You’ll be able to feast your eyes on radical cars and motoring concepts from the past at a new ‘Motopia’ exhibition that’s coming to the National Motor Museum.
The year long event - Motopia? Past Future Visions - opens on 20th May at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in the New Forest, Hampshire.
It’ll take guests on a ‘journey through 130 years of future thinking about automobility’ - and will include everything from car design concepts and alternative propulsion systems to how our towns and cities have been constantly re-imagined based on the way we travel.
One of the revolutionary vehicles on display will be the Volkswagen XL1 (below) - a plug-in hybrid from 2013 that combined a diesel engine with a 5.5 kWh lithium-ion battery to give it an all-electric range of up to 31 miles.
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The ultra limited edition VW XL1 was ultimately shortlisted for the 2014 World Car of the Year award.
Another vehicle headlining Motopia? Past Future Visions is the US-made Columbia Electric (below) - a battery-powered vehicle dating all the way back to 1901.
The Columbia Electric had a maximum range of around 40 miles… and a top speed of 20mph.
The Columbia Electric car being shown at Motopia was actually bought new by then Queen Alexandra for use in the grounds of Sandringham House, Norfolk.
Guests will also be able to swoon at a Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz from 1959 (below) - a vehicle that wowed fans with its futuristic, space-age tailfins and dual bullet tail lights.
Meanwhile you’ll also get to admire the iconic - and ultimately doomed - Sinclair C5 (below), a battery-powered tricycle first launched in 1985 which was built on incredible ideas and dreams but which sadly failed to perform in the cold British weather.
The Motopia? Past Future Visions exhibition isn’t just about concept cars, though.
Jon Murden, Chief executive of the National Motor Museum says, “Concept cars, visions of the future at the start of the 20th century and ideas on how we travel and power our vehicles will be on display, and we’ll be encouraging visitors to explore ideas for an ideal way of living and getting about. It’s the first of a series of exhibitions at the Museum that will focus on the future as well as the past of automobility.
“We’ll explore how radical motoring concepts from the past that remain relevant today and how these have influenced what we ride and drive, the nature of our towns and cities, the way we work, shop and socialise.”
The title of the exhibition is inspired by the work of British architect Geoffrey Alan Jellicoe.
A National Motor Museum spokesperson adds: “In the 1950s he described the place where vehicles and humans co-exist in harmony as Motopia. Much earlier, at the turn of the 20th Century, another visionary, John Scott Montagu, second Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, was predicting fast roads connecting cities. Successive generations have taken these ideas and built upon them. The exhibition looks at those and other visions of the future from the past.”
Motopia? Past Future Visions will be included in the ticket price for the Beaulieu attraction.
More information is available at:
www.nationalmotormuseum.org.uk/events
www.beaulieu.co.uk/motopia-past-future-visions
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