Cae Dai 1950s Museum

[SiC]

Been away up in Cheshire way this week with family. Less said about the arguments between my sisters the better. My niece and nephew however got on really well!

 

Anyway Mrs SiC and I split off one day and went to this little museum. Bit of a home brewed affair that's basically a warehouse with a bunch of old stuff to look at and poke about with. Cheap enough to get in and reasonably enjoyable. At a fiver each entry, it's one of the cheapest museums I've been to!

 

Only a few cars there and mostly common stuff. They had a fire about 13 years ago and lost much of their collection.

 

Probably wouldn't go out of my way to visit but if you're in the area it's worth having a look.

 

Location:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/FfVnngkt9gLoYUUAA

 

Some pictures of my visit in no particular order. Hopefully not too many duplicates from Tapatalk screwing up.

 

 

 

 

Apparently this was one of the actual vehicles used in the Great Train Robbery

[bunglebus]

Mk1 Fiesta looks clean

[Tenmil Socket]

7 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Mk1 Fiesta looks clean

Had to look back to spot that!

[Back_For_More]

Luckily my boy is still into this kind of visit as he's fascinated by the 'olden days' although being repeatedly asked 'did you have one of these?' gets a bit taxing..... 

Looks nice...... Not sure when I'll be in that area but now noted. Thanks 

[LightBulbFun]

On 29/07/2022 at 20:39, SiC said:

Apparently this was one of the actual vehicles used in the Great Train Robbery

something dodgy is going on with that Lorry 

BPAxxx was first issued in November 1933,  and thats clearly not a 1930's Lorry!

 

looking at its DVLA record it looks like it was computerised with no real vehicle age information and just has a used before date of registration shown marker, (ie if it was not for that plate it would be on a Q plate like all the ex Army wreckers you used to see etc)

so someone would of forced through a computerisation to that registration mark with only anecdotal evidence or just based on an old photo

so I almost wonder if BPA260 was a set of false plates put on the Lorry for the robbery, and somehow someone in the 80's managed to computerise it with that mark not realising they where false plates?

does anyone know the history of this lorry? I imagine it being such a famous machine there would be some period pictures?

back then in the 80's any old bollocks went, especially if you where friendly with your Local vehicle licensing office, so I do wonder! (and it was such a problem thats why it became very difficult to claim back a historic registration marks)

but yeah seeing such an old registration mark on that lorry certainly made go wait what?!

(in theory it could of also been a private/personal plate it wore before computerisation and thus was computerised with it, but I somehow doubt that!)

 

[vulgalour]

Strong start with the fire engine and the Hindustan Ambassador.  A bit of curation and that could be a really interesting collection.  Rotation of display items, information on the items and their context historically and socially, and it could be an interesting place to visit.  It's not got that hoarder vibe that these sorts of places usually end up with, but it's not far off, it looks ever so slightly abandoned and that's a little sad.

[SiC]

3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

does anyone know the history of this lorry? I imagine it being such a famous machine there would be some period pictures?

Plenty but none of the plates. Either blacked out or removed.

Original cab was burnt out in the fire, so it has a replacement on. 

Auction of the original actual plate :

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/the-number-plate-bpa-260-from-the-lorry-used-to-g-75246B3A56

[Mally]

My eldest son lives in that area, never mentioned it. I'll ask if he knows about it.

[Matty]

3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

something dodgy is going on with that Lorry 

BPAxxx was first issued in November 1933,  and thats clearly not a 1930's Lorry!

 

looking at its DVLA record it looks like it was computerised with no real vehicle age information and just has a used before date of registration shown marker, (ie if it was not for that plate it would be on a Q plate like all the ex Army wreckers you used to see etc)

so someone would of forced through a computerisation to that registration mark with only anecdotal evidence or just based on an old photo

so I almost wonder if BPA260 was a set of false plates put on the Lorry for the robbery, and somehow someone in the 80's managed to computerise it with that mark not realising they where false plates?

does anyone know the history of this lorry? I imagine it being such a famous machine there would be some period pictures?

back then in the 80's any old bollocks went, especially if you where friendly with your Local vehicle licensing office, so I do wonder! (and it was such a problem thats why it became very difficult to claim back a historic registration mark)

but yeah seeing such an old registration mark on that lorry certainly made go wait what?!

(in theory it could of also been a private/personal plate it wore before computerisation and thus was computerised with it, but I somehow doubt that!)

 

From memory reading the books it was an ex army lorry they used. So I when it was demobbed, I assume its have to be given a civvy reg number. Maybe that's how it ended up with an old plate?

[LightBulbFun]

54 minutes ago, SiC said:

Plenty but none of the plates. Either blacked out or removed.

Original cab was burnt out in the fire, so it has a replacement on. 

Auction of the original actual plate :

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/the-number-plate-bpa-260-from-the-lorry-used-to-g-75246B3A56

interesting, the fact that none of the period pictures actually show a plate has me wondering still!

38 minutes ago, Matty said:

From memory reading the books it was an ex army lorry they used. So I when it was demobbed, I assume its have to be given a civvy reg number. Maybe that's how it ended up with an old plate?

if it was Ex Army, it would of been issued a registration plate of the period, unless someone went out of the way to give the vehicle BPA260 that they held on retention as a cherished mark

a good example of this actually was one of the 2 Land Rovers used the Robbery was an Ex Army 1949 example which as expected was just registered with the period registration mark of BMG757A when it was demobbed

 

I understand that they may of used this plate on, a second Land rover they used who's real mark was 296 POO and as an interesting side note to myself, has the oldest V5c I have seen for a currently taxed DVLA record  

it must of been off the road during the period they issued red V5's too all active vehicle records in 2012ish

which seems to be the case as this post suggests it had been untaxed since 2003 in 2013 https://www.lrsoc.com/forum/index.php?topic=17588.0

this answers a long standing question I had in that if you had a vehicle which had been off the road for a long time an old V5c and you did then suddenly tax it etc, would the DVLA automatically issue you a red V5c and it looks like, no they dont!

so in theory there could a still taxed and tested vehicle out there on a 1974 V5  

 

 

to bring this back round to the museum! I love the Hindustan ambassador and all the Valve based TV's especially  

 

[Mr Pastry]

This: www.pinterest.com/pin/the-great-train-robbery--571253533957687683/

Can't upload it here for some reason, but it looks like the truck was BPA 206 at the time of the robbery - with a very hand-painted plate.

[LightBulbFun]

42 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

This: www.pinterest.com/pin/the-great-train-robbery--571253533957687683/

Can't upload it here for some reason, but it looks like the truck was BPA 206 at the time of the robbery - with a very hand-painted plate.

interesting! heres a link to the article they came from

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2423397/Amazing-scrapbooks-created-Great-Train-Robbery-detective-reveal-crime-century-captured-fascination-Britain.html

is it me or does the text at the bottom say "False number plate"? or is this just confirmation bias kicking in? LOL

3 hours ago, SiC said:

Auction of the original actual plate :

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/the-number-plate-bpa-260-from-the-lorry-used-to-g-75246B3A56

going back to this its quite amusing in that you can see the number plate in that auction is off a different font set then the one actually used in period, so someone has been had with that auction LOL

[Mr Pastry]

Looking at the close-up it does appear to say "False number plate."  If you look at the plate itself,  isn't it a stick-on plastic sheet with separate letters? 

[warch]

For years ex army vehicles were issued with a plate relating to the date they were released from service which was often decades after they were built. It was an issue in the 90s when Road tax exemption for vehicles built before 1970 was introduced lots of owners of ex army Landrovers were unable to benefit because they vehicles had 70s or 80s number plates.

[brownnova]

It’s a great little place this! Only a few miles away for me, but I’ve only been once! Fella that runs it is an eccentric chap! Was supposed to be the meet-up point for the Welsh Shiters meet up in 2020… but that didn’t happen for some reason, can’t think why, 

Mental note to go again this summer. There wasn’t any Hindustan Ambassador when I went though! 

[LightBulbFun]

43 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

Looking at the close-up it does appear to say "False number plate."  If you look at the plate itself,  isn't it a stick-on plastic sheet with separate letters? 

Yeah! 

quite amusing how it managed to end up actually registered on the false number

I wonder if whoever registered it back in 1984 knew it was a false plate or not! and I wonder if the Lorries real ID is known at all or not?

also could be quite interesting, should the real vehicle BPA260 was issued to in 1933 ever show up! (highly unlikely but you never know LOL)

 

40 minutes ago, warch said:

For years ex army vehicles were issued with a plate relating to the date they were released from service which was often decades after they were built. It was an issue in the 90s when Road tax exemption for vehicles built before 1970 was introduced lots of owners of ex army Landrovers were unable to benefit because they vehicles had 70s or 80s number plates.

indeed Until August 1983, this was true for imports as well,  and in general used vehicle being registered for the first time with the DVLC,

any such vehicle would just be given a plate current to its date of registration, (age related plates where only issued for replacement of plates transferred off vehicles already registered and sometimes old historic vehicles cases, they where not issued used vehicles being newly registered with the DVLC)

however generally the year of manufacture would still be correctly recorded so historic taxation would not be an issue, (its only an issue when a vehicle is registered poorly/improperly without any attempt to prove its age, like BPA260)

time to wheel out my favourite Volvo again LOL

 

On 07/05/2022 at 16:16, LightBulbFun said:

I was going to post about it, but the subject comes up quite often and I didn't want to sound like a broken record LOL (people complain enough about me as it is on here LOL)

but as you say, most imports and ex military vehicle registrations etc, registered prior to the 1st of August 1983, where given a current registration mark based on their date of first registration rather than an age related plate

here for example is a 1954 Volvo on R suffix plate from when it was imported in 1977  again I have posted it quite a bit, but its a good example!

 

with the introduction of Prefix plates, there was also a general shake up of DVLC policies and was one of those was finally the proper issue of age related plates to all vehicles that could prove their age, not just as replacement plates for existing vehicle records  

(the other one was the introduction of the Q prefix plate for vehicles where a year of manufacture could not be determined or was not provided, this is why a lot of mid 1980's imports and ex military vehicles ended up on Q plates for a time)

[Richard_FM]

Looks like an interesting place to visit.

[Mr Pastry]

Just thinking about this.   If the number was known to be false at the time of the robbery it is interesting that it was sold on under that number - or was it?  It must have been registered to someone at that time.  Was the number that of an older Austin for which the owner had a logbook?

 

[somewhatfoolish]

That is Autoshite in museum form.

[Mr Pastry]

10 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

Just thinking about this.   If the number was known to be false at the time of the robbery it is interesting that it was sold on under that number - or was it?  It must have been registered to someone at that time.  Was the number that of an older Austin for which the owner had a logbook?

 

Edit - I remember the robbery but was too young at the time to take it all in, so have just been reading up on it.  Interestingly the 2 Land Rovers used both had the false plate BMG 757A.  Which now comes up on DVLA  as a 1949 Land Rover, first reg. Feb 1984!!

Someone is having  a laugh here, or was in 1984.  I wonder whether the Austin truck is the original. 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

1 hour ago, Mr Pastry said:

Edit - I remember the robbery but was too young at the time to take it all in, so have just been reading up on it.  Interestingly the 2 Land Rovers used both had the false plate BMG 757A.  Which now comes up on DVLA  as a 1949 Land Rover, first reg. Feb 1984!!

Someone is having  a laugh here, or was in 1984.  I wonder whether the Austin truck is the original. 

 

1984  will be when it was registered on the new DVLA system which launched around that time, presumably after not being taxed for a number of years previously. LBF is the ultimate guru on this. 

The truck itself is certainly a bit of an enigma though. Someone mentioned above that the cab has recently been replaced due to fire damage, yet photos I've seen online show minor smoke damage and that's it. I then found another photo of the same cab languishing outside looking as though it had been left to rot. An article from a decade ago suggested the museum were raising money to have the truck restored to period condition- maybe it's been a brutal one where lots of parts have been binned and replaced rather than sympathetically being refurbished to retain some patina? 

Someone needs to have a chat with the owner when they visit to find out a load more about its story. It looks like he's the only owner since it was reregistered in 84, so the fella must know a fair bit of the story...

[LightBulbFun]

15 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

Just thinking about this.   If the number was known to be false at the time of the robbery it is interesting that it was sold on under that number - or was it?  It must have been registered to someone at that time.  Was the number that of an older Austin for which the owner had a logbook?

well thats the thing BPA260 is a 1933 registration mark, so its unlikely that by the time the Lorry was computerised that the actual BPA260 was still around to even be computerised let alone be on the road, so there would of been no obvious conflict to raise alarm bells

but yeah it is interesting that it was not put back onto its original number when it was sold, but I dont know the history of it between 1963 and 1984, I do seem to recall it was found in a scrap yard, so maybe the police or whoever just scrapped it and never bothered to return it to its true ID

so when it was pulled out of the scrap yard the guy buying it, just looked at period pictures and saw BPA260 and thought "thats its mark then" not realising it was a set of false plates?

so the thing im wondering, is if the person who computerised the truck, knew that the reg mark was false, or was blissfully unaware LOL

4 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

Edit - I remember the robbery but was too young at the time to take it all in, so have just been reading up on it.  Interestingly the 2 Land Rovers used both had the false plate BMG 757A.  Which now comes up on DVLA  as a 1949 Land Rover, first reg. Feb 1984!!

Someone is having  a laugh here, or was in 1984.  I wonder whether the Austin truck is the original. 

well BMG-A was a Genuine Middlesex A suffix plate series issued in period from May 1963, so BMG757A would of been a genuine plate for some sort of vehicle, as I understand it, it was the genuine plate for a 1949 Ex Army Land Rover that was simply registered BMG757A when it entered Civvy service in 1963

and then the plate BMG757A was also possibly applied to a 2nd Land Rover 296POO, but I have not been able to find all that much on the 2 Land rovers, so it could be that BMG757A was pinched off a completely different vehicle I dont know for sure, and I dont know for sure if BMG757A was applied to both landies or not, but what I do know at least that BMG757A Fits the period unlike BPA260! and would of genuinely been issued in 1963

 

the 1984 date of first registration, comes from when a vintage vehicle is computerised but for whatever reason the true date of first registration, is either not entered or not known, so the Date of first computerisation is applied as the date of first registration instead

so someone had enough "evidence" to computerise the Land Rover in 1984 with the plate BMG757A, and the Lorry with BPA260, but did not have any proof of date of first registration in any evidence that they had, so that makes me wonder what sort of dodgy shenanigans went on

and also while it says 1949 now, I do wonder if that was something done by a later keeper and if it was registered without any age info like the Lorry was?

 

as a side note I just remembered that @adam1db owns a Land Rover also registered in the BMG-A suffix series!  

https://autoshite.com/topic/45571-ministry-of-defective-invacars/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-2359504

 

3 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

1984  will be when it was registered on the new DVLA system which launched around that time, presumably after not being taxed for a number of years previously. LBF is the ultimate guru on this. 

1st of October 1974 is when this system was setup/launched  

[MorrisItalSLX]

On 30/07/2022 at 05:39, SiC said:

And I thought my collection of old Bakelite fittings was good.

[Mr Pastry]

15 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

and also while it says 1949 now, I do wonder if that was something done by a later keeper and if it was registered without any age info like the Lorry was?

Hmm yes possibly, though the Land Rover(s) seem to have a better story than the lorry.  If it was impounded by the police, and the false  number seems to have been removed, I wouldn't have thought they would have put it back on before selling or scrapping it.  Maybe they just weren't so careful in those days.    

[skoda_fan]

That museum looks right up my street. Loads of old stuff kicking about with no particular rhyme nor reason. Love it. Love that Amby too. I wanted to buy one years ago but by the time I'd finished umming and erring and actually rang the seller it had sold. Kicked myself for ages afterwards.

[paulplom]

I was at the discovery museum in Newcastle yesterday.

[martc]

4 hours ago, paulplom said:

I was at the discovery museum in Newcastle yesterday.

I hope they were making the point that Edison did not invent the electric light bulb; but a citizen of Newcastle very much has first dibs...

[skoda_fan]

Uh oh....cue Mr LBF again...1...2....3...........

Oh hang on, just noticed he's already liked😁