The British Motor Museum at Gaydon, in Warwickshire in the heart of England, on a site directly adjacent to Jaguar Land Rover’s development facility and Aston Martin’s factory has recently been re-jigged. Its origins are in the collection of cars maintained by British Leyland, though the brief has now widened and has been amended at times over the years. The Jaguar Heritage Collection is a recent addition (or returnee) and cars from Honda and Toyota are also included, linked to UK assembly operations. Vauxhall Heritage has joined since my visit in August as well, and the museum makes a concerted effort to not just show old cars but to tell the story of the British motor industry as well – warts and all.
A recent addition is the Collection Centre, holding a changing variety of cars on the first floor in a storage format and the Jaguar Heritage collection on the ground floor. Part 1 of this virtual personal highlights tour focuses on the cars presented that were the first or the last of their line, and some that were in between and took my fancy. Your choice may have varied; that’s absolutely fine.
Let’s start with something that was one of a kind – a Docker Daimler, in this case the Green Goddess. Professor Tatra covered these here, so no need to go into the details. If you thought the Mini was small, it certainly seems it now.
And, yes this is the first production Mini, registration 621AOK. Perhaps the museum’s most valuable exhibit?
In the collection is the last Rover 100, the later derivative of the Mini’s closest successor, the Austin Metro.
This is the last Mini Cooper S from 1971, until Austin-Rover realised the benefit of the name in 1990 and, of course, subsequently BMW have used the name extensively. But BL were thinking of saving the £10 royalty on each car.
This is the first Austin Maestro off the line, from March 1983. Being BL, the one preserved is a basic model with black metal bumpers, not the then novel painted valences.
And the last Austin Montego, big brother saloon to the Maestro hatch, and by 1995, long devoid of its Austin badges.
And like the Rover 100 and as was the custom, it was signed by the people who built it, almost by hand in a dark corner of then BMW owned Rover Group factory at Cowley. Despite the name change and Cowley origins, it is generally accepted as being the last Austin.
This is the last Morris – a 1984 Ital estate, the predecessor to the Montego and one of BL’s many deadly sins.
To match the last Austin coming from Cowley, the last Morris came out of Longbridge, the traditional home of Austin in Birmingham.
The Ital was a facelifted Marina and nothing more, unless you pushed the boat out for the O series engine 1700 and (rare) 2000 versions. This Marina is a 1971 1.3 litre example, handed to the museum by a long term owning family.
The car alongside is a 1960 Standard Ensign, one of the last Standard badged cars.
The last Austin Allegro, from 1982. I had an Austin Metro in the same Nautilus blue.
The other notable car of this generation of BL product was perhaps the Maxi – this is the last one from 1981, a 1750 version. alongside is an MGB based safety concept vehicle.
Moving upmarket, here’s the first Rover 825 (aka Sterling 825) saloon, with the Honda V6 engine and many shared genes with the first generation Honda/Acura Legend, seen alongside a 1969 Morris Minor Traveller.
And preceding that, the last Rover 3500 (SD1) – in this case a Vitesse performance version.
I’m a Curbivore, so you have two shots of the SD1.
And the last Rover, a 75 CDT which was virtually hand built from stock materials after the collapse of MG-Rover in 2005.
The last Triumph Dolomite, a Sprint, from 1980; the last Michelotti styled Triumph and perhaps, even, the last Triumph Triumph.
More cheerfully, the first 1948 Morris Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis and described by Lord Nuffield as “looking like a poached egg”. He changed his mind when 100,000 had been built, as the car went on to be Britain’s first 1,000,000 seller.
The Minor replaced the Morris Eight, Britain’s favourite of the late 1930s. This is a 1936 example. Any resemblance to the Ford Model Y is not intentional but not accidental either.
A 1963 Austin Cambridge, part of the Farina range. Somehow, you don’t suspect Farina did the grille or the two tone colour schemes.
Not a Minor, but an 1952 Morris Oxford. So like the Minor, but larger, that even Morris fans make that mistake.
This Honda Civic Type R was actually almost brand new – just three weeks old and never registered. It was the last Honda to be built in Britain, at the factory at Swindon Honda established around thirty years ago to build cars for Europe.
Ands this 1979 Prelude was not actually British built, but was a gift to Sir Michael Edwardes, chairman of BL from 1978, on the signature of the partnership agreement with Honda that, perhaps, saved BL’s volume car business. It was used as a site run-around at Longbridge for many years, apparently.
The Jaguar Heritage collection was also worthy of time; this may not be the first XJ6 but it is the first XJ6 that was William Lyons’ personal car. This car is actually serial number 370 with the 4.2 litre engine, so Lyons waited a little while.
This is the last Jaguar XJ-C, a 1977 5.3 litre V12 example. Still one of my all time favourites.
The XJ-6 first came out in 1968; this is the last six cylinder of the original model, by now in series III format with the Pininfarina shaped glasshouse and built in April 1987. V12 cars continued until 1992.
And this is the last Mini to leave Longbridge. It’s actually the remnants of a 1976 Mini Clubman 1275GT, which was being used a factory runabout, got damaged in accident of some sort, and then dumped away from enquiring eyes, with just 11 miles on the clock, in the network of disused tunnels built underneath the factory in the late 1930s as air raid shelters and potential storage and manufacturing space. It was recovered in 2013 and now adds a certain form of closure to the Mini story at Gaydon.
Unfortunately that museum seems to illustrate a
common lack of imagination in auto museum layout and design. It looks like an indoor car park rather a museum with a story to tell and educate its visitors.
I think those cars are all or mostly in the recently opened Collections Center, where over 200 “reserve” cars are kept. This is similar to other sorts of museums in recent years putting their collections (or a lot of their collections) in publicly accessible display areas instead of some warehouse out of the public’s eye.
Collections Centre map didn’t post. The website:
https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/explore/museum
Mike D,
I’ve been visiting the BMIHT sine it was first sited in cramped quarters at Covent Gardens in London, and it was always included in my one and two week tours of England in the 1980s and 1990s.
What you’ve seen of this collection does, at first glance, appear to be simply a collection of vehicles thrown together. I can assure you it is far from that. School children make pilgrimages to this museum, and the place is very well set-up to teach kids and adults about the history of the motor industry, but it does limit everything to the British version of the industry, leaving the rest of the world to other automobile museums located all over the UK.
With the rare inclusion of Japanese cars that tie-in with changes in the British car industry, you won’t even find foreign cars that were sold in the UK with right hand steering. The collection had it’s beginning with a storage facility filled with various show cars, cut-away motors or car bodies, and other special cars or related items. I remember an MGBGT that was cut in half, front to rear, every piece down to the back seat cushions and springs. It was positioned in such a way you could walk between the halves of the car.
Today it’s far more than a museum of cars, it’s got so many unusual items on display, and the research facility and library is first class. I know because I’ve been allowed to study in the library.
I urge everyone who has an interest in the historical aspects of the British transportation evolution, to make sure they arrange an extra day during their visit to the UK, and visit the BMIHT. You won’t regret it.
What happened to the Honda plant in Swindon? Shut down because of Brexit?
Yup. Just one consequence of slitting our economic wrists
nope. free trade deal between the EU and Japan. Honda are closing a plant in Turkey too.
Honda are closing because they’re not selling enough cars in Europe (in the geographical sense of the term) to justify a plant there.
Much as I would like to pin it on Brexit, it’s not that. Had the plant been located in Belgium or Spain, they likely would have closed it down too.
Honda sales fell off a cliff in the EU not helped by the godawful styling of the last Swindon built Civic. Seen as pensioner cars, dull and reliable. The Honda E has crashed and burned as well. Like Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi, Japanese manufacturers have lost than ability to make cars people in Europe want.
A more complete story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_UK_Manufacturing
And a more autocar oriented version, from Autocar:
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/swindon-factory-closure-how-honda-got-europe-so-wrong
It mentions the Nissan Qashqai, a best seller in the UK (known as the Rogue Sport in the US). Nissans are considered sort of B list cars by a lot of people in the US, but for some reason not at all in the UK.
I visited Gaydon in 1993, it was interesting but a bit depressing as we see here: Last this, last that, concept car that never went anywhere. Etc.
I remember taking a photo of Paddy Hopkirk’s Mini, maybe we’ll see that in Part 2?
The tradition of the production line workers signing significant vehicles goes way back.
It was the last B-17 to be scrapped where it was ’cause the folks at Kingman realized the significance of it and cooperated while efforts were made to save it.
https://www.key.aero/article/autographed-bomber-5000th-b-17
I notice the “Green Goddess” Daimler doesn’t have the usual recessed headlamps. Is that because it was one of the three (?) LHD cars built for export to the USA I wonder?
Nice presentation on this museum. I enjoyed reading your remarks and members’ comments. A question regarding the Docker Daimler, “Do you think that Bertie Wooster might have driven this vehicle or would his Aunt Agatha have been aghast at the excessiveness of his use of money?”
Beautiful cars Roger and so historical – definitely need to put this museum on the list for our next UK trip.
I was enthralled with the Rover SD1 when it came out and still am.
Looking forward to Part II….
This post reminds me that I may be one of the people here who has ridden in both Mercury AND Austin Montegos. And both wagons. One had a V8, the other a diesel.
I think one of the stranger things about this post is seeing these cars on such late plates. An SD1 on a D-plate? And an Ital on an A-plate? A Maxi on an X-plate!
There’s some dismal fodder in here, but I like how you kept our spirits up with some of the highlights of British motoring history as well
Thanks for this amble, Sir Rog.
Almost bizarrely, I “know” a whole bunch of these cars, all from reading too many English classic car mags, or their like online. Can’t help but like even the dire stuff, like that Ital wagon, or the wholly ungainly Maxi.
XJ-C for me, too. Could even make an argument it is better than an E-type, I reckon.
Oooh the Green (gray?) Godess… How delightfully decadent. Thank you for that, Sir Rog.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Morris Ital, but it strikes me as one of the ugliest European cars of that period. Remarkable how basically the same company was also making the SD1 and the Dolomite around the same time. What a strange and utterly dysfunctional catastrophuck BL was.