A great selection of rare classic cars at Gaydon

IT'S a bit of a shocking admission to make when your day job is being the news editor of a national publication dedicated to classic cars. Until last weekend, I'd never looked around the Heritage Motor Centre.

I'd only been to the extensive museum, based in the Warwickshire village of Gaydon, on one fleeting visit during a classic car rally last year. Sadly, an extremely hectic schedule meant I couldn't do what any self-respecting petrolhead really ought to; have a long, lingering look at the scores of British classics inside.

Luckily, last weekend's roster of classic car events was just about un-hectic enough to afford me a proper peek into one of the nation's bona-fide automotive treasure troves. Here's just a few of the stunning machines you'll be greeted by if you head through Gaydon's doors...

To plan your own visit, go to the Heritage Motor Centre's website or give them a call on 01926 641188.

Caister Castle Motor Museum no go for photographers is a poor show

THE museum was a treasure chest, stashed with motors beyond even the means of millionaires. On the calibre of classics alone this collection, ten minutes outside of the Norfolk Broads, should be the east of England's number one destination for car connoisseurs.

So why couldn't I recommend the Caister Castle Motor Museum?

It is, after all, a car museum in a beautiful corner of the English countryside, with the boats and the Broads on one side and the calm beaches of the North Sea coast on the other. The £10 admission price, while significantly more than you'd pay to get into, say, the Lakeland Motor Museum at Holker Hall, also gives you access to Britain's oldest brick-built castle, and a tranquil woodland trail.

That's before you get to the 170-strong collection of classic cars, which aside from being worth in excess of many millions of pounds features some of the fastest, rarest and agonisingly beautiful machines ever made. I would love to be able to give you a taster, for instance, of the museum's Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. Or let you weigh up whether you'd save up for the lovingly-preserved 1959 Mini or the Cooper S rally competitor parked next to it. Or consider which of the Rolls Royces and Bentleys you'd like parked outside your imaginary mansion, but I can't.

Unlike just about every classic car museum, show, parade and club gathering I've ever been to, Caister Castle is absolutely insistent that there is no photography of the collection.

This single shot of a Lotus 33 F1 car is all I've got to show you, because as soon as my smartphone had taken the first shot I was asked in rather stern terms to stop. To be fair to the museum staff, there was a sign at the entrance advising of the photography ban, but it was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it job and I know I wasn't the only petrolhead there frustrated by it.

"Put yourself in the perspective of some of the cars' owners", a restaurateur I got talking to long after I'd left the museum, suggested. "If you'd put your pride and joy in there and left it with somebody else to look after, would you want people taking pictures of it?"

My answer, as someone who not only likes to look at classic cars, but actually owns one too? Yes, I would, and if I didn't the last place I'd stash my automotive antique away is in a museum, right in the public eye. I can understand restrictions on flash photography in art museums, because of the damage done to the paintings. I'd even understand, from a media man's point of view, if Caister weren't too keen on commercial photography, but a total ban on all photography defeats the point of it being a museum (and one of the more expensive ones at that).

Part of the pride of owning a classic is knowing that it keeps a bit of the world's cultural and industrial heritage alive, and the least I can do in return for all the tax and insurance breaks I get is to let enthusiasts take a picture of it. To ban them is to alienate an audience interested in keeping these beautiful old cars on the road, where they belong.

Caister, to be fair, is a very diverse collection of stunning cars, looked after by proper car enthusiasts who deserve a lot of credit. Until the ban on photography - something which goes against the principle of showing off classic cars - is lifted, however, I really couldn't recommend it.

Czech out these stunning classic cars from the Prague Technical Museum

TODAY'S Life On Cars treat comes all the way from Prague, which is fascinating for all sorts of reasons if you're into car culture.

There are all sorts of reasons why you'd enjoy the Czech capital if you enjoy things with wheels and engines - some of which I'll go into tomorrow - but above all I'd reccomend a trip to the city's Technical Museum, which is a bit off the beaten tourist track but is off the petrolhead scale in terms of exhibits.

Not only do you get all the automotive oddities you'd expect to find in a distinctly Czech museum, including plenty of Skodas and Tatras, but all sorts of stunning machines produced long before the Iron Curtain went up. I'm not sure how a Jaguar SS1, an unrestored Mercedes W154 Grand Prix car and a Bugatti Type 51 ended up in Prague, but I'm glad they did. However, even they couldn't play fiddle to what, for me, was their most prized possession of all - a MKIX Spitfire, which was flown by Czechoslovak fighter pilots who served with the RAF in the Second World War.

Here are just some of the cars offering a handy distraction for any car nuts who fancy giving the Charles Bridge a miss...

Read more of Life On Cars writer David Simister's motoring reflections on Prague tomorrow (June 24).

Why the Lakeland Motor Museum is well worth the visit

ONE of the great things about the TVR Car Club's gathering in Cumbria last weekend was that I could pay another visit to the cracking Lakeland Motor Museum.

I've been before to the Newby Bridge site but not with a camera good enough to show off the cornucopia of classics they've got stashed away in there, which prove a mouthwatering draw for any motoring enthusiast, no matter what their marque of preference is.

The museum's laid out logically enough, going chronologically from the dawn of motoring right through to the Eighties and Nineties, with the treasured exhibits including the world's oldest TVR, the Cumbrian-engineered Ford Focus rally car campaigned by the late, great Colin McCrae and a delivery-mileage, and a Bentley owned by speed record ace Donald Campbell, fittingly finished off in Bluebird colours.

In fact, speaking of the Bluebird legacy the site has an entire section dedicated to the machines of Malcolm and Donald Campbell, which is worth the admission price on its own. Seeing some of the Bluebirds boats and cars brought together in the same place for the first time, if you've got a passion for speed and machines, is a stirring sight.

The museum, as my emphatically non-petrolhead girlfriend told me afterwards, something you don't even have to be into cars to enjoy...

 

More information about the museum can be found by visiting the website or by calling 015395 30400. The postcode for your satnav, if you're thinking of going, is LA12 8TA.

RIP Cars of the Stars

I PITY the fool who didn't check out one of the north west's gems for car enthusiasts before it closed. Cars of The Stars, home of the A-Team van, is no more.

Not following? Cars of The Stars, hidden away in a quiet street in Keswick, was exactly what it said on the tin; a museum stuffed full not just with any old motors, but ones synonymous with the TV shows and films they're famed for appearing in. Weirdly, it was the only place in the world you could check out Knightrider and FAB 1 at the same time.

It was so successful that owner Peter Nelson, the former dentist who built up the eclectic collection pretty much from scratch, actually had to open a second museum on the other side of town just to house his cars from the Bond films. I said in this column last year that it was brilliant and you should all go, but you can't because when I went up last weekend I was greeted with a sign saying it had shut and all the cars were being moved to Florida. Whether you're into cars, celebrities or just Cumbrian tourist attractions, it's a sad day when Cars of The Stars closes.

I loved it because it was a museum with the personal touch; I will, for instance, never forget being shown around Mr Bean's Mini by Peter himself, who clocked me and my friends taking an interest in the only car I've ever seen being driven sucessfully via a sofa tied to the roof. It was, if you were up in that part of the world in the Nineties or Noughties, a place you wouldn't want to miss on a rainy day. Holiday visits to Cars of the Stars will be forever etched into my childhood.

What's more, I'm not even sure if Florida will particularly ‘get' what is still a collection with a peculiarly British twist. The Yanks would, for instance, love the Delorean from Back to the Future, but are they going to understand Del Boy's three-wheeled van?

There are, of course, lots of other utterly brilliant museums across the noth west which are well worth the day out, but it's a real shame that one of my particular favourites is being bundled off to the States, although I wish its charismatic owner well.

Best of British, Peter, and thanks for the memories.

Licensed to thrill

FOUND a spare £3 million stashed somewhere behind your sofa? If you're planning on blowing it on the world's most famous car, you've missed your chance.

The Aston Martin DB5 used by Sean Connery to chat up girls in Goldfinger and Thunderball has just been flogged off at auction for a cool £2,912,000, and word is it's off to Ohio to become the centrepiece of a privately-owned collection there. So it means another iconic bit of our movie-making heritage is being shipped away from British shores.

Don't worry though, because if you do what I've just done and pay a visit to the picturesque town of Keswick, you can clock not one, but two spot-the-difference DB5s sat in museums up there. Anyone who's ever been up to the Lakes on a rainy day is probably already familiar with the one sat in the town's Cars of The Stars Museum, but it's the much newer Bond Museum, a ten minute walk to the other side of the town, that's really worth the visit. If you've ever seen a Bond film - and I know of only one person who hasn't - it's an absolute gem.

Obviously you get a silver DB5 thrown in - it is THE James Bond car - but you also get to see the aquatic Lotus Esprit once used to transport Roger Moore's eyebrows around, the invisible Aston from Die Another Day (although this particular gadget wasn't working that day) and just about every other prop Pinewood Studios had lying around.

But my own particular favourite had to be the actual car used to escape from some annoyed Czech police officers in The Living Daylights, even though I was convinced it'd been blown up as part of the car chase across a frozen lake. It is the real star from my favourite Bond film of all, even though Timothy Dalton was also the best actor to play Bond. There, I said it.

Whether you're a petrolhead or not, if you've ever enjoyed any James Bond film you're going to love this museum, which is well worth the visit on your next walking holiday in the Lakes.

Complaints from Sean Connery fans to the usual address, please.

Life On Lawnmowers

I KNOW this blog’s called Life On Cars and therefore should only cover cars, but this week I’ll make an exception, mainly so I can post this gloriously cheesy picture.

As part of a new Champion series called Movers and Shakers I’ve met up with Brian Radam, the man behind the National Lawnmower Museum, based in Southport (no, really).

Among the seemingly millions of mowers proudly on display in Brian’s collection is one of Chaz and Di’s wedding presents, the latest robotic lawn monsters, and some speedy racing mowers, like this 300cc beast I took a liking to.

It turns out that we used to lead the world when it came to lawnmowers, with such illustrious names as Rolls-Royce, Velocette and, er, Wilkinson-Sword making machines your gardener could be proud of.

Shame that Britain’s lawnmower industry went the same way as the car makers, although the idea of them all joining forces to create a grass-cutting conglomerate – probably called British Leylawn – would probably have been a step too far.

We could have ended up with a world-class mower with razor-sharp blades, motorbike handling, and the engineering quality of a Rolls Royce. Or the Austin Allegro.

Anyway for mower information keep an eye out in The Champion for my piece on Mr Radam, or check out the museum’s website.