Coventry Transport Museum on the road

Clive Parker-Skelhon, our PR & Media Manager was the guest speaker at St. Leonard’s Parish Hall in Marston Green near Birmingham on Wednesday 14th March.
He was the guest of the Marston Greenagers, a lively and vibrant group of around 60 people who meet every week. Clive gave an engaging presentation about the Museum and his role as Head of PR & Media at the Museum.

He started his presentation at 8.15pm and went on till nearly 10pm with a Q & A session. Various brochures about forthcoming exhibitions and events were given out - along with lots of CTM pens. You can never have enough pens!

At the end of the evening, the organiser Carol Osbourne thanked Clive for his presentation and said, “I don’t really like Transport Museums and the like, but I really enjoyed tonight’s talk and will be coming to the Museum with my husband Don very soon. Clive is a very interesting and engaging speaker, his time as radio presenter certainly shows!”.

Clive is always happy to come to your group meeting to give a presentation about the Museum – you can contact him on 02476 234295 or clive.skelhon@transport-museum.co.uk

1960 Hillman Minx Rescue

On a sunny Sunday at the end of February 2012, Coventry Transport Museum staff Andrew Thomas and Christiaan van Schaardenburgh went to collect this 1960 Hillman Minx from a house in Coventry.

The owner, Irene Taylor, had used the car as her daily car until an engine problem stopped her in 1994, and the car has been stored in a garage in her garden ever since. Now she is moving house and the car had to be removed from the garage, otherwise it would have been scrapped. We are delighted to have been able to save the car from the scrapyard, because the Minx is a very significant car for Coventry, it was really the Ford Focus or VW Golf of its day, and many people would have owned one. This particular Minx is rather rare because it has the ‘Easidrive’ automatic gearbox system. We have five other Minx cars in our collection: the number one Minx from 1931, a 1934 Minx (which is now part of the running collection), a 1935 Aero Minx with special streamlined body, a 1952 Minx mark V and a 1967 Super Minx Estate.


Initially we hope to display the car ‘as found’ and then subsequently we will give it the necessary conservation treatment. Irene’s Minx will be joining her late husband’s 1967 Hillman Super Minx Estate which was donated to the museum by the Taylor family in 1991.

National Science & Engineering Week

During National Science & Engineering week (9th-18th March) we will be trialling our all new STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Maths) education sessions.

We’ve been busy developing two new sessions with local secondary schools Blue Coat & Coundon Court. The first of the new sessions; ‘Tyred & Tested’ is a science themed workshop that takes a closer look at friction, by exploring the many varied tyres in the Museum collection.

Our Design & Technology themed session ‘Design Challenge’ examines the various elements of vehicle design used for different types of vehicles, and challenges the students to come up with their own model to test.

Both sessions are aimed at Key Stage 3 groups and include a tour-based section, where learners will have the chance to examine the Museum’s eclectic collection, and a workshop-based session where they can test out their theories with creations of their own.

These new sessions will be officially launched in September for the 2012-13 academic year, but Science & Engineering Week seemed like the perfect opportunity to try them out and get some feedback, particularly as the theme this year is ‘Our World in Motion’.

For more info about the Education Sessions available at the Museum , or the new sessions being developed, please visit the Activities for Schools section of our website contact our Learning Team at education@transport-museum.co.uk