A fire at the Heritage Motor Centre’s site storage area in Warwickshire has damaged several vehicles. The blaze happened at the museum, located next to the M40 as well as Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin’s production and research and development centres. According to the fire service, up to seven cars were caught in the fire.
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service said: ‘The location of the incident is a motor vehicle storage area.’ A spokeswoman added that fire crews had called in the police, ‘as the fire was believed to have been of doubtful origin’.
According to a Land Rover spokesman, ‘the good news is that no one was hurt in the fire – and that’s the most important thing.’ Tim Bryan, Head of Collections and Interpretations for the British Motor Heritage Trust added, ‘There was indeed a fire on our site, but nowhere near the museum, and the cars involved were Land Rover fleet vehicles. No historic vehicles from the Trust collection were involved!’
The fire service from the Jaguar Land Rover car plant, which borders the motor centre site, also helped to fight the flames which had taken hold over an area of 10 metres by 70m and involved, ‘a large quantity of bush and scrubland, well alight’.
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You might want to reword the headline to avoid heart attacks amongst your readers, as no heritage cars were involved!
By “storage area” do you mean “bin compound”?
Nasty…
There are several storage areas within the site which I saw several weeks ago when attending an organised event, one of which is a brand spanking new building near the original entrance of the museum. I remember looking at it and hoping this had been built in response to the fierce criticism the museum had received in 2012, where exhibits had previously been left outside in all weathers.
I am pleased to hear that none of the heritage vehicles from the Trust’s collection were affected by this fire.
Some of us have been criticising that place well before 2012….