Coventry Transport Museum

Coventry Transport Museum
Location Coventry, England
Coordinates 52°24′39″N 1°30′33″W / 52.4108°N 1.5092°W / 52.4108; -1.5092Coordinates: 52°24′39″N 1°30′33″W / 52.4108°N 1.5092°W / 52.4108; -1.5092
Type Transport museum
Director Paul Breed
Curator Elisabeth Chard Cooper
Public transit access Coventry railway station (London Euston to Birmingham line) 15 minutes walk or most buses serving the city centre stop near the museum.
Website www.transport-museum.com

Coventry Transport Museum (formerly known as the Museum of British Road Transport) is a motor museum, located in Coventry city centre, England. It houses a collection of British-made road transport. It is located in Coventry because the city was previously the centre of the British car industry. There are more than 240 cars and commercial vehicles, 100 motorcycles, 200 bicycles.

Admission to the museum is free. It has a full-time archive department, which deals with an array of historical items, and offers a public enquiry service answering questions and finding items and information.

In March 2014 it was announced that a £8.5 million redevelopment would begin on 31 March 2014 and include the restoration of the nearby Old Grammar School to be used as an exhibit, education and event space.[1]


Exhibits

Notable exhibits in the museum are Thrust2 and ThrustSSC, the British jet cars which broke the land speed record in 1983 and 1997, respectively, and some of the Royal cars - Queen Mary's and King George V's State limousines.

Transporting Thrust 2 around the outside of the Museum to the new gallery

Coventry Transport Museum's £8.5 million redevelopment project in which 12 of the Museum's 14 galleries were completely transformed was completed in 2015, the project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Foundation, European Development Fund, Biffa Award and Garfield Weston. As part of the Museum's redevelopment project, both Thrust SSC and Thrust 2 cars were relocated by specialist haulier from their position in the Museum's Spirit of Speed Gallery to the new Biffa Award Land Speed Record Gallery which opened in 2015.[2]

Many "conventional" cars are in the collection, including an Austin Allegro, an Austin Metro previously owned by Lady Diana Spencer, a Ford Escort MK2, Hillman Imp, Triumph Acclaim, Talbot Sunbeam, Talbot Horizon, Peugeot 206, Peugeot 405 and a DeLorean DMC-12 car made famous by the Back to the Future films. A Humber staff car used by General Montgomery during the Second World War is also on display.

The museum displays many Jaguars and other Coventry built cars such as the Triumph, Humber and Standard marques, an Alvis tank, Massey Ferguson tractors, and Coventry built buses, including the bus that the Coventry City football team paraded in after their victory in the 1987 FA Cup Final. Coventry motorcycle marques are also represented in the museum's collection including: Triumph, Francis-Barnett, Rudge-Whitworth and Coventry-Eagle and it is affiliated to the British Motorcycle Charitable Trust.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Coventry Transport Museum unveils £8.5m revamp". BBC News. BBC. 20 March 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2014.
  2. ↑ "Thruse SSC takes to the road". Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  3. ↑ "British Motorcycle Charitable Trust". Retrieved 29 November 2009.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.