum expanded to about 12.500m, distributed across 8 halls. The auto museum consisted of several seperate exhibits as well as collections of marques and categories
* largest Alfa Romeo-Collection in the world apart the factory museum
* largest Lancia-Collection in Europe
* largest Abarth-Collection in Germany
* largest Lotus-Collection in Europe
* largest Lola-Collection in the world
* largest McLaren-Collection in the world
* largest CanAm-/Interseries-Collection in the world
* huge Porsche-Collection
* important Zagato-Collection
* lots of Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis
* continous motorcycle-exhibition (about. 50 Exp.)
One of the most important expansions of the museum took place in 1990 with the addition of the Art & Auto Forum. The huge Auto Art Collection was opened to the public with more than 600 objects including paintings, historical posters, sculptures and reliefs from 1890 until modern times.
In 1988 the Project ROBIC was launched: a modern computer-controlled system of robots with laser video gave Rosso Bianco a worldwide leading position in the high tech area. Using screens you could look into the cockpit or below the bonnet of many vehicles, with a lot of them you can also "drive" by pressing a button & see and hear how the vehicles race upon series of bends or race tracks.
Sadly, the museum has been closed since February 2006, and the automobile and art collection transferred to the Netherlands Louwman Collection, the Nationaal Automobiel museum in Raamsdonksveer. The collection is to move to the Hague in 2008. Part of the collection was auctioned off in Monaco and other prestigious auctions.
More, and full sized, pictures here
