Review: The British Motor Museum

ROADSTER! reports from a fun and educational visit to the British Motor Museum, at Gaydon in Warwickshire.

Did You Know? - the UK was once the second-largest manufacturer of cars in the world!

Back in 1968 the UK government brought together a number of Britain's car makers, including Austin, Jaguar, Morris, MG, Riley, Rover, Standard Triumph, and Wolseley, and formed the British Leyland Motor Corporation.

Many of those companies that made up British Leyland had their own collections of historic vehicles. All of these collections were brought together, but there was a problem… with an ever growing number of cars there needed to be somewhere to put them all!

A new purpose built centre was built on the former RAF Gaydon airfield and The British Motor Museum (then known as Heritage Motor Centre) was opened in 1993. Since then the collection has continued to grow and it is now the world’s largest collection of British historic cars with over 450 on display spanning 135 years of motoring!

ROADSTER’s experience began before we had even stepped inside! The museum was hosting one of its special outdoor shows - the BMC and Leyland Show - and the museum car park was FULL of cars from this rich past. ROADSTER! Dad was excited as he used to own four Rover cars and there were lots on display - “Sam! I used to own one of these!” he shouted!

Once inside the museum there is an vast collection of cars everywhere!

The entrance foyer welcomes you with a number of stand out cars from British motoring history including the very first Land Rover, the 1959 first pre-production Morris Mini-Minor., and the amazing high performance Ariel Atom open wheeler. There’s also a 1930s themed Motoring Cinema where the museum shows vintage motoring films, and a recreation of a 1930’s mechanics garage full of period fixtures, fittings and objects.

Rounding a corner you then enter into into the main museum itself and you are greeted by the most wonderful collection of interesting cars, each with a story to tell...

The Design & Concepts section of the Museum celebrates innovation - unique cars in which new ideas were tried out and sometimes even showcased.

The Sports Cars section - offers a chance to get up close with some amazing historic British sports cars.

The Jaguar Zone features a selection of cars from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust collection.

A Land Rover display includes a huge man-made ‘mountain’ showing off Land Rover’s off road capabilities as well as some interesting Land Rover’s.

The Record Breakers display features some of the cars built to attempt various land speed records, complete with pictures and films of these historic moments.

The Royal Cars section includes a number of cars used by members of the royal family, including Royal Land Rovers, and Queen Elizabeth’s personal car - still owned by King Charles!

“Under the Skin” is an interactive area which lets you get hands on to discover how cars work!

The Gas Turbine section tells the story of Rover and this fascinating technology, with three Rover gas turbine cars on display, including the unique Rover BRM (which completed Le Mans twice!).

The “Film and TV”

section includes

some amazing cars

which featured on

our screens. These

include the amazing

pink FORD “FAB 1”

from the

Thunderbirds movie, the Blue Ford “Anglia” from the Harry Potter films, a futuristic yellow taxi from the film ‘Judge Dredd’ and a replica of the famous DeLorean used to travel through time in the Back to the Future films.

One of our favourite sections of the Museum is the “Time Road”. A road full of cars which goes around the museum - it begins in 1896 and travels through time to the 1980’s!

On another floor there’s Vauxhall’s famous heritage collection - an interesting collection of cars which tell the Vauxhall cars story. Outside the museum extends into a separate building which houses the museum’s workshop and viewing gallery, even more cars and interesting cars from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust collection. Elsewhere the museum has a great cafe and gift shop!

ROADSTER! thinks this is a fascinating museum with so much to see! It is full of historically important cars whose stories are brilliantly told through interesting panels and brilliant guides! ROADSTER! highly recommends a visit!

With huge thanks to Claire Broader at the British Motor Museum for her kind assistance with this feature and for her ongoing support to ROADSTER! https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/