British Motor Museum
The British Motor Museum, known as the Heritage Motor Centre, is directly affiliated with the British Heritage Foundation. The museum is located in Gaydon near Birmingham and Coventry, where automobile construction has long been the main occupation and where Aston Martin and Jaguar are now successfully assembled at the factory across the fence from the museum.
Currently, the museum collection includes more than 300 cars of different production times, from the oldest to the newest and sometimes simply fantastic. Characteristically, the annotations to many of the exhibits indicate their value in the years of sale.
In addition to the standard exhibit, there is an exhibition of real cars from the movies: this Ford supercar, driven by a certain Lady Penelope from the movie “Harbingers of the Storm”. Its steering wheel, though, looks like the steering wheel of an airplane. Maybe Lady Penelope flew on it, too.
Next to it is an absolutely fantastic Land Rover. This car is from the movie Judge Dredd starring Stallone.
All the exhibits of the museum look great, illustrating the automotive history of their country. However, it is worth noting that not everyone is able to drive themselves. Very interesting are the sawed cars, where all their structure is shown in the cut.
The history of this museum begins in the 70s. In 1968, the largest holding British Leyland Motor Corporation was created, in which Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini decided to unite their retro car collections.
In the beginning, the museum had about 100 interesting exhibits, but the number was constantly growing. The museum moved several times. The current building was built in 1993 with the financial help of the Rover Group. In the early 2000s, the holding company broke up. The museum’s management decided to expand the exhibition to include vehicles of other British manufacturers. Then the museum has undergone a serious reorganization, and now it is the largest collection of retro cars in Britain.
In general, many exhibits in the museum make you rejoice and be amazed. Standing beside two beauties, exact copies of each other, only one is “still a junior” and made in scale, maybe one day it will grow up.
In a composition with the military and rescue vehicles not bad looking Concept Range Stormer. The Stormer was built on an all-terrain vehicle chassis. The body structure is converted into an SUV with two doors and a hatch. The frame is made entirely of aluminum. The power level is 295 hp, all-wheel independent height adjustable suspension, serves not only for comfortable ride, but also provides stable handling.
Attracting attention are quite useful gadgets, which are also shown in the museum. A seemingly ordinary trailer for family trips. But these clever Brits have figured out how to collect every last drop of water from the roof and use it as needed. The inside of the trailer looks good, too – everything is comfortable and comfortable enough to travel for extended periods of time.
In November 2015, the Heritage Motor Centre closed for a £1.1 million renovation and reopened on February 13, 2016 under a new name, the British Motor Museum. Its exposition was significantly expanded with both historical and modern models of cars, and the increased area of the premises allowed to conveniently place all the examples for a more complete and detailed examination.
The museum quite often holds various themed exhibitions, usually dedicated to important historical dates or events.
There is also a collection of backup cars for sale. The Jaguars and Daimlers lineup is particularly extensive. And there are not only production examples, but there are absolutely interesting and unusual models that have rarely been shown to the public. Each of them has its own history, often associated with prominent personalities in the artistic or political environment, where these cars also played a role and did it very well, often getting into accidents and recovering again.
For me personally, each car is a bit of a living organism, which in principle, like any person, can tell about its past life.
Nowadays the museum actively works on enlargement of its collection by buying and restoring rare cars and by studying the history of creation of each of them. And, any car owner for a small fee, by presenting the identification number of the vehicle, can get original information about the history of their car.
And retro cars, such as this 1924 Morris for £225, rarely seen on Britain’s roads any more, take pride of place here.
The most widely represented in the museum are the British automakers. Practically the whole range of Range Rover, Austin, Land Rover, Mini, MG, Morris, Rover, Riley, Triumph, Aston Martin, Wolseley. And even many cars made in other countries and exhibited here are in one way or another connected with the automotive industry of Great Britain. By the way, now collectors and car enthusiasts have an opportunity to amuse their self-esteem and leave their cars for storage in the museum, putting them on display for all to see.
