Businessman Alan Hanly's new hotel development, Kilronan Castle, will house Ireland's first supercar museum. Paddy Comynreports
Supercar owners tend to be a fairly precious bunch. Some are ageing rock stars trying to hold on to the good times, others are premiership footballers with all the money and none of the taste. But sometimes, just on occasion, you will come across some owners with whom it is difficult to feel jealousy or spite. Because you truly can tell that they love the cars. Alan Hanly is one of those rare breeds.
I first met him in a hotel bar in Munich, and after exchanging pleasantries we got to chatting about cars and he proceeded to tell me in a very matter-of-fact way about some of the cars he had in his collection.
It being at a rather late hour of the night, I must admit that I wasn't all that inclined to believe him. But some years later and after meeting him again at a Ferrari event, here I am driving through the towns and parishes of Roscommon to meet the man on his home ground.
It is a lashing wet Friday morning and somewhere between Elphin and Strokestown I rumble into the driveway of an impressive family home where Alan Hanly is waiting for me, phone pressed to the ear, no doubt negotiating another deal or perhaps sourcing another car for what will be Ireland's only supercar museum.
The Hanly Group was started in 1969, beginning with a plant-hire business, and to this was added a quarry business in 1972, and then in the early 1980s they started a concrete business. They were involved in construction throughout the 1980s, and after Alan Hanly came back from college they started a steel business.
They then moved into development, mainly in the Dublin region and in areas near their quarry. But away from the business side of things, both Alan and his father had a passion for cars.
"When my father left school he trained as a mechanic and was always repairing cars, and the plant hire business started from his ability to repair machines. Growing up we always used to mess around with old cars. There was a Triumph Spitfire he had around the yard that I used to be messing around with at 17 or 18."
It was 1994 when the younger Hanly started his love affair with supercars.
"I bought a 1989 Lotus Esprit that year, and being a Lotus there was lots of trouble with it. Everything apart from the
suspension, gearbox and engine gave trouble. A Lotus Esprit V8 replaced this in 1998, and then in 2000 I bought a Ferrari 355. It was a left-hand drive and I eventually got it converted to right-hand drive.
"In 2000 I traded in the Esprit for a 1991 Lamborghini Diablo.
I did a lot of work on that car. We have been lucky here in that I am quite handy mechanically and my uncle Padraig has also worked on the supercars with me. He has 30 years of difficult and detailed mechanical and electrical experience and it was invaluable in keeping cars like this working properly. We have only ever bought parts and done the labour ourselves."
In 2002, a 2000 Diablo replaced the 1991 Diablo and this, according to Hanly was "a quantum leap from the old one but with all the Lamborghini rawness." His dream car was the Ferrari F50 and the hunt was on for a nice one.
"I saw one in Charles Hurst with small mileage but I let that one go. Then a right-hand drive F50 came for sale but the price being asked was unreal. There was only one right-hand drive car, commissioned for the Sultan of Brunei, and it was as close to a Formula One car as you could get, so I regretted not getting it.
"Because it was for the Sultan of Brunei who specifically wanted right-hand drive they had to crash test two other cars to make it. But then again they were not short of money. They were credited for saving Bentley in the 1980s thanks to the number of cars they bought. So when it came up again I grabbed it."
Since then there have been more additions to the fleet.
A Ferrari 430 and a Lamborghini Murcielago have arrived. And while you might think this is a collector gone mad, there was a plan.
Hanly doesn't want to hide these cars away, but instead he's opening a supercar museum on the grounds of his Kilronan Castle development in Ballyfarnon, Co Roscommon.
Additions to the museum will include the Jaguar XJ220, the Bugatti EB110, a DeLorean "a good-looking car with a great story behind it".
"We are trying to get the submarine Lotus from The spy who loved me, and perhaps an Aston Martin to continue the Bond theme."
The museum will be attached to the five-star 88-bedroom hotel, which opens in October 2008, with the supercar museum due to open in January 2009.
"We will have a Nick Faldo-designed golf course and a top-class spa, but I
wanted to add the museum to offer something different. After seeing one in the UK it struck a chord, and being a car lover I wanted to put one in. It will have films about the cars and lots of interactive displays. It is nice to learn the stories behind the cars. I believe that there are a number of people who will come to the hotel to see just that."
The 4,000 sq ft museum will include a wash and maintenance area and will hold 12-13 cars at one time. The architects for the project took inspiration from the Lamborghini Murcielago headlights for the museum's glass frontage.
"There is something special about cars, and I know that if there is somewhere where there are some special cars on display, people will come back."
Expect a few more additions to the museum before it opens early in 2009.