Peer without peer in the stately car world

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 25

Peer without peer in the stately car world

From

KEN COATES

in London

Edward John Barrington Douglas -Scott -Montagu, third Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (pronounced Bewley), world . famous vintage car enthusiast, is no playboy peer. He has the unmistakable air of the shrewd businessman and the successful showman.

Not only has he retained his beautiful- ancestral estate in the New Forest, together with the ancient monastery gatehouse that has been in his family since 1538, but he has built one of the world’s best motor museums.

. Twenty-five years ago, after Lord Bath, he was the second peer in England to throw open his rambling house to the public to help meet crippling costs and taxes.

With a collection of six old cars in the front hall,

•• <?*• he never dreamed that they would be the forerunner of a big business enterprise that has grown to a turnover of $2 million a year.

“I was no more interested in old cars than the average boy at the time,” he recalls. His income was $3OOO, most of which came from his salary from a public relations firm.

“I cast around trying to find a way to commemorate the life of my father (Lord John Montagu, an early car buff who pushed hard for road construction through the Khyber Pass during his days with the Indian Army.) “That is why we showed the old vehicles.” In those early days, it was all touchingly amateur. A woman from the village sold tickets. The house stank of oil, but the

papers loved pictures of Lord Montagu scrubbing his floors.

Business has boomed, until today, Lord Montagu runs the biggest industry in the district — 350 people are employed at the height of the summer season.

After investing more than $2 million in a new complex, featuring a new national motor museum, Lord Montagu can claim that only the Tower of London attracts more visitors.

A total of 566,000 visited Beaulieu last year. Even in the pouring rain, in the middle of winter, the complex is impressive — though even a building which won design and ar-

chitectural awards has its' problems. A dozen or more plastic buckets collected steady drips from the roof, which is designed, to allow a monorail to pass underneath on its circuit of the grounds. Britons do not just flock to take in the scenery, or

even view the 200 historic vehicles, including the 1929 record-breaking Golden Arrow, and Donald Campbell’s Bluebird. Lord Montagu has ensured that there is everything for a day out. His home, now styled Palace House, has costumed figures on display, depicting generations of his family. There is an exhibition of monastic life in the ruins of the once-mag-nificent Cistercian abbey founded by King John; there is a model railway, with a sound and vision presentation of transport; radio-controlled model veteran cars; rides on a veteran London bus; miniature veteran car rides and a maritime museum at nearby Buckler’s Hard. And total enjoyment, English style, is aimed at with such seemingly trivial things as different kinds of restaurants, gift shops, free parking, first aid centre, baby care room and public bar. During the summer school holidays, there is a band and singers in historic cars re-creating “the good old days of motoring.”

Hidden from public eyes is a well equipped workshop which ensures that cars in the museum are kept in running order. Outside restoration and overhaul work is also accepted. At present an ancient Daimler from the Queen’s garages at Sandring h a m is being painstakingly restored to its original glory.

Beaulieu also has the finest reference and photographic library of motoring in the world. Staff have a map of the world on the wall with coloured pins representing current requests for information. New Zealand is completely obliterated by pin heads.

Obviously not a man <0 overlook commercial opportunity, Lord Montagu has even organised medieval banquets in what remains of the 13th century Beaulieu Abbey. For $l6 a head (remarkably cheap these days), you can listen to minstrels and troubadours, and watch a jester and dancers while waited on lavishly by serving wenches. Feasting is on spare ribs, roast chicken and fruit, washed down by mead, and as much bulk-

bought Kalian rose wine as you can drink. Needless to say, Lord and Lady Montagu do not attempt to attend all these revelries, which tend co follow a pattern. The businesslike way in which Lord Montagu has deployed his talents has gained him the admiration of other historic home owners. He has run courses on management at Beaulieu, and lectures on Britain’s stately homes all over the world.

He has just completed his term of five years as first president of the His■toric Houses Association.

“Beaulieu had to pay its own way, or I would have lost my inheritance,” he says. “This is what happened in France to many of the great chateaux.” But while acknowledging “enormous success,” he stresses the highly professional nature of the operation.

For example, he .employs a full-time public relations officer; there is a fully equipped photo-

graphic unit, and a wellstaffed information centre.

In the museum itself, firms and organisations have sponsored displays of various aspects of motoring — such as Lucas on the development of headlights. Married with three children, Lord Montagu admits it is rather “like living in a fishbowl, but that’s the price you pay. We had to spend $150,000 on a new roof the year before last which we could not have afforded otherwise.

“I also like to think, we have some responsibility towards the nation’s heritage.” He and Lady Montagu were looking forward to their New Zealand visit. “You have such marvellous roads, compared with the congestion in this country,” he said. Lord Montagu attended a rally in New Zealand 16 years ago, driving a 1913 Prince Henry Vauxhall. He likes driving his “Alfonso XIII” Hispano-Suiza,

an open sports car which was originally imported into Ireland' and discovered discarded in a cow-shed. One of two brothers who owned it was killed by a bullet which ricocheted off the steering wheel during the 1916 troubles.

Although he has been generously helped by a shipping company in getting the car to New Zealand, Lord Montagu says that in 1964, the cost of shipment was about $6OO. Today it was $6OOO. By the time an ordinary person paid air fares and expenses on top of this, the costs of taking part in an international rally became prohibitive, he said. “The . whole future of international rallies is in doubt unless sponsorship for the transport of cars to countries like New Zealand, or from New Zealand to say, Germany, can be arranged.” Lord Montagu is ■ an official of the organising body — F.I.VA., the Fed-

eration Internationale des Voitures Anciennes.

He says the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand has proved that it is one of the “best organisers in the business.” It would be sad if, because of high transport costs, it could not ■take part in such events in the future.

Lord Montagu will not be looking Tor vintage cars while in New Zealand. It is a matter of principle with him that cars in the country that possesses them should stay there. With 15 cars a day being offered to the museum at Beaulieu, it is not so much a question of exhibits, as • where to put them.

Islands such as Fiji or Indonesia probably offer the best chance for finding what is left of old cars, though he thinks there might still be some tucked away in garages. As to the future of the motor-car, he sees modern man as so committed to the car socially that no

alternative will be sought. “Although I don’t see oil running out in my lifetime, i-t has been so easy to exploit that the scientists have not bothered with alternatives of which there is a number,” he says. The run-down state of Britain’s motor industry is rather a touchy subject for Lord Montagu who shows all the signs of impatience with British Leyland to which articulate Englishmen are prone these days.

Lord Montagu particularly likes vehicles from the 1904-14 period —

“that Edwardian time when they z progressed from the ‘putt-putt’ stage to big slow-rewing engined cars that are fun to drive.”

And he has a soft spot for the centre-piece in -the Museum’s entrance hall — the big, white, 1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. It perhaps typifies the enterprise of Beaulieu and the vigorous man behind it, that this Rolls is one of the most famous and widely travelled old cars in the world.

It is hired out for films, television documentaries and serials, commercials, and even for weddings, at something like $2OO a time for a wedding in say Southampton, 30 minutes’ drive away. But it is all income for a business that its founder says is “to enlighten, interest and entertain, as well as to provide a fascinating and respectable day out for the British people and the tourist.”