Museum news

The Danish Motor Museum in Copenhagen has closed, the required average of 35,000 visitors a year to break-even never having risen above some 14,000. We hear also that the Shuttleworth Trust has fallen on hard times, according to an editorial in Vintage Aircraft, who say that only when a deficit believed to be in the region of £50,000 had been reached were steps taken to cut back. It seems that after the General Manager had resigned other staff cuts were made, and that in future only pre-1945 aeroplanes will be retained. 

Meanwhile, Gallahers, who have bought the Brooklands’ “Forty Acres” from British Aerospace, seem confident that, after they have built their new office and recreational facilities on five acres of the former 360-acre Motor Course site, and have arranged new entrance roads, they can go ahead with Museum buildings and Club facilities on the remaining 35 acres, on which they have a 99-year lease acceptable to Edenbridge Borough Council. In due course a Brooklands Trust will be set up by the Council to safeguard exisiting historic buildings in the area and to set up the long-awaited motor-racing and aviation museum thereon, Trustees from both Industries to be appointed. We shall watch developments with the greatest interest.

From June 7th to August 28th a major exhibition of creations of the Bugatti family is to be staged in West Germany, as one was in London not so long ago. The display will be at the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

W.B.