The National Motor Museum, formerly also known as The Old Mill and Birdwood Mill after its initial location, is a social history museum of the History Trust of South Australia focused on Australian motoring history and automobile museum in the Adelaide Hills in the township of Birdwood, South Australia.
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History
The National Motor Museum in Birdwood was started by Jack Kaines and Len Vigar after they purchased the old mill buildings in 1964, and opened as a museum the following year in 1965. It was first known as the Birdwood Mill Pioneer, Art and Motor Museum, sold to a private company led by Gavin Sandford-Morgan in 1970. It was purchased by the government of South Australia in 1976, and from 1982 came under the auspices of the History Trust of South Australia.
In 1980 the Federation of Vintage Car Clubs (SA) approached Donald Chisholm , then general manager of the museum, to participate in the inaugural Bay to Birdwood classic car run. Chisholm agreed to be co-organiser, and suggested and agreed to provide a perpetual trophy for the "Concours d'Elegance", with its design based on the Shearer Steam Car, which would remain on display at (as it was then often called) Birdwood Mill.
Description and uses
The National Motor Museum is Australia's largest motor museum, with over 350 vehicles on display as of 2009. It holds a large and historically important collection of cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. It is housed in a modern complex adjacent to its original home, "The Old Mill" on Shannon Street, Birdwood.
The museum is the endpoint of the annual Bay to Birdwood, in which vintage, veteran and classic cars and other road vehicles are driven by their owners from the foreshore area of Adelaide through to the Adelaide Hills to finish at the museum, where a festival is held and trophies awarded.
On the first Sunday of November every year, an event named MINIs at the Mill is co-hosted by the museum and the Hot Bricks Club of SA.
Exhibits
The following is a non-exhaustive list of motor vehicles on display:
1897 Peugeot Type 17 chassis
1899 Shearer Steam Carriage
1900 De Dion-Bouton Type E Vis-à-vis
1904 Ohlmeyer 'Jigger' Tourer
1907 Rover 6hp
1908 Talbot
1909 Merryweather Fire Engine
1910 Daimler Landaulette
1913 Newton Bennett 12 hp Tourer
1913 Renault Two Seater
1914 Dixi R12 Tourer
1919 Lincoln Six Tourer
1920 Palm Tourer
1921 Ford Model T
1924 Summit Tourer
1925 Straker Squire
1925 Rolls-Royce 20 hp coupe with Carrosserie Vanvooren body
1925 Hudson Super Six Phaeton
1926 Graham Brothers truck
1926 Garford flat top truck
1927 Packard 5.26 sedan
1928 Erskine Model 50 Coupe
1928 Dodge Series 128 'Fast Four'