As regular visitors to the museum will know only too well, the displays and narratives are not just about motor transport. Quite apart from the gallery devoted to toys, the theme running through much of the museum concerns the social history of Bourton on the Water. There is the gallery devoted to Jack Lake’s garage and the Victorian shop window displays in memory of Collets & Sons (both formerly in the village) and, for some of us, memory-jogging displays in the 1960s/70s Paved Paradise gallery.

Previous posts have drawn attention to those enamel signs throughout the museum that are associated with food. Perhaps, surprisingly for a motor museum and toy collection, there is also a clear musical theme throughout the galleries.

The flared horn loudspeaker was a feature of the early phonographs and gramophones. The phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, initially used a tin foil cylinder and later a hard wax cylinder to record and reproduce music and speech. By the 1910s, the commercial battle between the cylinder and the disc had been won by the disc even though, initially, the quality of the reproduction was inferior to the cylinder. The disc was easier to manufacture and had a longer playing duration than the solid wax cylinder. Examples of all of these early formats, with their flared horn speaker, are to be found around the museum, including a wax cylinder phonograph with the brand “Edison”.

Even if we are not old enough to remember the horn gramophone playing (once the clockwork motor was fully wound) either the 78rpm discs or the even earlier wax cylinders, we may still recall the image of the patient dog – named Nipper – listening to ‘His Master’s Voice’ and gazing into the open horn of an early gramophone.

One of the more unusual exhibits is the wood and leather cased Peter Pan ‘box camera’ design of portable record player shown here from the 1920s. Those four radial arms support the 10” record.

It is easy to conjure up an image of an inter-war-years, sunny afternoon – picnic cloth spread on the grass, cucumber sandwiches with a glass of something bubbly and the fine tenor voice of Enrico Caruso or Count John M^cCormack emerging from the leather horn of this portable gramophone.

Moving forward four decades, brings us to the era of pirate radio and in particular Radio Caroline. Radio Caroline has generously supported the museum for many years and used to take part in the 60s weekends held in the museum some years ago. A studio from one of the Radio Caroline ships is exhibited in Paved Paradise.

Amazingly, Radio Caroline is still on the air today, both locally in the Suffolk and North Essex areas via AM (648kHz) and globally via the internet.

The old record players shown above are far from the only musical items in the museum. The Paved Paradise gallery is a good place to spot instruments as well as radios and tape recorders. A few more musical items are dotted around the galleries, did you manage to spot these on your tour?

Did you know that the museum contains one of the largest collections of enamel signs in the country? When writing the Dunlop Tyres article for our “History of Motoring in 10 Objects”, well over 10 years ago now, the following montage showed some of the collection of tyre-related signs; and these represent just a small part of the overall collection.

It may come as a surprise but many of the signs have no connection with motoring. Nonetheless, they provide a great insight to life in the early part of the 20^th century – including into what we used to eat and drink.

At first glance, the rather unappetising sound of Bird’s Egg Substitute might suggest that it coincided with WWII rationing. In fact, it appears to date back to the turn of the 20^th century when Alfred Bird and Sons Ltd:

“… invited the perusal of practical recipes for the use of Bird’s Concentrated Egg Substitute … in the making of all sorts of cakes, light puddings and pies”.

Apparently, it was originally only intended for Alfred Bird’s wife, Elizabeth, who had both egg and yeast allergies but evidently became a mainstream product.

Overall, there are hundreds of signs on display in and outside of the museum.

An activity for our young visitors to the museum – how many food and drink-related signs can you spot? You could start by looking behind you just as soon as you enter the first of the seven galleries – but you may have to ask a grown-up “What is Tizer?”.

Here we go again, we are all set for another season to welcome visitors to the museum. We re-open tomorrow – Saturday 10^th February 2024.

For the last week the museum staff and groups of our fantastic volunteers have been beavering away, dusting, polishing and vacuuming ready for our first visitors of 2024. Please come along and check us out.

A sometimes-overlooked aspect of the museum is the range of toys that we display. Two of our seven galleries are devoted to toys. Here are just a few of the smaller ones.

For the next couple of blog posts we will look at a few of the many non-motoring exhibits. We will start by selecting some of the vast number of enamel signs that are everywhere in the museum. The theme of that selection – food! Then we will see just how many musical instruments we can spot.

Something that maybe you could look out for on your next visit?

Anyone driving through Bourton on the Water in the last couple of years will (hopefully) have noticed the ‘new’ 20mph speed limit. Given the large crowds that the village attracts throughout the year and the narrow streets, this seems a perfectly adequate speed.

For those of us who managed to stay awake during our school physics lessons, we may recall that the energy possessed by a moving object (its kinetic energy) varies as the square of the speed at which that object travels. In the context of speed limits, this means that a car travelling at 40mph possesses 4 times the energy of one travelling at 20mph. In the event of a crash, all that energy is lost in the collision causing damage and possible injury.

Air resistance, or drag as it is known, also varies as the square of the speed of the car. Recently, some UK motorways are displaying speed limits of 60mph rather than the usual 70mph with an accompanying variable message sign saying that speed is being limited to ‘improve air quality in the area’. Reducing speed from 70mph to 60mph results in a 27% reduction in drag with an associated reduction in fuel consumption and harmful exhaust emissions. If you live near a motorway such an improvement in air quality must be a step in the right direction.

Looking around the museum it is clear that 20mph zones are nothing new. It is quite easy to spot the 15mph sign in the Mill Gallery and the images below show some of the other signs that may be unfamiliar to today’s younger visitors. If you are visiting the museum, how many more can you spot as you wander around?

Hello, Brum here again! The other day Graham came up to me and said “Brum, do you know how many models there are of you around the museum?”. Well, I can spot a trick question when I hear one! So, I said in my most innocent voice, “Graham, I’m really sorry but how would I know, I just sit here all day”. “Oh, of course” he said and wandered away mumbling to himself about being busy.

Well, due credit and all that, it was a good question, so, when all was quiet, I thought I would have a look for myself – quite literally! I was quite surprised, there is a whole cabinet devoted to models of me and I counted at least ten, nearly all different. I think there is one quite high up in Paved Paradise but my headlights couldn’t see that one.

My favourite is the one in the unopened pack with a message from Mike Cavanaugh. It says:

“Thank you for visiting, love from Brum and Mike” and is dated 19 September 1996. 

If you’ve watched me on TV (BBC iPlayer or YouTube apparently) you will have seen me drive around Mike when he wasn’t looking at the start and end of each programme.

Better still, if you’ve visited the museum and counted the number of models, I would love to know. If you haven’t, then do please come and let me know how many you see. The cars are good as well!

Take care,

Toot, Toot

Brum

Hello and welcome to the first “non-Brum” blog post of 2023.

What Brum was trying to say is the following:

Our exhibition, “100 Years of CSMA”, opens on 11 February 2023 when the entire museum will be celebrating the achievements of CSMA/Boundless. The exhibition consists of eight towers located throughout the museum. Each tower has a display of objects, photographs and text. Two towers will also show a short film from our archive. The towers are 2 metres high and have their own internal lighting. The exhibition will end with a room relating our backstory to today’s Boundless members. This will include a multi-screen film, objects from the archive, and a creatively designed audio-visual display.

(CSMA stands for Civil Service Motoring Association. This organisation was the forerunner of Boundless)

Hello everyone, Brum here again.

My goodness it has been a chilly winter here in the museum but I’m starting to get excited. We open again in less than one week and I’m so looking forward to seeing all our visitors talking, smiling and admiring me – and the other cars and exhibits of course – as they wander around.

For children, we have these brand-new cars that you can ride in – unfortunately I can’t offer rides – but the new cars will definitely be enjoyed by the little ones.

Apparently, this year is a bit special; I think I heard murmurings about a hundredth anniversary. Not sure if it’s Graham’s birthday or 100 years of the museum or something else but I’m sure it will all be clear very soon.

Meanwhile, please come along and see us all. Remember we open on Saturday 11^th February. See you soon.

PS What do you think of my Christmas card? I was so pleased to receive it! I think it will inspire me to SPROUT a few more posts during 2023!

PPS Talking of vegetables, I was going to tell you that my favourites are CAR(rots), especially after I have been out for a SPIN(ach) but I thought you might find that a bit CORN(y).

The Austin Seven is a racing car! Yet, from what we have posted so far, that seems unlikely.

We have already seen, however, that one hundred years ago, this simple, affordable ‘Baby Austin’ kick-started the development of cars from manufacturers like Jaguar and BMW. So, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised to hear that some names in the world of motor racing ‘cut their teeth’ on the Austin Seven.

Our final post on the theme of Austin Sevens in the Cotswold Motoring Museum collection, or cars that are associated with the success of the Austin Seven, brings us to the sportiest of the collection; the Austin Seven Ulster. The 1931 Ulster in the collection is shown below.

Even early in the life of the Austin Seven, once initial issues around the lubrication system of the engine had been addressed, the engine became remarkably reliable at racing speeds. Gordon England, using skills developed from his work on aircraft design, built a lightweight racing body and with that he took second place in the Brooklands 200-mile race in October 1923. He proceeded to set further Brooklands records, lapping the track at an average speed of 80 mph.

To meet public demand, replicas were built by Gordon England, amongst others, and marketed from 1924 as the Brooklands Super Sports. In all, under license from Austin, he went on to produce over 20,000 bodies for the Austin Seven chassis.

Austin, being aware of the sporting success of the ‘specials’, decided to add a factory-built model to their range and hence in July 1928, the car that became known as the Ulster was launched. (The name Ulster came from the success of the car in the 1929 and 1930 Ulster Tourist Trophy races).

Although production of the Austin Seven ceased in 1939, in the post war years many were rebuilt as ‘specials’ including the first racing car built by Bruce McLaren and the first Colin Chapman Lotus. Today, the racing history of the Austin Seven is perpetuated in the 750 Motor Club: 750 being a reference to the capacity of the Austin Seven engine.

This year is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Austin Seven and this post continues with the theme of cars in the Cotswold Motoring Museum collection that have links to the Austin Seven: it brings us to the Mini or in this case, the 1972 Mini Clubman shown below.

As we saw in an earlier post, the Austin Seven was born as a consequence of a financial crisis in the 1920s.

Following the 1956 Suez fuel crisis, in which fuel rationing almost became a reality, Alec Issigonis’s concept for a small, economical car resulted in the first Morris and Austin Mini.

It was marketed under the names Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor. Yes, such was the power of the Austin Seven name that the company re-used it for those early versions of the Mini in 1959. The choice of name was made, in part, because it was felt that the Mini embodied many of the characteristics of the original Austin Seven. It was designed as an affordable car that would appeal to a wide cross-section of new buyers.

It wasn’t until 1962 that the Mini brand was adopted. Those original Minis were badged as Austin Se7ens or Morris Mini-Minors, depending on where they were built. The only difference between them was that the Se7en had a wavy grille whereas the Morris had a straight grille. The connection between the Austin Sevens and the Mini Clubman in the museum collection is admittedly one of the most tenuous that we have made in these posts. Our final car from the collection will be the Austin Seven Ulster where the linkage is much more than a naming convention. It returns to an example of a derivative from that 100-year-old model that has proved so enduring.

Look out for the final post very shortly.

No, (again), that is not a typo in the title to this post; it is yet another example of the formative role that, 100 years ago, the Austin Seven played in the formation of several motor manufacturing brands that today have achieved global status.

We have already seen examples of how the practice of the Austin Motor Company, licensing the Austin Seven design to other motor manufacturers, provided a launch platform for Jaguar in the UK and for American Bantam in the USA. Further examples can be found in Australia with the Holden Motor Body company, France with Rosengarts and Japan with Nissan.

Following Benz and Daimler, the third German car manufacturer to become established was the Eisenach car factory, starting in 1904, and Dixi was the brand name.

In the difficult economic climate of the 1920s, Eisenach decided that its product line needed to address the small car market, and in 1927 signed a licensing agreement with the Austin Motor Company to build a variant of the Austin Seven. A production level of 2000 cars a year was agreed upon, and Dixi paid Austin a royalty on each vehicle produced.

The first 100 cars were supplied by Austin as kits, but by December 1927 the first of the official Dixi-manufactured vehicles was coming off the production line. Apart from being left-hand drive and using metric fasteners, the car was nearly identical to the Austin. Body styles available were coupé, roadster, tourer and sedan, with a few chassis going to external coachbuilders. Most cars left the factory as tourers.

Looking to move into automobile manufacturing, BMW bought the Eisenach manufacturer in 1928 and with it, the rights to build the Dixi car. So, the Austin Seven was in fact the first BMW.

At first the cars were badged as BMW Dixi but the Dixi name was dropped in 1929.

The 1938 BMW 327 in the museum collection is one of around 2000 produced in the pre-war years from 1937-41. It is a sports / tourer car with a 2-litre, 6-cylinder engine and is about as far removed from the Austin Seven as can be imagined. It does, however, owe its existence to the humble beginnings of that first BMW car, the BMW Dixi – a clone of the Austin Seven.