Millbrook at 50

Famous proving ground is also celebrating this year

Your chance to drive this legendary test-track.

Millbrook was opened in 1970 and, fifty years on, it still thrives. In the mid-sixties, Vauxhall and Bedford decided that, while the new and almost deserted M1 motorway near Luton presented some very interesting test drive opportunities, a better policy was to learn from the GM experience and build a dedicated proving ground. A task force scoured the UK for a site that was both flat and hilly. The Millbrook site was located, coincidentally but usefully close to Luton and the M1 and a smaller version of the North

American General Motors Proving Ground was built.

The new facility replicated many of the most successful features of the Milford site in the USA and benefited from the accumulated wisdom of more than 50 years of proving ground operation. Construction work began in April 1968. Over 2,600,000 cubic yards of earth were moved to sculpt the necessary track features into the existing but barren landscape. After opening in 1970 the site, for many years, was dedicated to the testing of Vauxhall cars and Bedford trucks, buses and numerous military vehicles.

In 1988 a new company, Millbrook Proving Ground Ltd, was formed to trade independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of Group Lotus. In 1993 Millbrook was separated from Group Lotus by transferring its shares to GM Holdings UK Ltd. The company continued to focus on increasingly high technology areas of vehicle design such as crash mitigation, emissions control and component durability.

Millbrook Group was formed in 2015 when Millbrook acquired Test World and today Millbrook Group is part of the Test and Measurement business segment of Spectris,