Musée Henri Malartre, Automobile museum in Château de Rochetaillée-sur-Saône, France.
The Musée Henri Malartre displays around 100 automobiles built between 1890 and today, alongside roughly 50 motorcycles made between 1904 and 1964. The vehicles occupy the grounds of a medieval castle spread across several hectares.
Henri Malartre, an automobile breaker, began assembling his collection in the 1930s; during the Second World War it was hidden in a barn in the Isère while he was deported as a Resistance member. He bought the castle in 1959 and opened the museum there on 31 May 1960, with Louis Pradel's support. The Amédée Gordini hall followed in 1963 and the Louis Pradel hall in 1972, the year the city of Lyon bought the whole estate.
The museum's name honours Henri Malartre, the car dismantler who began collecting in 1931 with a 1898 Rochet-Schneider. Toy cars sold as R.A.M.I. by JMK from 1958 to 1969 were made at his initiative with friends Jarry and Koch, and mostly copied exhibits in the museum; a complete RAMI collection is held here.
The castle grounds are best explored on foot, with ample parking available near the entrance. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended since distances between the different vehicle display areas and exhibition spaces can be considerable.
The museum operates an on-site mechanical workshop where most vehicles receive regular maintenance and restoration work. This allows many of the older models to run during demonstration drives, bringing them to life and showing how they actually perform.
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