An Interesting Find In The Archive

Curator Damien Kimberley was in the archive recently, undertaking research for his latest book, and he came across two little pieces in consecutive editions of The Light Car And Cyclecar magazine, from January 1925, which we captured our imaginations, so we thought we would share them with you.

The first entry is this photograph of "a striking little three-wheeler seen in Coventry recently", and the magazine appeals for details from whoever owns the vehicle.




In the next edition, a full page article about the vehicle appears, explaining how it was built by a Mr F. W. Baker, of 'Rothsay', Pinley, Coventry, in his spare time, from the components of an old 6 h.p. Humber motorcycle "which had already seen much service".

We were fascinated by this little story of one man's endeavour to create something rather special, and hope you enjoy reading the article too: (Click on the image to open a larger version).

Eric Meredith visit Wednesday 13th April

On Wednesday 13th April, we had a special guest visit the museum – 97 year old Eric Meredith from Warwick who is a goldmine of historical fact about the automotive history of the Standard Motor Company in Coventry and the Avon Coach Building Company in Warwick. Together the two companies made Standard-Avon Cars, these were very distinctive because of their beautiful sweeping lines and bodywork.

Eric started his working life in 1927 when he was 14 years of age, as a woodworker and progressed to a fully qualified coachbuilder with the Avon Coachbuilding Company and eventually becoming the Managing Director of the company. During his engineering career, Eric was an integral part of designing and building Spitfire fighter aircraft and Wellington Bombers in Derby for the second World War. He went on to design and build a specially adapted car for RAF Hero Douglas Barder, amongst many other projects.

Eric will be coming back to the Museum after Easter to spend another day with us so that we can film and record his amazing life achievements for everyone to enjoy.

*Photo courtesy of Jim Balfour/Coventry Telegraph.

Facilitator's Blog - Coming Soon 1940's Weekend

Our next ‘Through the Decades’ weekend is coming up soon, its our 1940’s weekend on 30th April – 1st May and we’ve got loads of things planned, including the very popular ‘Granddad’s Allotment’ activity where you can learn how to ‘dig for Victory’ and plant a vegetable seed to take home and look after and then eat!

We are also really pleased to welcome our Field Marshall Montgomery Look - Alike who will be standing to attention by Monty’s Humber Staff car and reading from the real Monty’s diaries.
Lots of us who work at the Museum will be in 1940’s costume so why don’t you dress up too? You could visit us dressed as an evacuee a soldier or a land girl!

Facilitator's Blog - 1930's Weekend

Our 1930’s weekend followed soon after ( 2^nd and 3^rd April ) with visitors discovering some of the interesting items invented during this decade… most importantly of course the chocolate! Did you know that Rolo’s, KitKat’s, Smarties, Mars Bars and Malteasers were all invented during the 1930’s!

Really importantly to us at the Transport Museum this was also the decade when the Highway code was first published and the dreaded driving test was introduced.

Facilitator's Blog - 1920's Weekend

Just time for quick catch up with our ‘facilitator’ year here at Coventry Transport Museum. I really hope you made it to our very glamorous 1920’s weekend ( 19^th – 20^th March) where we got the chance to dress up as ‘Flappers ‘ - the original ‘it’ girls. Our visitors of all ages loved trying on the sparkling head bands and fabulous feather bowers and posing for a photo or two with a cocktail shaker poised in one hand and a delicious ‘mocktail’ recipe to take home in the other.

Music and entertainment was provided by the wonderful dancers from Chloe Academy of Dance a Coventry Based school, who taught some unsuspecting visitors how to Charleston! They ended the weekend in style with an amazing and glittering Charleston performance.

Easter Activities

We decided to try something new for this years Easter holidays, especially planned for our very youngest of visitors – Storytelling for the under fives!

The first session was yesterday and it went brilliantly we had great fun telling stories, playing musical instruments and “Beep Beeping” along to the most popular story ‘ Little Red Car’.
Please come along to our next two story telling sessions which are free drop in sessions on Wednesday 20th and Wednesday 27th April at 11 – 12 on the mezzanine gallery and join in the fun.

CTM Facilitators

Pre-Royal Wedding Tea Dance – 28th April

To mark the Royal Wedding, we are staging a Pre-Royal Wedding Tea Dance at the Museum on the afternoon of Thursday 28th April between 12 noon and 3pm.

We can confirm that there’ll be a dance floor laid specifically for the event, with music provided by piano/keyboard wizzo - Martin Bissell.

Admission is FREE to our Tea Dance, with refreshments available all afternoon. Tell your friends and come along!

CTM seeks Italian Job Mini

The Museum is looking to acquire a 1960’s red Mini Cooper as featured in the film ‘The Italian Job’ for display in the Museum’s ‘Italian Job’ sewer pipe, as the scene where the minis were escaping Turin via the sewer system was shot in some of Coventry’s enormous sewer pipes.


If you can help with securing this iconic car, please contact Steve Bagley – Head of Collections Email: steve.bagley@transport-museum.co.uk