Museum Collections Centre

When you visit the Heritage Motor Centre you are able to see, on average, 180 British motor cars, of all types and all ages. The museum collection, however, is much larger than that – nearly 300 in total. Some of the Trust’s cars reside in other museums but many are stored away, awaiting their turn in the exhibition hall.

The long-term aim of the Trust is to make more of the collection easily accessible to all of our visitors and that’s where the idea of a Museum Collection Centre began. The reserve collection is housed in a number of stores in a number of locations, not available to the public. We’d like those cars in store to be on view as well as the cars in the museum. We’d also like to integrate our Workshops with the new store and site it conveniently close to the museum.

Our plan is to build a new store here at Gaydon in 2013, with space for the 100 cars we have in reserve, together with space for expansion in the future. Once complete, the building will be open every day for you to look inside and a new group of tour guides will be available to give you a closer look behind the scenes tour, by appointment or on special open days. You’ll also be able to see how the Trust’s Workshop looks after the collection when it’s not on display.

What will be in the new building?

If you’ve visited the museum you’ll know that the collection encompasses vehicles from all eras, from the everyday to the unusual, including racing and sports cars, as well as rare prototypes. All of these kinds of cars will be found in our reserve collection. Here are just a few examples.

1914 Austin 20hp Vitesse

One of the sports cars of its age, in the 1930s this Vitesse became part of the Austin company’s own collection of its early products, having been donated back by its original owner – a doctor from Kent.

1958 Land Rover series II Royal review

You’ll often find the Queen’s first – series I – royal Land Rover in the museum but we also own one of the reserve cars that Land Rover made for ceremonial duties. It only has 13,000 miles on the clock.

1969 Morris Minor Traveller.

The Minor is still one of Britain’s best loved cars and the woody Traveller was just right for a picnic in the country or the trip to the WI. This 1969 car has the particularly apt number plate JOY 4 2.

1972 MGB SSV1

One of British Leyland’s earliest demonstrations of safety technology, SSV1 includes many features we take for granted now, such as air bags and run-flat tyres, as well as other novel ideas such as a sobriety testing computer and a periscope rear view mirror.

1985 MG Metro 6R4 rally car

The 1983s was the era of super-powerful Group B rally cars, including the mighty MG 6R4. This is the development for the joint Austin Rover – Williams designed machine – which was campaigned by the late Tony Pond.

You can get involved!

A new building doesn’t come cheap – we estimate it’s going to cost us £2.5m. The Heritage Lottery Fund recognises we have a good scheme and has given us a first-round tick for the project. It has also given us £50,000 to draw up some plans for the new building and to start recruiting a team of volunteers to help with the project. Once we’ve done that, in 2012 we’ll go for the second round of the application, hopefully to secure a grant of just under £1m.

We’ll be trying to raise the remaining £1.5m from other grants, benefactors and sponsors. If you’d like contribute to the project with a donation, however small, we will be launching a scheme in the New Year.

We’re not just looking for money, we’re looking for people who can give up their spare time to help with the project. There’s work to do straight away whilst we plan the building, for example collecting data about the cars in store and then there’ll be an opportunity to become a tour guide and look after the collection once the new building is open.

If you have an interest in motor cars, the motor industry or just want a project for your spare time, we’d love to hear from you. No previous experience needed!

To apply to become a volunteer at the Heritage Motor Centre, visit our become a volunteer page.