National Motor Museum

About

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.

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 OAM, 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.

The National Motor Museum is Australia's largest motor museum, with over 350 vehicles on display as of 2009 [update]. 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.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of motor vehicles on display:

- 1925 Rolls-Royce 20 hp coupe with Carrosserie Vanvooren body

- 1934 Ford V8 coupe utility (unrestored)

- 1952 Vanguard Overland custom rebodied off-roader

- 1952 Edith 197cc Villiers (unrestored shell)

- 1956 Land Rover Series 1 LWB Station Wagon (one of two driven by the Leyland brothers in the film Wheels Across a Wilderness )

- 1958 Land Rover Series 1 short wheelbase off-roader

- 1969 Holden Panel Van 'Midnight Express'

- 1971 Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T38 coupe racer

- 1974 Holden Torana supercharged drag car

- 1996 Mitsubishi Verada wagon test mule

- 2000 Chevrolet Lumina sedan (based on Holden Commodore )

- 2000 Holden ECOmmodore sedan (VX) concept car

- 2004 Pontiac GTO (based on Holden Monaro )