The Cotswold Motoring Museum is a truly fascinating journey through the 20th Century.The
Motoring Museum is overflowing with vintage car collections, classic
cars and motorcycles, caravans, original enamel signs and an intriguing
collection of motoring curiosities, it is a genuinely captivating
experience.
he Cotswold Motoring Museum first opened in Bourton-on-the-Water in
1978. It was founded by Mike Cavanagh who had recently returned to
England from South Africa where he worked as a print manager.
Mr
Cavanagh had been collecting motoring items since 1959, when he bought a
1929 Brooklands Riley for £30. Collecting almost became an obsession,
with items purchased from around the world and then transported back to
South Africa. This included a 1935 Austin Taxi which he bought while in
England and then had it shipped back home. The first enamel sign,
advertising Pegasus Motor Spirit, was found tied to a gate in the
Eastern Cape. It now accompanies more than 800 signs on display at the
Museum.
When Mr Cavanagh
retired in 1999 he sold the Museum to CSMA Club. Since then the Museum
has continued to develop. The grade-two listed building which houses the
Museum has been repaired and improved. This building dates back to the
18th Century and was once a Mill with a water-wheel driven by the
passing River Windrush. The Mill was later powered by steam, and then
diesel, before ceasing operations altogether in 1949. The building was
then used as a store and retail outlet for a farmers' cooperative before
closing down completely in the early 1970s. It lay empty for a number
of years before being transformed into the Motoring Museum.
http://www.cotswoldmotoringmuseum.co.uk/index.php
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