Tony and I went to visit the British Automotive Museum, which is just north of London. And yes, we drove there. It is a very, very cool building housing some very, very cool cars.
Tony was excited to see the cars as he is a bit of a car buff, and went to see the Los Angeles Auto Show a couple of times back home.
The museum was having a special James Bond exhibit showing some of the cars used in production of this enduring franchise. They had the Astin Martin from the most recent "Quantum of Solace".
They also had several cars from other british automotive manufacturers, including Rover and Wolseley, Mini, and Triumph. This a great collection chronicling the fine British Automotive tradition.
Being the film geek that I am, it also was fun to see several prop cars from different films which were made in the UK. Among them was Lady Penelope's car from Thunderbirds, as well as a couple cars from Judge Dredd.
Sadly, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was not on display when we were there.
All of the cars were in top shape, and looked as if they could be driven out of the building on a moments notice.
Even the older cars looked well taken care of. The visit gave me a greater appreciation of the automotive industry as an artistic as well as technical field.
Probably my favorite cars were part of the Car Show outside. They had these really cool three-wheeled Messerschmidt cars. They were built shortly after the end of WWII and made use of a lot of the fuselage parts that had already been built. They looked like they would be very fun cars to pilot, I mean, drive.
Hey Kevin, just saw the 3 wheel car at the last Top Gear show. Apparently, they have got some issue reversing. Not the most practical of vehicles, are they? ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up, will head towards this musuem soon.