British Motor Museum
The Restoration Workshop at Gaydon
The Restoration Workshop is the active hub of the Collections Centre at the British Motor Museum. From the Viewing Gallery on the first floor you can watch the workshop technicians carry out the daily tasks of looking after and restoring the BMM’S large and varied collection of classics. It was built three years ago to look after British Motor Industry Heritage Trust cars, but is also used by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust to maintain its heritage fleet. JDHT have two full time technicians plus volunteers and the BMM has four staff with, volunteers lending a hand, too. So it’s a busy place – there are over 300 vehicles to look after.
Running proceedings on the day of our visit was Paul Gilder, with technician Martin Brown working hard on a special project. ‘We are currently restoring a Ford Escort RS1600 and we’ve just taken it back to bare metal. It was donated to the museum and we are very lucky to have it.’ Preparing BMM and JDHT cars for shows and runs is the main part of what the workshop does, however, all of it visible to the public. ‘Showing that the collection is a living thing, not just a static display,’ says Paul. The BMM team can pretty much do it all apart from paint.
The viewing balcony is part of the workshop, so members of the public can come in and interact with the workshop team and take a close look at what is going on. There is also a big glass frontage so that you can still see inside, even when the building is closed.
‘Right now we are preparing cars for the London to Brighton run… usually we put six cars into the mix on that,’ enthuses Paul. ‘They are all in the shop for preparatory work.’
The workshop replaced the original workshop that was part of the museum building, and that area has now been converted into the main offices. It is the lightest and brightest workshop we have ever seen. ‘Due to the nature of the restoration business it is very difficult to keep clean, and there’s nowhere to hide. That’s great for the public though, there is always something to see, we do care passionately about the vehicles.’
Some cars are unique and need to be cared for very carefully, some may never run again, but the BMM’S policy of access and use should be commended. Without the workshop this simply couldn’t happen.