Fire up the Quattro!

On Sunday 8th May, we welcome back the Audi Quattro OC with 20 of the iconic cars on display on Millennium Place.
The club are returning to the Museum for their AGM and will be parking their cars on Millennium Place for everyone to enjoy between 9.30am and 3.30pm.

The Quattros joined our Festival of Motoring last year for the first time and will be part of this year’s Festival in September.

If you’re a fan of BBC TV’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’ Drama series, then the Quattro’s are a must!

Facilitators Blog…Forties Fun!

Last week we reached the 1940s in our Through the Decades weekends, so we dusted off our ration books and put our hair in curls! It was a great weekend and lots of you came to learn about life in Britain during the war. We were very grateful to our resident gardener and museum assistant Jeff who explained all about Digging for Victory and planted lots of French bean seeds with you all! We were amazed to see how much his shoots had grown overnight, so hopefully lots of you who visited us have your own mini plants beginning to grow at home! On Saturday we were visited by Monty’s Double! Colin-Brooks Williams is a professional Montgomery look-a-like who spent the day at the museum near the Victory Car – Monty’s own staff Humber vehicle. He had a great day chatting to visitors about Monty’s life and posing for lots of photos! Many thanks to Colin for coming along.



It’s always a highlight when we do wartime activities to hear the memories of those who lived during the time, and this weekend was no different. Several of our visitors told us about their experiences as evacuees and reminisced about rationing. Our younger visitors were surprised to see how little food a weekly ration was, and how heavy a small piece of shrapnel could be!
This weekend we’re still in the Forties, this time celebrating the anniversary of VE Day! There’ll be bunting galore, so don’t put it all away just yet! Children can have a go at our free activity and make their own Union Flag to wave as well as learning about how Britain celebrated the end of the war.

Don’t forget next month we have our 1950s weekend, coinciding nicely with the opening of our new exhibition ‘Coming of Age at the Ace Café’. At the Fifties weekend you can expect lots of rocking and rolling! Come along and have a go at our Elvis Karaoke (complete with Elvis wig and glasses!), and see how life changed for people after the war. We hope to see lots of you there!

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!

Coventry Memories Website

Coventry Memories is a joint project between Coventry Transport Museum and the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, and aims to be a unique website where you will be able to browse through hundreds of stories and photographs of real Coventrians through the ages, as well as adding your own memories of anything relating to Coventry.

Craig Joy, Head of IT at Coventry Transport Museum said:

“Coventry has a wonderfully rich and varied history, and we recognise that the story of our great City is made up of millions of personal stories and histories, which are in danger of being lost as time moves on. We wanted to create a place where those individual tales can be told and preserved, so we came up with the idea of the Coventry Memories website.

As we approach the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Coventry Blitz, we have collected a series of memories from Blitz survivors, and these will form an important part of the website. But as well as landmark events from our City’s past, we’re also fascinated by the smaller events that have been important in peoples’ lives.

Whether your favourite Coventry memory is watching the Sky Blues winning the FA Cup in a local pub, learning to ride a bike at the War Memorial Park, enjoying the Godiva Festival in the sunshine or meeting a future husband or wife ‘under the elephant’, we want to read it.”

Classic archive images to view & buy

CTM are proud to lauch a new online facility - www.ctmimages.co.uk

This site demonstrates images from our huge archive, also allowing you to purchase the items as Prints, Canvases or Gifts. The store will continue to grow as we demonstrate the huge array of items from Coventry's long heritage in the transport history.

The site also offers links to our archive enquiry service - here you can make enquiries on various aspects on the archive and collection to our experienced team.

Blitz Exhibition - Joint Project

We have been working on a joint exhibition with London Transport Museum and Dresden Transport Museum all about the blitz / firestorm in each city with the focus on public transport. It’s called ‘Under Attack’ and will initially be held in London from early September until the end of March – check out London Transport Museum’s website for further details.

Spent a few days last week getting images ready so they can be blown up and added to big graphic panels for the exhibition. It took a long time to scan them in and save them as the designers need them to be really huge.

Really excited about seeing the exhibition when it’s all completed - should be really interesting and thought provoking!

Well known TV presenter Jason Dawe will be part of the Festival of Motoring event for 2010. Keep up to date with all the information on this years festival
www.festival-of-motoring.co.uk