The Prince of Monaco's Vintage Car Collection

At the beginning February, before the Covid-19 spread into Europe, we took a trip to the South of France, staying in Nice. One of the great advantages of living on the French Riviera is the railway line which runs along the coast, which is both frequent and inexpensive. Of course, the buses are cheaper still, but tend to throw you around as they navigate the twisty and narrow coastal road and certainly not recommended, when there is standing room only! We travelled to Monaco, which for one reason or another, we did not visit, when we stayed in Speracedes in 2017.

As most people are aware, Monaco is not large and sits on the Cote d’Azur in Southern France as very much a city tax state, being much smaller than Singapore. However, it does boast two world renowned sporting events: the Monaco Grand Prix, which has run since 1923 along a very short and twisty street circuit in the heart of the principality using open wheel racing cars and the Monte Carlo Rally, which has run 88 times since the first rally in 1911 in cars that have a passing resemblance to cars that you might buy. Unlike the Grand Prix, the routes of the rally have varied greatly and until the early 1990s, cars started from various points in Europe and arrived in the South of France for the serious rallying.

Prince Rainier III (1923-2009, the one, who married the actress Grace Kelly) was a serious car fanatic and began collecting cars in the late 1950s, but by 1993, running out of space in his garage, he decided that creating a museum open to the public, he could acquire more expensive Monegasque real estate for the purposes of expanding his collection even further.

The museum is located in the Fontvielle district of Monaco below the railway station and covers over 5000sqm. The collection comprises of vintage cars from the early 1900s, many official cars, family cars used by the family plus race and rally cars that competed in Monaco. There are also some specials like the 1943 French Polar Expedition tracked vehicle and quirky vehicles plus a huge collection of memorabilia.

The photos are my own, some of which, because of the cramped nature of the museum, are not as well framed as they could be, while some signs showing refer to an adjacent vehicle, out of picture. Click on photos to expand.