Beaulieu, England – No grease under your fingernails? No oil rag stuffed in your back pocket? No worries.
You’ll have vroom in your heart for the National Motor Museum less than two hours from London in south-central England. The shrine to horsepower appeals to anyone who ever put a key in the ignition and hit the road – and anyone younger who dreams of doing so.
Britain’s oldest museum of its kind, the privately operated facility displays more than 250 cars and motorcycles. Among the automobiles are streamlined powerhouses that set speed records before jet cars left them in the dust.
Buggylike vehicles from the dawn of driving look dowdy beside the gleam of 1930s chrome. Crowding the two-story building are cars preferred by royalty, cars for families, cars that carted groceries and movie stars’ cars. Even television’s hapless Mr. Bean found a parking space here for his lemon-lime Mini.
Racers of several eras, their profiles evermore aerodynamic, are suspended on three floor-to-ceiling steel trackways. A re-created 1938 garage is furnished with tools and fixtures from the actual station it mirrors. It lacks only an attendant to pump gas for the ghost-gray Hillman Minx out front.
Many of the vehicles, even the very elderly, are drivable.
Motorcycles on display include on- and off-road models and muscular competition bikes.
Visitors board the basement Wheels Ride and move among scenes of motoring history.
In an outdoor arena, some of the automotive assets occasionally roll out for demonstrations. Steps away in a protected area, the Mini Motor Playtrail gives young children romping room and the opportunity to dream on wheels. A nearby dome contains a simulator ride and an interactive Sony PlayStation revved up with motoring-related games.
The museum opened in 1952 with five cars in the front hall of Palace House, hub of the 7,000-acre Montagu estate. The tract was sold to the illustrious family in the 16th century by the many-wived Henry VIII, and today the public can visit 20 acres containing the great house, the car treasury and remains of an abbey dating to the 14th century.
John Douglas-Scott Montagu, father of the current baron, was a visionary and pioneer motorist who in 1906 predicted that automobiles would “replace nearly every other kind of traction upon the Earth.” To help support the estate, his son Edward parked jewels from his father’s car collection inside the palace and opened it to tourists.
But even a baron has to bow to family complaints. When the old vehicles made the house smell of crankcase oil, Edward Montagu rolled them out to sheds on the property, then into the current museum in 1972.
Visitors can still visit the palace, touring about nine rooms (the family lives in the remaining two-thirds of the building), and walk in its Victorian garden.
A mile-long monorail and a replica of a 1912 London bus carry visitors among the museum, abbey and palace, or they can walk from one to another on paved paths or the Mill Pond nature trail. Within a stroll of the palace is the village of Beaulieu (BEW-lee) and its shops and tearooms.
Insider’s guide
GET THERE: The National Motor Museum, operated by a private trust, is about 1 1/2 hours by rail or road from London. By train, leave from Waterloo station, get off at Brockenhurst and take a cab the 7 miles to Beaulieu. By road, take M3 and follow signs.
MORE INFORMATION: The museum is open daily except Christmas. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. October through April, until 6 p.m. May through September. Tickets cover visits to the museum, house and abbey; monorail and bus on the grounds; PlayStation games; and Wheels Ride. Prices: adults, about $26; seniors and students, $24; ages 13-17, $15; ages 5-12, $13; and families (parents and up to three children), $71. The resource library is open by appointment.
EAT: The museum has a food court
with snacks or light meals. Fish and chips cost about $10; soup, $5.
