Bavo Galama discovers a hidden museum full of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys

This report by Bavo Galama appeared previously Automatic inspection. Bavo reviews autoland for every release. He meets lovers with petrol in their blood. What? Is there still a future for their passion?

Everywhere in the Netherlands, car enthusiasts have parked their precious treasures in derelict sheds, obscure factory sheds or old cowsheds. Some are tearing down the ‘Museum’ sign outside, buying a second-hand currency register and hiring a number of volunteers for guided tours and clean-up work. Others prefer to keep their classics out of sight. Like Toni Bienemann.

He leads a group of companies that operate more internationally. As a born petrol head, he acquired the brand name Hooper International, a famous old-school builder from England, and started a car collection of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. Hooper often provided bodies for these two popular car brands.

I have an appointment with Maarten Hulleman, the man who, as workshop manager, will have to keep as many cars from this Toni Bienemann collection running as possible. We have a cup of coffee at the Hooper International workshop. Here cars from the collection are stored, restored or fitted with new interiors. A metal sheet shop is included, as is upholstery, where standard interior upholstery can be made. There is a Rolls Silver Cloud repainted in a beautiful beige-green combination waiting to be rebuilt.

Museums without opening hours

Then Maarten takes me to the gallery opposite and there I enter a room that is completely decorated like a museum. But not so. At least, not officially. Sometimes business partners are shown throughout. Sometimes the brand party starts its club day here. At the end of the room is a large English bar and Heerensocieteit. Maarten Hulleman got into the car business through his in-laws. In The Gallery of Nico Aaldering he knew all kinds of classics. Since 2012 he has worked as a technical person for the Bienemann collection. As a result, he specialized in the Rolls-Royce and related Bentley brands.

“The fact that Rolls-Royce makes the best cars in the world is only true for the 1920s and 1930s.”

Maarten Hulleman: “The claim that they made the best cars in the world was discovered mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, they became typical British cars that were unnecessarily difficult from a technical point of view. If you take the car apart, you will see that it has often undergone hard work underneath. When you have to mess with those old Rollsens to find out how they solved some electrical or hydraulic problems. They often don’t go from A to B in terms of solutions, but they do a lot of wrong ways , of course it’s a different story.

Four rows of cars are housed in the museum. The two on the left include all kinds of different prints that touched the heart of the Bienemann collector. The two rows on the right consist only of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. That’s a good picture of a collection of over two hundred cars. Today we have to limit ourselves to the right side only

Examples cited

Maarten: “We don’t have many pre-war examples, but these two are very special. A blue Phantom 3 from 1938 with a Vanvooren body in two different shades of bright blue. The car has a twelve cylinder engine with two spark plugs in each cylinder.

This car was originally on Lips Autotron with a custom body. The new owner replaced it with a bodywork rebuilt to the millimeter by the famous French builder Vanvooren. We as Hooper International were also involved in this. Later the car disappeared from our view, but suddenly it was at auction. Yes, then Toni bought it.”

“But it’s not our biggest car. That’s a 1934 Phantom 2 with a Hooper body. While these days they have all kinds of electronic solutions for this, such as pre-ignition with increased speed, Rolls-Royce have already come up with good technical solutions for it. Here is the Phantom VI, which is truly the best that Rolls-Royce had to offer. The car was reserved for the English royal family and a few Arab sheikhs. This one was gold, but we painted it in the red and black colors of the English royal family.

Main Event en Thunderbirds

“Yes, we have the Corniche here which is in the film The Main Event from 1979, with Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. At that time it was beige. Then my favorite Bentley, this red Continental R from the nineties. A beast of a car and that’s thanks to the big turbo on that V8. It weighs 2.2 tons, but still runs at 250 km / h. It was about the most expensive car you could buy at the time. Then we have Silver Cloud 3 from 1965. This has been China twice to run the rally. But we also have real versions of Toni here. That’s a two-door Silver Cloud III that’s completely built for tough conditions. It is currently in a workshop on that bridge.”

My eye is drawn to more specific examples. I see a Camargue, also a coupe model, with its usual forward-leaning radiator. It was based on Lady Penelope’s car from Thunder-series. Then Maarten points out something I didn’t know. ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’, the angel above the radiator, is available in two versions. One is standing and the other is kneeling. The kneeling statues were specially made for Arab customers in which the woman standing on the bonnet looks very confident and fit.

In an epiphanic moment (thanks to Mark Rutte for this expression) I ask Maarten where all the other Rolls-Royces are, because I only see about thirty of them here. “In a park in a village somewhere nearby, would you like to see that?” Yes, I definitely want that. And a little later we are in the car on the way to the real Gelderse Geheim.

The Secret of Gelderland

We come from a site full of unknown sheds, tractors and mountains of agricultural waste. Maarten opens the door, enters some numbers into the device and we are inside. The grand hall is filled from left to right with special cars. What makes it even more remarkable is that all the cars are covered with a thin layer of dust. A large number of copies come from the Rolls-Royce brand. They are parked in endless rows, making it look like nothing special. But I would stop for a moment at every article on the public road.

I’ve never seen so many Rolls-Royces (and/or Bentleys) together. I’m noticing a lot of Silver Shades, but suddenly there’s a Bentley S3 from 1962, which I hear has the serial number 0002. It was the very first of its kind. The serial number 0001 belongs to the Silver Cloud from Rolls-Royce. About other brands of cars: I see three years worth of titles parked for Auto Inspection. There is a great story to write about every article. I have nothing to say.

Lack of friends

Maarten Hulleman: “It is already a lot of work to store the data of all the cars. Also they all have to be stopped, if possible inspected, maintained, repaired, returned and so on. Finding the right parts is also a time-consuming activity. Do you know what is the problem with this collection? That the cars don’t drive enough. From a technical point of view, stopping still means going backwards. Toni likes to let his friends drive his cars, but when you have a lot of cars you miss friends.”

“For the business anniversary, Toni wanted everyone from the main office to the party area in Rolls. That was a hell of a job! We had to drive all the cars, get them off the suspension, inspect them, test drive them, and arrange the insurance. But in the end we made it.”

“Sometimes I tell Toni that he should come with us for a week as a specialist. Then he sees with his own eyes what is involved in maintaining this collection. And then he also has his rally car, Silver Cloud 3. Sometimes we have had to change the whole system of valve and cylinder head somewhere in France. That meant playing all night with two people. But he comes every hour to see how things are going and bring beer.”