NEW MUSEUM TO HOST 100 BRITISH CARS
Bold plans unveiled for 100-acre site in Derbyshire – we reveal the classic exhibits that you’ll be able to drive there next year
Classic fans will be able to drive historic British cars at a 100-acre venue in Derbyshire if bold new plans for a museum are given the green light. Historian and classic collector, Richard Usher, has applied for planning permission for a new site in Ambergate, near Belper, called The Great British
Car Journey, which will tell the story of BMC, Rootes, Vauxhall and other marques.
He said: ‘The site already looks and feels like Longbridge would have done in its heyday. It’ll be very uncluttered inside – we want the cars to tell the story.’
Alifelong British car fan and collector wants to open a museum in the Peak District dedicated to our motor industry.
Richard Usher, the historianturned-enthusiast who opened Blyton
Park Driving
Centre in 2011, recently applied for planning permission in Ambergate, near Belper in Derbyshire. If successful, he will transform a 100-acre former wire manufacturing site into The Great British Car Journey. It’s set to open in April next year.
Divided into ten historical ‘chapters’, the Great British Car
Journey will tell the history of UK car manufacture from the Austin Seven onwards; every British volume maker will be tackled, from Austin-Morris’ eventual empires, via Rootes, to Ford and Vauxhall.
Richard said: ‘The site already looks and feels like Longbridge would have done in its heyday. It will be very uncluttered inside – we want the cars to tell the story.’
Guidance will be provided by preprogrammed tablets given to visitors.
The Great British Car Journey will comprise approximately 100 cars, most of them unrestored, extremely low mileage examples of cars that were once ubiquitous. Richard lists a 7000-mile Mini 850 as one such asset, along with a 16,000-mile Austin Metro City and a Rover 213S (SD3). Rootes, Ford and Vauxhall’s cars will be well represented, too: Richard has a Sunbeam Rapier, Hillman Imps, Hillman Avenger and a Talbot Alpine in stock for the museum. CCW is also aware of a Cortina 80, Capri MkIII and Mondeo MkI ready for the floor, along with a Vauxhall Chevette. Richard said: ‘That was a particularly tricky car to find; there are so few left.’
A key feature of the Great British Car Journey will be a selfcontained driving route around the site so visitors can try out the cars from their childhood. Richard said: ‘A lot of younger visitors won’t be aware of how basic these cars were – our Metro City didn’t even have a cut out for a parcel shelf. Any long journey was an adventure.
‘I looked at the super car driving packages we offered at Blyton Park but then I thought: “What if you could drive dad’s car?”’
Some 35 classics will be on offer for visitors to try, including two Morris Minor Millions already in the collection. Richard said: ‘There will be themed packages if people want to try out several cars. So, for example, we could do an Issigonis itinerary, or a Ford or Vauxhall package.’
Cars will come with an instructor in case anyone is unfamiliar with such things as unservoed brakes or choke systems.