Karl AKA Stroget is an active curator at HobbyDB of many of the 1/43 model car brands. He has been adding model cars to the DB since 2014; some of his favorites are Alfa Romeo and obsolete Tekno from Denmark!
Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.
This serialised, four part, “Postcards from Beaulieu” would not be complete without visiting the National Motor Museum (NMM) that backdrops the Spring and International Autojumbles. It is after all the centrepiece of the Beaulieu attractions and the embodiment of the Estate’s longstanding motoring connections.
Opened on the 4th July 1972, the imposing modern structure still looks as good in design terms today as it did when new. Many of the museums current collection date from those early days as a 1975 photo from our family photo archive illustrates. Far from remaining static and unadventurous though the museum is very much a ‘living’ entity with regularly changing displays and exhibits.
The NMM’s predecessor was the Montagu Motor Museum (MMM) established by Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu in 1956 moving to a larger purpose made building in 1959.
Only a few photographs of it are to be found on the internet and so here again for posterity are a trio of photos also from our family photo archive taken at Easter 1967. I have supplemented them with an internet sourced archive photo that provides a very good illustration of the 1959 buildings architectural style backdropped by Palace House.
As an aside and whilst on the subject of backdrops in photos, the view behind what was then our new VW 1500 Beetle – only weeks old when the photo was taken – shows the ruins of the Fulling Mill and the open space beyond where the Beaulieu Autojumble event fields are laid out twice a year.
The site of the former MMM is still to be found easily only a short walk from the NMM marked by an interesting information board.
Entering the NMM through the entrance lobby display area and then onto the mezzanine floor like landing, visitors are presented with an impressive spatial experience of automotive exhibits and related displays set against a backdrop of structural steelwork and modernist exposed concrete.
Not surprisingly but very relevant to our discussion are the multifarious museum style displays of automobilia having a lot of toys and models dispersed amongst the myriad of nostalgia invoking items.
One of the endearing aspects of the NMM is that, as already mentioned, its displays are refreshed or changed on a fairly regular basis. This certainly applies also to the row of mock shop fronts and connected garage complete with its service bay and office set along the righthand back wall of the museum. Over the years this street scene has included the depiction of many themes including, as I recall it, a replication of a Marks & Spencers shop front with a memorable window display.
Happily, the decor of the “street scene” as it stood last September included “THE WONDERWORKS” (purveyors of “SLOT CARS, DIE-CAST CARS, MODEL KITS AND MORE”) with an eclectic shop window display covering all those collectable themes and more.
Examples of the regularly changing special exhibits displayed either in the museums entrance lobby or centrally on the ground floor at the foot of the main staircase have included Genevieve and the Spyker of 1953 film fame and several cars from successive Bond films including the most recent No Time To Die . Other exhibits, as here, showcase the dedicated restoration work undertaken by the museum’s engineers.
And then occasionally that central display location is filled with an awe inspiring “one-off” that makes the pulse race even harder. For me (setting aside Genevieve and the Spyker which lounged in the entrance lobby anyway), the most notable example in recent years was the Gullwing Mercedes 300SL originally supplied by Mercedes-Benz Great Britain to His Majesty King Hussein of Jordan in August 1955.
An evergreen attraction inextricably linked to the NMM is the monorail which for five decades has run on a circuit around the attraction grounds including through the museum at ceiling height and by doing so giving passengers a superb birds-eye view of the exhibits below. It also gives visitors a super overview (pun intended) of the all the linked Beaulieu attractions and as such a ride taken earlier on in the day is highly recommended just to get one’s bearings and an idea of everything to be seen around the NMM.
There really is a lot to see as the site map shows and all covered by just a one ticket – which of course on the Spring and International Autojumble days includes those events as well. The Autojumbles incidentally are but just two of a very full events schedule for 2025.
Coming back full circle to what prompted this short series of “Postcards from Beaulieu”, the dates for the 2025 Spring and International Autojumbles with all their potential for finding treasure of the automotive model kind are 17-18 May and 6-7 September respectively.
See you there?
Enter your email address if you like to receive notifications of new posts by email.
Email Address
Subscribe
hobbyDB is a participant in Amazon, eBay, Entertainment Earth, LEGO, and other affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to other websites.
We also occasionally accept consideration from Brands, Service Providers, or Retailers (which is then clearly marked as Sponsored Content) all editorial opinions are our own.