Coventry Society founder member Paul Maddocks reflects on Coventry’s remarkable history of car manufacture and asks whether the city is doing enough to celebrate its industrial heritage.
Paul writes…
The Daimler Motor Company Limited was officially incorporated in Britain in January 1896. Founded by financier and cycle investor H. J. Lawson, it began manufacturing cars based on the designs of Gottlieb Daimler in a disused cotton mill at Drapers Field, Coventry. It became Britain’s first dedicated car factory.
There had, of course, been individual cars built in Coventry before this, including the Raglan electric car. Even James Starley, one of the fathers of the British cycle industry, had experimented with an electric motor and battery fitted to one of his tricycles. It was tested in France because the Red Flag Act prevented such a vehicle from being tested on British roads.
When the future King Edward VII acquired a British-built Daimler, interest in motoring grew rapidly. Coventry was soon to become one of the country’s most important centres of vehicle manufacture.
Many of Coventry’s cycle manufacturers saw the commercial potential of the motor car. Companies including Humber, Hillman, Singer, Swift, Riley, Rover, Triumph and Lea-Francis moved into car production, alongside many others. In all, more than 140 car manufacturers operated in Coventry over the years, including the internationally famous Jaguar.
The motor industry also supported a huge network of specialist suppliers producing everything from engines and coachwork to tyres, electrical equipment, lighting and interior fittings. The industry became a major part of Coventry’s economy. The city grew rapidly, with high employment and wages that were the envy of many other places.
During wartime, Coventry’s factories could be rapidly adapted to produce military vehicles, guns, aircraft and munitions. This industrial importance also made the city a target during both the First and Second World Wars. After the Second World War, Coventry became a boom town once again, with the motor industry playing a major role in the country’s efforts to rebuild the economy and earn export income.
Celebrating 100 years
In 1986, Coventry celebrated a century of motor manufacturing with a programme of events, exhibitions and a procession of vehicles.
The Museum of British Road Transport in Coventry was then home to what was described as the largest collection of British-made road vehicles in the world. The museum was thriving, its collection was growing, and it had acquired two of the world’s fastest cars, alongside many other significant vehicles and displays.
In 2000, the museum’s name was shortened to Coventry Transport Museum.
We all know what happened in the years that followed. Coventry gradually lost its position as a major centre of vehicle production as the industry changed and competition from around the world increased. One by one, the city’s factories disappeared.
Recently, I was talking to a well-known Coventry motor trader who suggested that one of the problems today is that people no longer have the same affinity with their cars as earlier generations did. Modern cars are difficult to repair or tinker with, and to many people they can appear increasingly similar. Older cars had character. They often became part of the family and were sometimes even given names.
They would be washed and polished on a Sunday and taken out for family trips. For many people, the car was much more than simply a means of transport.
What future for the museum?
I am concerned that the same loss of connection could now be happening with Coventry’s motor heritage.
Visitor numbers at Coventry Transport Museum appear to be declining, and the museum no longer seems to have the large-scale special exhibitions that once helped to make it such an important tourist attraction. There have also been reports of possible changes to the museum’s future location, including suggestions that it could move to the former IKEA building, while the current site could potentially be redeveloped for housing.
If these reports prove to be correct, it would represent a sad decline for what was once one of Coventry’s major tourist attractions, second perhaps only to the Cathedral in its significance to visitors.
130 years of motor manufacturing
We are now in the tenth month of 2026, yet there has been no obvious public commemoration of Coventry’s 130 years of car manufacture.
It feels as though this important part of our history has been forgotten or hidden away.
That is a shame. Coventry should be proud of its achievements. The city produced some of the country’s finest cars, commercial vehicles, cycles and aircraft. It played an important role in the development of the safety bicycle, built Britain’s first dedicated car factory and produced vehicles that achieved extraordinary records, including the current world land-speed record.
You would not necessarily know any of this from looking at Coventry today.
Our industrial heritage helped shape the city we know. It created jobs, attracted people to Coventry and established a worldwide reputation for engineering and manufacturing.
The question is whether we are doing enough to remember and celebrate that history – and whether Coventry Transport Museum can continue to play the role it was created to fulfil.