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Cotswold Motoring Museum And Toy Collection, Gloucestershire

 

The focus of the Cotswold Motoring Museum is, of course, cars. But the collection is particularly charming in focusing on ephemera related to cars. These seemingly unremarkable items give a real insight into the way cars provided freedom in people's lives. I saw on my visit, for example, 1920s picnic sets and knitted swimsuits which suggested trips to the country or seaside. There were album covers representing music which played on car radios, or on tape players, and rock festival posters from the events that youngsters used their cars to get to. Items like this confirm the idea that the car changed the idea of community. Rather than a specific place where people happened to live together, communities could become looser, based on shared interests or leisure pursuits. A community of scattered friends could get together for a picnic or a beach trip. People of like-mind were so much easier to reach with a car. Historian of roads Geoffrey Hindley confirms this idea that cars changed our idea of community. Towns and villages were linked by roads. Under the impact of the motor car, housing was built along connecting routes, so that once separate towns and villages merged together into something much looser, and less defined.

The museum also captures the contradiction of motoring as a method of transport for everyone, and the car as a symbol of aspiration for the few. Henry Ford wanted to build the same car for all his customers, turning out 15,007,033 Model Ts at his Baton Rouge plant in Detroit between October 1908 and May 1927. While there were various refinements through the run, they were all basically the same car, in the same colour. But Ford eventually had to give in to the stylists, led by men such as Harley Earl. Earl came from Hollywood rather than Detroit, and he and the designers who followed him created a sense of aspiration around cars. Cars were designed in ranges, on a ladder of desirability, which people tried to climb as they, hopefully, became more prosperous. Cars were transport for the people, and also dreams for the people. This fundamental aspect of motoring is well illustrated at the Cotswold Motor Museum.

The sense of a car as a dream for the future is also reflected in a huge collection of toy cars, which boys might have played with, while dreaming of owning the real thing one day. The Cotswold Museum of Motoring was used as a main location for the BBC children's television progamme Brum which featured the adventures of a little car, which would always begin and end at the museum. Naturally Brum is on display. The museum also looks to the future in considering the environmental impact of the car, and discussing possible innovations which would make the internal combustion engine more efficient.

Address: Cotswold Motoring and Toy Museum, The Old Mill, Bourton-on-the-Water, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL54 2BY

Directions: Bourton-on-the-Water is just off the A429, half way between Cheltenham and Oxford. Click here for an interactive map centred on Cotswold Motor Museum.

Opening Times: Open daily 10am - 6pm, from February half-term to the first Sunday in December.

Access: There is level access throughout the museum

Contact:

telephone: 01451 821255

web site: http://www.cotswold-motor-museum.co.uk/index.php