Catz, France: For sale: tanks, good condition, some used during D-Day.
The Normandy Tank Museum is selling its entire collection at auction next month before closing its doors because it failed to attract enough visitors. The sale includes tanks, military vehicles, trucks, aircraft and motorcycles, many of which have been restored to working order.
More than 40 armoured vehicles, along with thousands of military items used during the Second World War and dozens of mannequins in full battle dress, will be sold on Sunday by Artcurial, a Paris-based luxury auction house. The sale will be held in Catz, a town a few kilometres from Normandy’s Utah beach, where the Allies landed to liberate German-occupied northwestern Europe in June 1944.
“We thought the museum would attract more people,” the museum’s co-founder Stephane Nerrant said in a phone interview. “The terrorist attacks had a considerable impact on visitor attendance,” he said, declining to provide numbers. French refinery-workers strikes that caused fuel shortages in May and June throughout the country also dented ticket sales, he said.
The museum opened in 2013, based on the private collection of founder Patrick Nerrant, Stephane’s father, who started buying Second World War armoured vehicles in the eighties.
The Second World War was the first major conflict that extensively used engines and motor vehicles.
Compared to the First World War, “the use of tanks increased greatly during the Second World War after a formidable industrial effort”, said Frederic Sommier, who manages the nearby D-Day museum of Arromanches-les-bains. By 1939, tanks had replaced most of the horses used during the first World War, he said. Airplanes also became far more widespread and were used to couple air and battlefield attacks, Sommier said.
In addition to its collection, the venue offers tank rides and flights over D-Day landmarks such as the beaches where as many as 4,400 allied troopers lost their lives on June 6, 1944.
The 33,000 square-foot museum also has its own repair shop. It estimates the cost of refurbishing a Sherman tank at €150,000 (Dh620,000), plus labour.
