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The motor vehicle has shaped our lives during the 20th century. You will not find a more comprehensive record of Britain's contribution to this revolution anywhere in the world.
Though the Museum Exhibition is the public face of the collections - behind the scenes lies a splendid Archive containing 15,000 cubic feet (and growing) of historic material. The range is exceptionally varied: business records, sales and technical material, magazines and books, production and engineering records, plus a large collection of film, video and negatives which provide a wonderful photographic record of the whole course of the British motor industry from the 1900's to the present day. The range of companies covered include Aston Martin, Austin, Lagonda, Lucas, Morris, MG, Standard, Triumph, Riley, Rover including Land Rover, Vanden Plas and Wolseley.
The Trust has four 'special' collections of material relating to the lives of important figures in the British motor industry: Lord Austin (founder of the Austin Motor Company), Lord Nuffield (founder of Morris Motors Ltd), Sir Miles Thomas (chairman of Morris Motors Ltd) and Sir Alec Issigonis (designer of the Morris Minor and the Mini).
The latest initiative has recently commenced, to digitise the one million photographic images in the Library for public viewing. Many of these images only existed in negative form and therefore could not be directly viewed by the public for reasons of conservation.
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