British Motor Museum Main Collection

The British Motor Museum contains the world’s largest collection of historic British vehicles.   It was a really impressive museum and worth a visit if you’re ever in the UK.   It is a nice combination of early vehicles, examples of popular British cars, concept cars and competition cars.

The museum is located in Warwick, near Birmingham, about an hour or so north of London on the M40.

One of the first cars you see is an 1897 Daimler, the oldest UK built example.   It was used extensively in its heyday and is still in working condition.   You can see its flame ignition system, which is essentially a pair of Bunsen burners heating metal tubes that ignite the fuel.   The car was later fitted with an elephant hide hood.

Proceeding into the museum you see a number of concept cars such as a Rover SD1 estate, and a BL electric car.    From there, the museum is divided into a number of exhibits.   These include:

• The concept cars described above
• Famous Jaguar Competition cars
• Royal vehicles, including the Queen’s personal Rover P5
• ‘Memory Lane’ type exhibits that show popular vehicles from a particular time period
• Competition and record breaking cars
• Estate cars
• Land Rover/Range Rover
• British Sports cars including an excellent cutaway MGB GT

Including spending time at the Overflow collection and the Jaguar Heritage Collection, I spent the entire day there.

The British Motor Museum is also the home of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust archives.   The archives are the suppliers of heritage certificates.    There is also a reading room which is available for research by appointment.