The British Motor Museum has launched its Online Collections, enabling anyone to explore and find out more about the collection vehicles documented in detail on the website. This is the culmination of a number of years behind the scenes work, including during lockdown. By digitising the vehicle collections, the Museum is inviting anyone to learn, enjoy and be inspired by the heritage that it preserves.

During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, the Museum recognised the importance of connecting with people, especially when the building was unable to open to the public. During this period, technology helped people across the globe to learn and communicate. Behind the scenes at the Museum, work was underway to implement this concept across the vehicle collection.

Cat Boxall, Curator at the British Motor Museum, said “Collections and artefacts form a major part of the draw of the Museum, as being valuable resources to tell stories about environments, places, processes and people throughout history. In exploring and learning about the collections when the doors were closed to the public, it has become increasingly clear that the impact of the British motor industry is felt far beyond the reaches of the UK. The launch of the Online Collections portal enables access for audiences anywhere in the world”.

The British Motor Museum loves to work with people, collections and places across the UK. Another feature of the Online Collections means that staff, researchers and visitors alike will be able to access all the information about any vehicle in the collection and where it is currently on display – be that on loan, at an event, in the Museum or in the Collections Centre building.

Alongside the location of vehicles, users of the Online Collections will be able to see more technical vehicle information, images of the cars and key historic information associated with each entry. Having a vast collection of around 400 cars makes it difficult to get everything on display, but the access that the new portal provides means that even the unseen portions of the Museum’s collection can be enjoyed by anyone!

Launched as part of the Heritage Open Days festival to raise awareness and appreciation of the amazing collection, the Museum hopes the Online Collections portal will add to the growing digital presence of the Museum as it continues to develop online exhibitions programmes following the success of Metro at Forty back in 2020.

The portal can be assessed by the public through the Museum’s normal website from 9 September at: https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/explore/collections/car-collection

Here is just a sample of what’s available –