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Nostalgia overload at the Great British Car Journey

THE GREAT BRITISH CAR JOURNEY ISN’T like other car museums. First, you can actually drive some of the exhibits, and second it concentrates on the ordinary cars that make up Britain’s motoring history. You could call it the Museum of the Unexceptional, except that many of the 160-plus cars that Richard Usher (who developed Blyton Park) and David Harrison have brought together have exceptional stories attached.

While other museums display what were the rarer, more aspirational and expensive models when the cars were new – the RSS and GTS, the limited editions and homologation specials – at GBCJ you’ll mostly see the bog standard models which, ironically, are now often the rarest. They can also be more evocative too; you’ll probably see cars that were parked on your street when you were a kid but which you haven’t seen in years. When was the last time you saw a MKIV Cortina or a Chevette hatch? The car that stopped me in my tracks was a vanilla standard Metro 1.3L, white with brown vinyl seats: identical to the one in which I learned to drive.

With the help of a slick hand-held tablet and headphones, GBCJ takes you through the story of the British car industry in nine, roughly decade-led chapters, starting with the 1920s and a profile of Herbert Austin and the car he and Stanley Edge created for the masses, the Austin Seven. The commentary brings the exhibition alive, adding social history and industry context to the cars you’re mingling with. There’s a barcode scanner, too, giving access to the ownership story of many of the exhibits, their technical details and also how many are left – sometimes just a handful.

Usher and Harrison have been sniffing out exceptionally rare and socially interesting cars for a few years now and also acquired some from the James Hull collection, bought by JLR in 2014. There are about 120 on display and another 40 in storage in what was once a wire-making factory in Ambergate, Derbyshire. You could easily spend a couple of hours perusing the exhibition with the accompaniment of the tablet and then take the headphones off, loop back and do it all again, spotting cars you missed the first time.

All the cars are in working order and once you’ve wandered through the various ‘chapters’ – Austin, the Rootes brothers, British Leyland, etc – you arrive at ‘Drive Dad’s Car’. Obviously, this could be Drive Mum’s Car, Aunty Sybil’s Car, Your

Mate’s Brother’s Car, etc. Prices for a 20-minute drive range from £49 to £70 and the choice includes Hillman Imp, Reliant Robin, Capri Laser, Austin Seven, Triumph TR7, Rolls-royce and XJ-S Convertible. It’s only a gentle pootle around the extended site, but it does give you a chance to get a feel for the cars and includes one standard entry to the museum, normally £15. A family ticket (two adults, up to three children) is £40.

Museum visits and drives must be booked online. For all the details and to make a booking, visit www.greatbritishcarjourney.com.