Wednesday 11 February 2009

Heritage Motor Museum, Marauders map and socks

Yesterday, we ventured out on a family day out to the Heritage Motor Museum at Gaydon in Oxfordshire. In fact, it is actually only a short drive away and Rob worked for 3 years just down the road from it, but we have never been there!!!!
It is next to the Landrover and Jaguar headquarters, so it is quite Landrover orientated, or should I say the employees are!! This obviously suited us (Tom) quite well and we started the visit with a chat with the man on reception. He pointed us in the direction of a few of the desired exhibits (HUE the first ever Landrover which has travelled worldwide, 2 cars that you can actually sit in and the timeline that runs the length of the building with cars from the vey beginning to present day) and spoke to the boys about the James Bond car which I consequently completely forgot to take a photo of!!!
But here are a few of the phtos I did take...

We all loved this car with its canvas roof and open sides, leather seats and enough of them for all of us to make a contender for the new Survival Family vehicle. Sadly there are very few of its kind and unlikely to be considered practical... ;-(Then there was the electric car made from plastic, tax exempt but not sure that would be enough of a carrot for me!!!


Now this is an MGB GT...I think my mum learnt to drive in one of these. Fabulous car,



but obviously been part of a messy divorce!!



Wooden cars for the younger ones to drive...with wooden foot pedals and indictors that actually stuck out like the old fashioned ones!! Will and David loved these!!!
While Rob and I were looking at the timeline road and wishing that cars these days were like these ones from the early 20th century still, one of the museum staff came over to us. I had a moment of sudden panic as only David was with us...Tom had Will with him, and Jonathan was momentarily out of sight. But I needn't have worried, he merely said that he could see that Tom was really interested in one of the cars and wondered if he would like to sit in it! Now there are only 2 cars that you are allowed to sit in, and this car wasn't one of them!

It is Lara Croft's Landrover and Tom got to sit in it!!! Well, they all did eventually, but he was first. The man told us that it was specially made for Angelina Jolie as an automatic, as she struggles with a manual gear box!!! Not so cool after all is she, eh?
A good day was had by all, ending with an Off road experience for Tom and Rob....a 10 minute off road course in a 2008 model 110.
And now for a couple of quick crafty pics...a Marauders map (from Harry Potter)that I made for David. You'll have to look closely!!!

And the socks/bootees I knitted for Will!!!! I think they turned out quite well. Jonathan wants a pair now too.









5 comments:

Carol said...

Does this mean the chicken pox was a false alarm?! Hope so!

Love the boots!

Carolyn said...

It would appear so !!!! Thank goodness.

Big mamma frog said...

Sounds like you guys had fun! I usually get dh to take them to any place that involves vehicles; I did far too many of those sorts of museums as a child (my dad had a thing about train/car/tank/plane museums) and I'm afraid that the only thing that ever interested me was the gift shop! I do try...honest.

Carol said...

Oh I just remembered - I used to go out with a guy who had an MGBGT!!! That dates me a bit doesn't it!!

Carolyn said...

Not at all!!!! I used to go out with a guy who drove a Riley Kestrel...wasn't one there though. I like cars generally...but not the new ones. Although I would imagine if I had the same experience as you as a child, I probably wouldn't want to go either!
Maybe I should thank my parents for never taking me anywhere like that...my boys could be seriously missing out!!