SELLING cars is the focus of an important historic archive being unveiled by the British Motor Museum.
The Gaydon museum will unveil an online catalogue entitled ‘The Art of Selling’ on Monday December 23.
The unique collection of sales and press material originating from British Leyland and their competitors at home and abroad has been catalogued thanks to £30,000 funding from The National Archives, The Pilgrims Trust, The Wolfson Foundation and The Foyle Foundation.
Archivist Katie Finn has been sorting and catalogue the collection, training volunteers to work on the collection and on future new projects, as well as archive materials to rehouse the documents.
Work on the project began just over a year ago and so far as taken well over 3,000 hours to complete. More than 500 boxes have been sorted and nearly 16,500 items have been catalogued, with another 5000 items to be added in 2020.
Museum archivist Charlotte Gallant said “We are delighted to unveil ‘The Art of Selling’ after 14 months of intensive, time-consuming but very rewarding work.
“This wide ranging collection includes everything from original drafts of press releases on a new vehicle, to the marketing and selling of a car along with maps, posters, dealer information and much more.
“The culmination of this project will be that this once inaccessible collection is opened up to the widest possible audience and we hope the public will enjoy seeing the collection for the first time.”
For the first time the public will be able to browse the catalogue online on the National Archives database Discovery – www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk – where people can search for a particular marque or model.
Anyone interested in viewing the material in person, can book an appointment at the museum’s reading room and request which documents they would like to look at.
Visit www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/archive for full details.
