On Friday John and I set out on our weekend away to celebrate my birthday. We were staying at our favourite hotel in Somerset. The journey there was a pain as the weather was bad with heavy rain which meant heavy darks skies and difficult driving conditions. There also seemed to be a lot of road works along the route. When we arrived we relaxed in the bar with an drink, just what I needed! We had decided that since the weather forecast was predicting rain for the whole weekend, we would keep it simple. We had decided that on Saturday we would visit the Haynes Motor Museum, which was a 30 - 40 minute drive from where we were staying. After a delicious breakfast we set out for the museum. The idea to create a museum began with John Haynes OBE and his wife Annette Haynes.
Potentially the names Haynes may take you back to the workshop manuals that helped you keep your car running smoothly. John Haynes was the founder of Haynes Publishing and the creator of the Haynes Owner manuals. I certainly had one of the manuals for my first car and there were a few in my parents home. Not only was John Haynes the creator of the manual he also collected cars. The collection started with a 1930 Morris Oxford Six saloon and expanded from there. In the early 1980's he decided to found the museum and donate the cars to the museum charity. The museum is based in Sparkford Somerset and opened in 1984 with 35 cars. It has grown over time and in the time we were visiting we only looked at roughly half of the collection. It's great that you can return throughout the year on the same ticket. We will certainly be visiting again next time we are staying in the area. The museum is well laid out and has a lot of information alongside the cars.
Before we had entered the museum exhibition areas we had to pass a line of cars and one Triumph bike. I took a photo of the bike.
The story of the museum and John Haynes started as we entered the first room. This gave us the background history of the man and his love of cars. The information on the walls was vey interesting.
The 1934 Austen 7 saloon caught my eye. This car was the result of Herbert Austin trying to bring cheaper motoring to the public. I can remember learning how to use the starter handle to start the engine. I must admit I'm pleased that I just have to depress the clutch and press a button to start my current car.
I also spotted this Austen Healey frog eye Sprite looking resplendent in red. My older brother had a frog eye and I loved driving it. He painted his deep blue and added gold stripes but it really should have been red.
The red room housed all the delicious sports cars. So many to look at.
I found the 1968 Triumph Spitfire Mk 3, my first car. I had a lot of fun the with car and covered so many miles that it needed a new engine at one point.
The next car is the 1968 MG Midget. The car was small but such fun to drive. This car was inexpensive but handled like a much larger and more expensive sports cars.I could keep going with all the lovely sports cars but there was a lot more to see.
The 1955 Morris Minor convertible was the first British car to pass one million sales. We always referred to these cars as 'moggies' or moggie minor. They were launched in 1948 and in later years a four door model was produced and also a wood framed traveller.
The next car is a 1954 Sunbeam Talbot and this is the make of car I remember from my early childhood. We had a Sunbeam Talbot with a registration plate of EYE975. I'm not sure why I remember the number but I do. The car we had was black and an earlier model but it was fun to be a family with a car. As a child I used to suffer badly with travel sickness but it was worth it to visit new places. As a child I though the Sunbeam Talbot was the most elegant car I'd seen.
I wanted photos of the interior as I always loved the leather seats and they were very comfortable.
The Ford Anglia is another car that I remember well. My then boyfriend owned a Anglia and he put me on the insurance so I could get some driving practice prior to taking my test. It was another fun car to drive.
A car I always wanted was the Triumph Stag. This was the big brother of the Triumph Spitfire, with a bigger engine and four seats. Fortunately I never bought one as they had a reputation for being unreliable. Instead I stuck with my reliable Spitfire for many years until John and I started our family. At this point I needed a car with four seats and more safety features.
The roads in UK towns and villages are fairly narrow so currently there is an issue with modern cars that seem to be continually increasing in size, length, width and height. Some people see this as a new problem but some of the expensive early cars where large. Then however, there was limited traffic on the roads so it didn't cause too many problems but times are different now,.
The 1937 Lagonda LG45 Drophead Coupe is a large car but beautiful, luxurious and very expensive. Lagonda's dramatic victory at Le Mans in 1935 inspired the LG45 model. This car was getting lots of admiring looks and as you can see it is a large car.
We were moving very slowly past the various car so much so that we probably saw about half of the exhibits. Fortunately we are able to visit as often as we want over the next year on the ticket we bought. It was the perfect destination for a wet day and we really enjoyed our visit. We drove back to the hotel in the late afternoon and we settled in the sitting room next to the fire. John wanted to finish his book and I did some more embroidery on my tablecloth.
If you aren't excited by cars I have some quilt pictures to post as on the Sunday we visited my favourite quilt shop and they had a quilt exhibition on. I'll post those pictures tomorrow.
Take care
Lyndsey
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