Clive Palmer’s automotive museum now headed for Somerset region

A multimillion-dollar attraction originally planned by Clive Palmer for the Sunshine Coast has been snapped up by another southeast council.

Businessman Clive Palmer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

• Clive’s wild, weird business history

A South East Queensland council has approved a development application for a multimillion-dollar automotive museum by billionaire Clive Palmer.

Somerset Regional Council, west of Brisbane, on Wednesday approved the development application by Mineralogy, owned by Mr Palmer, at its ordinary council meeting.

It comes after Mr Palmer withdrew his application for a massive car museum at the Palmer Coolum Resort, Yaroomba.

The development application was submitted for a property in West Rd at Patrick Estate near Lowood.

The approval included a museum across 11 buildings, which proposed to house about 1000 cars and 300 motorcycles, an accommodation facility including 10 two-bedroom units, carparking, caretaker’s residence and a shop.

The overall area covered about 43,000sq m.

Somerset Mayor Jason Wendt said the tourism attraction was a huge 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 development was Impact Assessable, with only two submissions being received,

one in favour and one opposed.

An artist’s impression of the original proposal for Coolum

“The matters raised in the submissions include concerns regarding visual amenity,

light pollution and noise pollutions and traffic impacts.”

He said the applicant had demonstrated sufficient planning reasons for the development and that all potential impacts could be appropriately mitigated through built form and management strategies.

“We’re informed that during construction there will be about 80 construction jobs available and 64 full-time-equivalent employees,” he said.

“An additional 30 FTE jobs are anticipated in regional businesses directly supplying services and goods to visitors and the proposed development has also indicated opportunities for apprenticeships and on the job training which is a welcome addition for Somerset,” he said.

The latest win for Mr Palmer comes after he scrapped his plans on the Sunshine Coast.

Mr Palmer lodged his application with Sunshine Coast Council for a 22m-tall luxury car museum at Palmer Coolum Resort, which has also been subject to $100m refurbishment plans since 2021.

It was confronted by almost 800 submissions by the community, with an overwhelming majority not in support of it.

Mt Palmer is an avid car collector, and in 2022 claimed the world’s biggest collection of vintage cars including 22 Ferraris, 120 Mercedes, and 100 Rolls Royces and Bentleys.

He estimated their value at $230m.

Originally published as Clive Palmer’s automotive museum now headed for Somerset region