Villa Trips - Museum für Rennsport-Geschichte

[fines]

To most people with an interest in motorsports, the little German town of Kerpen near Cologne is just the place where Michael and Ralf Schumacher were born and raised. Actually, that is not entirely true, since the Schumachers lived in Manheim, a small village (1,700 souls) just outside of Kerpen. Not until November 5, 1974, just half a year before Ralf was born, was Manheim incorporated into the municipality of Kerpen, along with a few other villages and small towns, one of which was Horrem (11,500 inhabitants).

There, in a castle called Burg Hemmersbach, lived Eduard Graf Berghe von Trips and his wife Thessa, like their ancestors had done for more than 200 years. They were the parents of Wolfgang Alexander Graf Berghe von Trips, the famous German racing driver who died September 10, 1961. Deprived of their only heir, they decided to bequeath their fortune to a foundation, the "Gräflich Berghe von Trips'sche Sportstiftung zu Burg Hemmersbach". On October 10, 1975, the foundation was officially approved of by the authorities.

Since then, both the count and countess have died, and their legacy has been administered by the foundation, which sold the castle to an investor who in return built the "Villa Trips" adjacent to the castle. This was completed on June 13, 1991, with the aim to provide facilities for meetings of sports clubs and associations, and also a home for the multitude of commemorative souvenirs the foundation had received from the Trips family, on an area of 480 m². The next day, Reinold Louis took over at the helm of the foundation from the former Trips intimate Paul Spielmans.

Since May 5, 2000, the museum is now open for visitors every day except Saturdays, from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm. Knowing that included into the museum is a large library, I decided to make a two-day trip there, staying for the night with some relatives who live in a nearby village called Stommelen (nice, isn't it?). That was, most emphatically, a wise decision!

To start with, the wrecked car on display there is NOT the Ferrari as presumed earlier on a TNF thread. It is, in fact, a TCA Formula Junior, chassis number 001, wrecked by an unnamed driver during a test drive. TCA was the short-lived enterprise of Wolfgang von Trips and Valerio Colotti of gearbox fame (Trips-Colotti-Automobili), and a note on the car says the young driver was killed when the car crashed. I should be able to find more details of this incident sometime.

Seven cars were reportedly built, and chassis number 002 sold to the USofA where, again reportedly, it "immediately achieved a major success". Browsing through Paul Sheldon's Formula Junior Fact Book I wasn't able to detect much evidence of this, and the info provided by the museum isn't any more specific, so that is that! Anyway, the second chassis is also at the museum, fully restored in the USofA and granted to the foundation by two sponsors who wished to remain unknown. It is said to be the only TCA remaining intact.

The third and last car on display is a de Tomaso Formula Junior, its chassis plate reads: "Type: ISI Telaio: 0002 Motore: 0002". Said to be bought by Trips in the USofA in 1960 and used by the Scuderia Colonia, it features lower wishbones all around and upper wishbones at the front, transverse leafspring at the rear. The TCAs, by comparison, have lower wishbones and upper transverse leafsprings front and rear; all three cars are rear-engined spaceframe constructions.

Incidentally, to bridge the gap between the two afternoons, I decided to make a short trip to the "Michael Schumacher Kart-Center", only to find that one closed, too! Sneaking in through the backdoor (literally!), I saw about ten cars on display there, three 1996 Ferrari (can't bother to keep track of their ever changing type designations), a "snake-type" Jordan 198, an FW21 Williams, a mid-nineties Benetton, a LeMans Co. Reynard Formula Nippon (probably Ralf's 1996 car) and a number of F3 cars at the other end of the hall. I managed to check the Williams' chassis plate (FW21-03) before someone took note of me and begged me to leave...

Back to the museum, the amount of memorabila accumulated is simply incredible. One room is a copy of the Trips office in the castle, complete with books, records, tape recorder, a prancing horse (gifted by Enzo Ferrari himself) and lots of documents, photos etc. It actually looks as if the count had just left for a trip to a race, intent to return and resume his everyday business at the desk - splendid!

The other rooms are mostly dedicated to a specific aspect of Taffy's life, be it his early days as a racer, his rivals, his friends and acquaintances, whatever. Everywhere there are video or audio recordings playing, models of cars and racing scenes, posters on the wall, pictures, artwork, trophies, helmets, goggles, overalls - you name it!

Nor does it stop with Trips and his racing endeavours, it covers every aspect of racing in the post-war era. One room, for example, is devoted entirely to racing movies, one to computer racing games, one to F1 model cars (there are hundreds, what do I know: thousands!), and many, many more! There's also a conference room, complete with everything modern technology is able to provide (if ever the need should arise for our proposed Society of Racing History to meet, here's the place with a perfect ambience!), as well as a nice little café for a rest.

And the best is yet to come: the library! Many thousands of books, in German, English, French and Italian, scarce ones, expensive ones, old ones, new ones - almost everything that has ever been written about motorsports! Driver biographies, marque anthologies, yearbooks, photographic books - but sadly no magazines, just millions of newspaper clippings about Trips.

The staff is very friendly and helpful, they immediately offered me free entrance for the second day on the understanding that I just visited the library. The fee is only 6 Deutschmark anyway, so I was hardly begging for it! Naturally, the hours went like fast cars, and I am eager to return to continue my studies. If only I lived in the neighbourhood!

For anyone living close enough to Germany to consider a day trip, or anyone on a visit here with a little spare time, I strongly recommend spending a few hours at the museum and/or the library, it's absolutely fantastic stuff! I will certainly go there many times!


Graf Berghe von Trips-Ausstellung
Öffnungszeiten:
Ab 5. Mai 2000 täglich außer Samstag v. 14.00 - 18.00 Uhr

Villa Trips
Museum für Rennsportgeschichte
Burg Hemmersbach
Parkstr. 20
50169 Kerpen-Horrem
Germany

Tel: +49 2273 94 06 70
Fax: +49 2273 94 06 72

Eintritt: DM 6,--
Für Schulen, Gruppen u. Vereine außerhalb der Öffnungszeiten nur nach tel. Termin.

http://www.erftkreis-online.de/servi...s/welcome.html

[Mekola]

¡That's incredible! ¿Maybe because THAT I ever know there were connections with the old Count von Trips and M Schumacher? In many of my drivings i used to put a "ghost" of von Trips as a representation on some supposed Schumacher feelings he didn't demonstrate in public, or as his invisible defender/supporter.

But besides that, really it was very interesting your post about your trip to Villa Trips and the Schumacher kart center. Very nice place to visit...

> a LeMans Co. Reynard Formula Nippon (probably Ralf's 1996 car)

If the car was red and black, and had the number 25 on his nose, of course is the Reynard 96D what was driven by Ralf Schumacher during his successful year in Formula Nippon.

[Mekola]

Originally posted by Mekola
In many of my drivings...

I want to say "drawings"! Sorry!

[fines]

Originally posted by Mekola
> a LeMans Co. Reynard Formula Nippon (probably Ralf's 1996 car)

If the car was red and black, and had the number 25 on his nose, of course is the Reynard 96D what was driven by Ralf Schumacher during his successful year in Formula Nippon.

Of course, the car was red/black and carried #25, like (almost) all the Reynards of the LeMans Company. That's not enough for me to say it's the Schumacher car, however...

[fines]

I made a silly mistake , the "snake-type" Jordan is, of course, the 197!