Clive Palmer’s previously dumped car museum gets the green light – somewhere else

The Somerset region will be home to Australia’s biggest car museum, after the council approved a development application by controversial businessman Clive Palmer.

The former politician in June abandoned plans to build a huge vintage car and motorcycle museum on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, withdrawing his planning application to transform his Palmer Coolum Resort at the 11th hour before councillors were due to vote, amid community backlash.

However, on Wednesday, Somerset Regional Council approved the billionaire car-enthusiast’s museum on West Road, Patrick Estate, just south of Lake Wivenhoe, a 1½-hour drive west of Brisbane.

Clive Palmer at the Palmer Coolum Resort with a car from his vast collection.Credit: Glenn Hunt

The Patrick Estate Museum proposal includes 923 car display bays, 278 motorcycles, 10 short-term accommodation units, caretaker’s dwelling, food kiosk, cafe, gift shop and workshop.

That would make it Australia’s largest car museum, eclipsing the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, South Australia, which houses almost 300 cars.

The plan includes 11 museum buildings, with the gross floor area for each building about the size of a full line supermarket.

The proposed site plan for the Patrick Estate Car Museum, Clive Palmer’s latest project, which has been approved by the Somerset Regional Council.

The development will have an overall gross floor area of about 4.3 hectares.

A report presented to the council said the museum would display “prized cars such as Princess Margaret’s and Louis Mountbatten’s Rolls-Royce”, and turn over $9 million annually in revenue.

A traffic impact assessment report shows an open-air car parking area with 360 spaces for cars and bus parking, with 100,000 visitors a year expected to visit the seven-day museum.

Somerset Mayor Jason Wendt said he was “beyond excited”, describing the project as a “huge tourism win” for the region.

“The economic benefits to our region will be exponential and that’s from construction through to completion and beyond,” he said.

The surrounding area is mostly rural residential.

The development was impact assessable, with only two submissions received – one in favour and one opposed.

In contrast, Palmer’s plans for a motor museum on the Sunshine Coast received 723 public submissions, and only seven were in favour.

The Somerset area’s “remoteness from the coastline” would ensure protection from salty air, and preserve the health and longevity of vintage vehicles, the report by BDO EconSearch noted.

Cars it would feature would include some of the earliest automobiles, such as the 1886 Benz and pre-1900 vintage cars, as well as coal-powered and electric cars, notable cars owned by other prominent figures such as the Emperor of Japan, along with more than 30 Ferraris, 100 Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars, military vehicles, dirt bikes, tanks, field guns, Jeeps and a World War I gun carriage.

“Annual car rallies are proposed to be held running to and from the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, celebrating different eras of cars,” a report by BDO EconSearch said.

It is the latest in a string of tourism ventures from Palmer, who in 2013 littered his Coolum resort with more than 160 replica dinosaurs, and promised to build the Titanic II.