The Ham Nomads

26 Aug 2014. <GB-ENG> Coventry, Warw —

Today dawned wet and not particularly inviting, so we decided to go back into Coventry to get our hair done (Susie's shampooed, Warren's cut), and to post off a few cards and gifts to Oz. We had lunch in Debenham's — they really do have nice restaurants — and then walked down to the Coventry Transport Museum. Coventry was a major manufacturer of bicycles before branching our into the automotive industry.

If we ignore the companies that disappeared fairly early on, the following are Coventry makes: Rover, Humber, Swift, Hillman, Riley, Triumph, Daimler, Armstrong-Siddely, Jaguar, Morris, and Singer! And the (original) film The Italian Job, with the exciting Mini chase through the tunnels of Turin, was filmed in the sewers of Coventry during September 1968!!

The fact that Coventry was such an important manufacturing site was the reason for the German air raid of November 14, 1940, which we described yesterday.

In the museum are two rather amazing cars — the Thrust2, which held the world land speed record of 633.468mph from 1983 to 1997, and the ThrustSSC, which set the record of 763.035mph — supersonic! — in 1997 and holds it to this day.

They also have a simulator ride that takes you on that incredible record-setting pass, so your intrepid explorers went on the simulator. The measured mile is covered in less than 4.5 seconds! Of course, they had to do this twice within an hour for the record to be ratified! Apparently their next car is in the pipeline, the BloodhoundSSC, which they hope will exceed 1000mph, or Mach 1.4!

The museum also has an incredible collection of model cars, trains, planes — anything to do with transport — all collected by Tibor Reich and his family. (He ran a thriving textiles business in Stratford, but made his name designing the fabrics for the QE2 liner and the Concorde.)

After another enjoyable day in Coventry, we returned to the van, and after Susie had had a walk in the Memorial Park, we set off towards Stratford-upon-Avon. We have pulled off in a layby off the A46, about 6 miles short of Stratford, leaving us just a short drive to the Park-and-Ride in the morning.

Distance driven — today, 23 miles ( 37 km ); to date, 6,471 miles ( 10,414 km )