Beaulieu Motor Museum, Hampshire in the New Forest -
April 2001
On a horrible wet day we went to Beaulieu, the National
Motor Museum in the New Forest in Hampshire to admire the vintage and
classic cars on display there plus all the associated motoring
memorabilia. We also visited the James Bond exhibition taking
place at Beaulieu at the time. (All images derived from video
stills).
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The Beaulieu National Motor Museum car park seemed half empty, perhaps
everyone was staying away due to the foot and mouth outbreak at the
time. The guy on the left is Bob and he's a great guy as he
volunteered to drive that day.
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The first port of call is, of course, the Beaulieu gift shop! Why
do women have such an affinity for such places? Still, Belinda's
picked up the Beaulieu guide book and that was useful for finding our
way around the motor museum.
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It took almost two hours to get to Beaulieu and the café there was most
welcome! Later, we enjoyed lunch in the Beaulieu café too and it
was excellent - good food, good service, reasonable prices all in
clean, comfortable surroundings.
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One reason for visiting Beaulieu Motor Museum was to see the James Bond
exhibition running there. Belinda was shocked to see the BMW Z8
get sawn in half in 'Tomorrow Never Dies', and even more shocked to see
it in real life!
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At the James Bond picture wall there were lots of images from all the
Bond movies, we spent ages trying to match up the pictures to the films!
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By the time we'd finished, the motor museum was starting to busy up, if
only we'd looked round the vintage cars first and done the Bond wall
later, doh.
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With so many vintage open-top cars on display at Beaulieu, it must have
been so much sunnier in the olden days! At least air-conditioning
wasn't needed, and no power steering or ABS either of course.
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Jack Tucker's old-time garage in the Beaulieu National Motor Museum was
fascinating and looked very chaotic with tools, spares and bits of car
all over the place. It was like walking into a thirties time-warp.
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Mike's jumping up in the air while trying one of the many interactive
exhibits at Beaulieu museum. There were lots of exhibits of
working models demonstrating things like how braking systems and
steering work.
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Here's the famous Bluebird in the amazing land speed record section at
Beaulieu Motor Museum. Now this would speed us up the motorway on
our next holiday pretty fast, minus luggage though!
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We took a ride on the monorail which runs round the Beaulieu grounds
and even through the inside of the motor museum. The ride did
seem rather tame after 'doing Disney' in Florida the year before!
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The gardens looked very well kept at Beaulieu, probably be at best in
summer though. We kept bumping our heads whenever we stood up to
take more pictures as the monorail roof was very low.
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Well what a surprise! Belinda's back in the gift shop as we leave
Beaulieu National Motor Museum, buying up some James Bond memorabilia;
she's a bit of a Bond fan you know!
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The Beaulieu Motor Museum is a great day out for all,
not just for old car buffs! There's something for everyone to do
with go-carts to race, the grounds to explore and vintage bus rides
(although most of Beaulieu museum is inside). Although we saw a
James Bond exhibition at the time of our visit, other special events
take place periodically at Beaulieu.
Check out our UK
tourist resources for the National Motor Museum website, it's well
worth a visit for study and, of course, vintage car enthusiasts.
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