André Matarazzo Museum of Arms, Vehicles and Machines Eduardo, Transport museum in Bebedouro, Brazil.
The Museu de Armas, Veículos e Máquinas Eduardo André Matarazzo, known as the Museu do Automóvel, occupies a building begun in August 1968 on a square near Bebedouro's artificial lake. Its collection of almost 300 pieces centres on about 90 automobiles, most built between 1900 and 1950, with smaller groups of aircraft, locomotives, motorcycles, combat vehicles, weapons, large engines and communication equipment. A restoration workshop serves the collection.
Eduardo André Matarazzo founded the museum on 19 September 1964 as the Museum of Cars and Old Motor Vehicles, initially housed in a warehouse of the Matarazzo Industries on Rua Joli in São Paulo's Brás district. After the city of São Paulo declined to provide a suitable site, his wife Eneida, whose family came from Bebedouro, suggested moving it there. Construction of the building began in August 1968, and the museum opened in Bebedouro on 19 July 1970.
The museum's name honours Eduardo André Matarazzo, grandson of Count Francisco Matarazzo, who began collecting cars in 1953 with an Isotta-Fraschini needing repairs. He restored it himself and built a specialised library of guides, catalogues and manuals. The collection grew from that personal hobby into a public institution, and a restoration workshop with mechanics, panel beaters, electricians and painters still cares for the pieces.
The museum keeps its own restoration workshop, where the roughly 70 cars brought from São Paulo and later acquisitions are repaired; the collection also suffered from floods in 1984 and 2006. The museum is maintained under an agreement with Bebedouro's city government, which provided the site and building near the artificial lake. Staff have complained of insufficient funding for conserving the pieces.
The museum holds the only surviving Saab 90 Scandia, a twin-engine airliner built in Sweden in the 1940s. A 1970 Gazeta de Bebedouro article already listed a Douglas DC-3 among the aircraft, alongside a helicopter, a tank and two amphibious vehicles. Floods in 1984 and 2006 damaged a substantial part of the collection.
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