Collection: Haynes Motor Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The Haynes Motor Museum is the product of the lifelong passion for all things motoring of one man; John Haynes OBE.

  Following an initial foray into automotive publishing while still at school, John built the hugely successful Haynes Publishing Group, based at Sparkford in Somerset. An avid collector of cars and automobilia, he acquired a nearby former sawmills as a location to store and to exhibit his collection.

  Opening in 1985 with an initial collection of 35 cars, the Museum now houses over 300 cars and other vehicles and includes a garage and restoration facility, a dedicated Education Centre, archive and conference and lecture facilities.

  Attracting around 130,000 visitors a year, the Museum is now a UK Independent Charitable Trust, thus securing the collection in perpetuity.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: Not known

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The collection comprises over 300 cars and other vehicles, plus a substantial supporting collection of automobilia including enamel signs and roadside furniture. The vehicle collection ranges from veteran and vintage to modern supercars. The bulk of the collection is housed in a number of themed galleries, with a small reserve collection in either on or off site storage. Restoration or repair work to collection vehicles is carried out in a specialised facility on site. A substantial archive and reference library is also housed on site.

  The vehicle collection overwhelmingly consists of cars with a small number of other vehicles including a 1920s Albion lorry and a number of motorcycles. Of the cars, the earliest is an 1898 Daimler Wagonette, although the collection does include a working replica of an 1886 Benz Motorwagen. The collection has a true international emphasis, with most car producing countries represented. Loans in currently include 13 Williams F1 cars.

  The supporting collection includes a number of children’s pedal cars by Triang, Bing and other manufacturers and ranging in date from the 1920s to the 1990s.

  Toy and model cars include commercial models and a number of scratch built models of cars in the collection at 1/16 scale commissioned by John Haynes.

  Chassis and cutaway engines include a cutaway electrically powered Daimler Dart chassis produced for the 1939 Earls Court motor show, a working model of a Barsanti and Mateucci engine and a variety of other engines and gearboxes, mostly sectioned for display.

  The automobilia collection includes over 200 enamel advertising signs, petrol pumps and their associated globes and other examples of roadside furniture.

  The Reference Library Collection comprises approximately 4,200 books and a further 54,000 magazines and pamphlets. These cover all aspects of motoring history and include commercially published books, technical and service manuals and runs of magazines such as “The Autocar”.

  The Photographic Collection numbers approximately 12.000 images. Most are prints of commercial photographs relating to car sales and launches, although there is a substantial component relating to the Museum and its collection.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date:

  Licence: CC BY-NC