British Motor Museum opens

The museum's new Collections Centre

Took myself last month to the re-opened and re-named British Motor Museum, (formerly British Motor Heritage) based at Gaydon in Warwickshire. What I can say is it's well worth a visit, even more so now you can snoop around the museum's reserve collection, housed in a new £4m Collections Centre.
Located next to the main museum, (which has also been updated), the Collections Centre is housed on two floors. Downstairs is currently home to the Jaguar heritage collection while upstairs is where the museum's reserve collection is stored. Entry is free as part of the museum's standard admittance price.

The Collections Centre is a fascinating place to spend time for any car enthusiast

What I can say with a degree of certainty is that you need to set aside plenty of time to see the exhibits properly. The centre currently houses approximately 250 cars from all ages and the time goes very quickly. Included are many prototypes, first/last of line models and historically important cars - I found myself running out of time and having to make a return visit. Still, it's great that the cars are now in one place and are there for people to see. Previously they were in storage at various locations, closed off from public view.

The Jaguar Corsica was a design study in the 90's to gauge reaction to a luxury convertible based on the XJ saloon

Highlights for me in Jaguar's heritage collection included an XJ-S convertible owned by the late Princess Diana in which she ferried a young Wills and Harry around, an XJ estate prototype and a Union Jack liveried XK used for promotional purposes for the Austin Powers film franchise. Upstairs in the reserve collection, cars included an MG DR2, (an early design study for what became the MGF), a Honda Prelude presented to British Leyland chairman Michael Edwardes on the signing of the Honda-BL collaboration deal and various wacky, (and rather ugly) safety research vehicles.

A collection of BMC/Austin Rover prototypes on display in the main museum