Brooklands Museum Press Release May 2010

The buildings are constructed of brick with wooden floors, but only the smaller rear building has a tiled roof. The main building now has a corrugated asbestos cement roof and there is no evidence that it was ever tiled. Plans for a luncheon room nearby, drawn up in 1907, proposed a corrugated iron roof. Aerial photographs of the building in the 1930s indicate a corrugated roof is in place on the main building at that stage. Inside, the roof of this building is supported by wooden pillars, which forms a striking architectural feature.

The project now underway involves bringing the buildings into use as The Brooklands Motor Works, a live vehicle restoration exhibit designed specifically to allow both school parties and regular visitors to see, up close and in complete safety, classic vehicles being restored for customers. The Brooklands Motor Works occupants will include AC Heritage Ltd, a subsidiary of the Brooklands Motor Company Group, whose proprietor Steve Gray has been a long time and generous Museum supporter, providing transport for the Napier-Railton to various events around the UK including the Brighton Speed Trials, Goodwood Revival and Festival of Speed and numerous exhibitions.

During the 1939-45 War the buildings were used as accommodation for troops stationed at the Track to defend the Vickers aircraft factory. The reminiscences of a telephone engineer in the 90th (Middlesex) HAA Regiment 284 Battery are on record in the Museum.

 The buildings were maintained and used by the aircraft factory for storage and the seasoning of timber during the post-war years. Since the Museum was established in the late 1980s, the buildings have been used for storage of both exhibits awaiting restoration and site maintenance equipment.

Both buildings are Listed Grade II and are a part of the Brooklands Members’ Hill scheduled monument (No. 152). 

 
The group already has a significant presence on the Museum site. On display in the Jackson shed is the AC Heritage-restored 1954 AC RuddSpeed Ace, campaigned by 1950s Le Mans driver Ken Rudd, who carried out much of the race development of the Ace & Bristol Ace. An exhibit detailing the history of AC Cars in ThamesDitton and its throughbred links to Brooklands can be seen near the Volunteers’ room by the Sunbeam Café, and amongst the machinery which AC Heritage will bring on site is an original unrestored 12hp 1928 AC drophead coupé.   

The Brooklands Motor Company Group is a well-established business with over 25 years experience concentrating on the restoration and re-manufacture of AC and Aston Martin and other historic cars. It also provides historic race car preparation facilities, but Steve Gray is keen to emphasise that the group’s longstanding expertise is not restricted to these marques, by providing modern restoration and repair to all types of vehicles. Brooklands Motor Company Group already has several bases in the local area: Brabham Buildings, where ‘Black’ Jack Brabham & Ron Tauranac designed and fabricated many of their 1960s & ‘70s racing cars; Brooklands Avro, the group’s storage & administrative headquarters; and Brooklands Garage, a hi-tech modern body & paint shop.

The Motor Works will be open to the public and interested parties in exactly the same way as all the other Museum exhibition areas. While conforming as closely as possible to the appearance of a "period" garage or small car factory, with staff demonstrating traditional craft skills such as hand-beating aluminium skin panels over wooden bucks. It is also being carefully designed with special viewing zones so that visitors can safely get close to the action in a way that they never could even in a modern factory.

 Amongst the AC Heritage equipment which will be in active service will be the original factory body bucks from the AC works in Thames Ditton on which the bodies for the famous AC Ace and original AC Cobra sports cars were built in the 1950s and ‘60s, along with Aston Martin ‘Zagato’original bodywork displays.

 
 And it’s not only in motor cars that the company’s skills will be being put to good use. Over the last few years, it has been involved in building significant aircraft parts as well – most notably the wing panels for the Museum’s Hawker Hurricane fighter restoration project– and Gray is keen to build up that side of the business, too - although we know there are not that many Hurricanes out there to restore! But it does mean that the organisation can provide bespoke or one-off fabrications for Museum restorations and help the aviation project teams on site.

The physical restoration of the main building and most of the annexe services block is now almost complete, and work will commence shortly on fitting them out for their new roles. Some parts of the annexe building will, however, remain in their present un-restored condition in the short term, while the main part of the Motor Works is brought into use. On the current timetable, the main building should be working and open to visitors by late summer this year.

The interior of the main Brooklands Motor Works building will be flexible in layout, so that the areas devoted to bodywork, mechanical restoration and vehicle displays can be varied according to demand and need, but within it there will be specific areas with displays of artefacts relating to the history of car manufacture in the local area. Everything possible will be done will be to help education groups with special projects and hope to re- manufacture a Brooklands car that raced in the day that can be demonstrated to promote the Museum

Allan Winn. Director, Brooklands Museum.

Taken from the Brooklands Bulletin, The Journal for Brooklands Trust Members.
May-June 2010

Home