Cars, cars, cars

Should you ever happen to find yourself in Coventry with a couple of hours to kill (no, I have no idea why you would be there either, but bear with me on the premise) and you didn't fancy the cathedral, one could do far worse than visit the transport museum. Now I feel particularly well-qualified to say this given I have no interest in cars (let alone motorbikes or bicycles), and I still found the place perfectly entertaining. So not limited petrolheads.

The collection is free (always a good start) and leads one from the earliest vehicles at the end of the 19th century (on which you would have had a precarious perch exposed to all elements where the saving grace would have been the slow speeds and absence of competing traffic) to snazzy new cars in which you would virtually have to lie horizontally to drive. Also of interest is just the demise of the industry in Coventry, and indeed the transfer from myriad small manufacturers turning out a few cars (in the early days with wooden frames over which fabric bodies were nailed into place) to a few giant manufacturers who turned out huge quantities of motors (of low quality), and then, well, to nothing now except London cabs which are still churned out in the city.

The vintage stuff does of course have a certain style, even if it does feel a little comic now...

By contrast there are the super cool racers which even I find aesthetically pleasing

 And then the odd speciality, like the mini from the Italian Job

And the De Lorean from Back to the Future..

And the huge car/rocket that once broke the land speed record



But the most curious vehicle of all was this one.

Built about 1900, the unique design feature is that the driver sits on the back seat. There is room for two passengers in front, facing him, with the steering wheel in between him and the passengers. So the driver would have to peer over or around his passengers. They on the other hand would have their backs to the traffic and no seat back to lean against, or even any substantial arm-rests. Presumably all that saved this from being the ultimate death trap would be its slow acceleration and negligible competing road traffic. Unsurprisingly this design feature did not catch on. Imagine with modern acceleration as passengers get hurled into the drivers lap on setting off (presumably leaving all their teeth in the steering wheel) only to fly off backwards on a sharp breaking manoeuvre. Not every experiment is a success.