Heinkel Scooter Project: Maurice Defresne Museum, Loire Valley, France

Maurice Dufresne was born in 1930 in a small rural village along the Loire River. After his formal schooling he took up a blacksmith apprenticeship, but by the time he'd completed his studies he recognized that the old era of horses, carts and steam tractors was over. In 1958 he started a business manufacturing tractor trailers. These sold well and set him up financially. Four years later he moved into the scrap metal business. As rural France was undergoing a process of modernization, Dufresne found there was no shortage of vintage machinery available for scrap, but as his company began hauling away all this ancient machinery Maurice began to feel that France's rural heritage was being destroyed. He began to select machinery from the scrap hauls and store them away on an old farm property he'd purchased.In 1983 he bought a derelict mill in the village Azay-le-Rideau and set about restoring the buildings.

The Loire is one of Frances major river systems and there are hundreds of stunning chateaux along its banks. Azay-le-Rideau is home to a very notable and architecturally stunning chateaux.
https://www.francethisway.com/places/chateauazaylerideau.php

After many years restoring the mill, Maurice moved his enormous collection of antique farm machinery into the mill buildings and established a museum. http://musee-dufresne.com/en/

The museum contains an amazing collection of farm and industrial machinery, some of which is now unique thanks to the destruction wrought by time. Much of the machinery has been restored to working condition.

The mill pond. The pond supplies water to the operating mill wheel, generating power for the museum buildings.

Between the entry gate and giftshop you walk down a long pathway lined with tractors and heavy equipment. These machines are merely preserved and non-running. There are so many vehicles and machines on site that restoration of them all isn't possible.

One of the staff members riding a triporter between the front gate and museum buildings.

Distillers wagon

Vintage truck. It's hard to tell what marque this belongs to, having been so extensively modernized during its life.

Diesel steam roller

Small diesel train

France was a battlefield during the Second World War and both Allied and Nazi tanks, trucks and vehicles were left strewn across the country after the war. Nothing went to waste however. Creative French farmers salvaged many a destroyed tank and repurposed them as tractors. Here is the hull of a French Char Lorraine tank that has been stripped of its armour and turret and used as a tractor. A complete American Chaffee tank destroyer sits in the background.

All of the vehicles on display have a plaque with details of the vehicle and where it was found. Maurice Dufresne must have kept extensive notes.

The Chaffee was based on the Sherman but with heavier armour and a bigger gun.

Another tracked vehicle converted for agricultural use

1928 motorcycle outfit

1941 Peugeot VLV. The VLV small electric car was Peugeot's response to the Nazi confiscation of the fuel supply for non-essential French industries. For most Frenchmen in Occupied France this meant no fuel at all. Some vehicles were converted to coal or wood gas; others were simply parked up in barns to wait out the war. Peugeot built and sold this electric car, powered by four car batteries under the bonnet, for those who could afford an alternative.

Vintage era heavy trucks were devoid of all creature comforts.

This tractor has an interesting 'vis a vis' seating arrangement.

A German NSU Kettenkrad 'motorcycle' tractor after substantial modification. A new engine has been mounted in the centre of the Kettenkrad hull and a tractor bonnet installed over the top. The driver now sits at the rear as in a traditional tractor.

1924 Panhard and Levassor

Stationary engine and a Great War artillery piece

Citroen 5CV. The car made Citroen's fortune.

1925 'David' tractor

And another

Renault

I love these archaic styled Renault's with their distinctive coal scuttle bonnet.

A very unusual vehicle for rural France - Morgan Plus Four.

A German Hanomag tractor, left behind by the Germans and then put to use in France.

Another view of the Hanomag drilling rig

An extraordinary and sinister find was this mobile guillotine, found in a demolition yard in 1963 in Lyon. The guillotine had been dismantled and was among a stack of scrap iron beams. Maurice did not recognize it for what it was until sorting through the parts much later. This mobile guillotine was manufactured in 1794, during the period of the Terror and was sent to the Loire region to conduct public executions. It remained in use, touring the district to perform its grizzly work, until 1853, when public executions were stopped. Executions were then conducted inside the prisons. The mobile guillotine was mothballed and later dismantled for storage, before being forgotten and discarded.

The guillotine was France's official means of judicial execution since the French Revolution in 1789 until the death penalty was abolished in 1981. Although a horrific device, it was designed to be a human and democratic means of execution. Prior to the Revolution, execution methods differed according to the crime committed, and for everyone apart from the nobility, involved a significant amount of wanton cruelty and torture. The guillotine was simple, quick and effective. Too effective in fact, as it allowed the Committee of Public Safety in 1793 to implement a reign of terror in France to exterminate all perceived enemies of the Revolution. The terror would turn against the revolutionaries themselves until popular outrage led to the guillotining of the Committee of Public Safety in 1794. The guillotine however survived the Terror and the last person executed this way in France was in 1977.

London double decker bus. Where did this come from?

A pedal car and a Mochet CM125 cyclecar. http://mochet.org/

Cycle trailer

A very interesting invalid carriage/tricycle

Mochet voiturette. Charles and Georges Mochet began building pedal powered 'velocars' in the mid 1920s. These tiny little vehicles were at least a step up from bicycles, offering their owners a modicum of comfort and weather protection.

The Mochet brothers gained something of a boost during the German occupation as petrol was almost impossible to come by. Pedal powered Mochets offered something of an alternative. Many owners modified their Mochets for electric power or a small two-stroke motor to make them a little more practical.

B Boutin motorcycle

Renault

Georges Irat sportscar.

Georges Irat is a very rare marque, even in France.

With its custom bodywork, this Buick is almost unrecognizable.

Another unusual caterpillar tractor with what looks like an early De Dion Bouton or Renault bonnet.

Fiat tractor

Motorized tiller. It is interesting to consider that prior to the Second World War, almost all farming was done with horse power. Motorized tillers like this were the exception.