Reading Room
Containing a Reference Library open during museum hours. Also facilities for researchers to view a photographic index and archive material from the stores by prior appointment only.

Heritage Certificate
A service offering car owners a certificate showing the details of their individual vehicles as recorded in the original production records. More...

Film and Picture Library
A service for hiring out photographic images to the press, media and publishers.

Historic Picture Sales
Individual hand-finished prints from our photographic archive.

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 wonderfully 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 1900s right up to the present day. The Companies we cover include Aston Martin, Austin, Lagonda, Morris, MG, Standard, Triumph, Riley, Rover including Land Rover, Vanden Plas and Wolseley.

We also have 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).Our latest initiative is to begin a programme to digitise our 1 million photographic images, many of which exist only in negative form and cannot therefore be directly viewed by the public for reasons of conservation. We offer a range of services, but the most important are: