British Motor Museum

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Transport Museum in Warwickshire, England

British Motor Museum

Established	1993; 32 years ago (1993)
Location	Banbury Road, Gaydon, Warwickshire, England
Type	Transport Museum
Nearest car park	On-Site Parking which is free
Website	www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk

The British Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England holds the world's largest collection of historic British cars, with over 300 cars on display from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust.

History

The creation of the

British Leyland Motor Corporation (BL) in 1968 saw the bringing together of multiple motor vehicle companies and marques (Austin, Jaguar, Morris, MG, Riley, Rover, Standard Triumph, and Wolseley).^[1][2] With many of the companies having their own collections of historic vehicles, in 1975 a centralised Leyland Historic Vehicles department was created to manage these.^[1] As the collection got ever larger, in 1983 BL created charitable trusts to ensure that these important collections, not only of vehicles, but of company archives too, would be preserved for the nation.^[1][2] The British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (BMIHT) was created, and under its umbrella, so were the Austin Rover Group Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust.^[2] In 1990, following the acquisition of Jaguar by Ford, the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust collection was moved to the Jaguar Browns Lane plant in Coventry.^[2] The Austin Rover Group Heritage Trust, which with the company by then having morphed into the Rover Group, became the Rover Group Trust, transferred its collection in its entirety to the BMIHT.^[2]

The collection, some of which was located at Syon Park, London, and the remainder being kept at Studley Castle, Warwickshire,^[3][2] continued to grow, and the BMIHT decided that a new building was required to house it all.^[1] With financial assistance from the Rover Group, and other benefactors, a large new facility was built, set in 65 acres (260,000 m²) of grounds, on the Rover Group's Gaydon site in Warwickshire (the former RAF Gaydon airfield), and opened as the Heritage Motor Centre in 1993.^[2][3] The trust's complete collection, which included more than 25 vehicles, was relocated to the new centre.^[3][2]

The museum became a

Designated Collection when it was added to the "exceptional cultural collections" of the Arts Council England in December 2014.^[4]

In 2015, the museum was temporarily closed for a £1.1 million refurbishment and rebranding to take place. Additionally, a new £4 million two-storey Collection Centre was built to house the reserve collection of the trust.[5] The museum was reopened on 13 February 2016 as the British Motor Museum.^[6][5] The new Collection Centre houses about 250 extra vehicles, and is used for both BMIHT and Jaguar Heritage Trust (formerly the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust) cars.^[2]

Following Jaguar's decision to close their Jaguar Heritage Centre, a small selection of the Jaguar Heritage Collection has been on display at the Museum.

In 2003 more than sixty cars from the collection were auctioned off by the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust;^[7] over forty more cars were sold off from the museum in 2006.^[8]

The Women who made their Marque

In 2024, as part of

marques

associated with the brand. Some of the women featured included:

• Patricia Lyons – Lyons' daughter and rally driver.
• Barbara Bergmeier
• Sybil Lupp – Early woman in motorsport in New Zealand
• Bill Wisdom – Early woman in motorsport in England
• Lola Grounds – Early woman in motorsport in England
• Denise McCluggage

– American racing driver

Greta, Lady Lyons – Lyons' wife

This is not an exhaustive list — a complete list is provided on the centre's website. Due to space limitations, not all cars are exhibited at all times.

• The very first Land Rover (1948)
• The first and last production models of the Land Rover Freelander
• Various
  British Royal Family
  and senior politicians
• An SAS Land Rover
• Prototype
  Land Rover 101
  Recovery Truck
• Shaun the Sheep Land Rover Defender
• Land Rover Series 2 track wheeled off-road vehicle
• Rare Land Rover Llama lorry
• The millionth
  Land Rover Discovery 4
• The first and last production models of the Rover 75
• Rover Gas Turbine cars
• The
  Metro 1.3 HLS
  as shown at the 1980 Motor Show
• Metro 6R4
  Rally Car
• Various
  MG
  Speed Record cars
• The first Mini produced: 621 AOK
• The last Rover Mini Cooper produced (2000)
• The Minis that won the Monte Carlo Rally during the 1960s
• Various Mini based prototypes, such as the Minissima
• FAB1 from the Thunderbirds
  film
• An Ascari KZ1 show car from 2000
• Rolls-Royce Phantom
• The last Aston Martin DB7
• Aston Martin V12 Vanquish
• Sinclair C5
• Ford RS200
• The last production Austin Montego
• Ford Escort Mark I as used in the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally
• Jaguar R1 Formula One racecar from 2000
• Nuffield Gutty prototype

The British Motor Museum offers a research and registry service for several British car marques. The Archive houses authentic historical records by many of the major car manufacturers, including a range of original factory ledgers which record the details of individual vehicles as they came off the production line. For a small fee, owners may send in their

Wikimedia Commons has media related to British Motor Museum.

• British Motor Museum
• Classic Car Collection Gaydon Series of photos of the classic cars at the British Motor Museum

52°11′19″N 1°28′50″W / 52.1887°N 1.4806°W / 52.1887; -1.4806