Ian Waller and his family enjoy a visit to one of the West Country’s best motor museums
It was quite a day’s shopping. My youngest ended up coming home with a Ferrari, his big brother with a Jaguar, my wife with an open top American sports car and I made do with a Mercedes convertible.
Well, you can’t visit one of the best motor museums in the country and not come away without a few souvenirs. After all, it’s impossible not to play the ‘Which one would you take home?’ game when you’re visiting a wow collection of some of the world’s most beautiful and exotic cars.
The occasion was a half term visit to Haynes Motor Museum at Sparkford, near Yeovil in Somerset, about an hour and a bit from Bristol and somewhere I’d been convincing the family that they would love to visit for weeks.
The museum is home to a fabulous collection of 400 cars, motorcycles and other vehicles, all beautifully restored and combined to create the catalyst for any number of childhood memories and motoring fantasies.What’s more, there are plenty of activities for children to get involved with along with way, plus a special exhibition just opened called The British Motorcycling Story.
Haynes is just an amazing cathedral of the car, room after room of gleaming, gorgeous, four-wheeled art pieces covering the entire history of motoring from early carriage-like designs steered by a long stick through to steam cars, sports cars, family cars, super cars, American muscle cars… you get the idea.
Early on it’s the museum’s red room that just stopped us in our tracks – an incredible collection of gleaming red Ferraris, MGs, Lamborghinis and other manner of internal combustion exotica that proved the catalyst of our competition for which car we would each be taking home. From there it was on to other rooms of more everyday metal – the type of thing that grandad might have driven to work – before it’s on to Wheels Around The World, with its huge American gas guzzlers, open top Mercedes and so, so much more.
Along the way, there’s plenty of family fun in the form of interactive displays, photos ops and play areas. Check out the website before your visit and there are also seasonal extras, such as an October half Big Bug Hunt and Christmas events in December.
We were also told that the museum runs a series of curriculum-linked activities for school, with an Education Centre available to host up to 100 pupils.
For our family visit, though, it was all about classic car fun and while, yes, it was mainly dad’s idea to pay a visit, we all enjoyed the trip. A quick top tip – if you fancy adding to the trip with a try out on the karting track next door, book a place in advance. We attempted a last minute go only to find all of the places were booked up.
At the end of our visit, we chilled out for a break at the museum’s Cafe 750 with its selection of sandwiches, wraps, cakes and snacks, and time to pick the car of our choice to take home. Well, Christmas is coming, so you never know…