00:09
Hello, properly here, bonus episode of our AutoCard podcast, My Week in Cars, sponsored
00:16
as you know very well by Anderson EV, makers of all British premium home chargers for EVs.
00:23
They've been doing it for a year now and we're proud to have them.
00:26
It is my pleasure to introduce this week Peter Armstrong, who's a new CEO or newish CEO of
00:33
the British Motor Museum, six months in the job. That right, Peter?
00:37
It's more like eight months now. Eight months in the job.
00:40
Oh, you're still able to smile, I see.
00:42
Still able to sell, still wet behind the ears, still not a clue what I'm doing.
00:46
I don't believe that for a second. In fact, what we're trying to
00:49
discovering this hour power is what you do, what you are going to do.
00:56
This is just, I should say, a little bit of a disclosure. I am a trustee in this place.
01:02
We've met already quite a few times. 400 car collection, started off full of
01:07
Austerns and Rovers and borruses and things like that, but now much broader Ford, Vauxhall,
01:13
Rolls Royce, and everything in between.
01:19
But the fact that I'm a trustee means that I'm probably not likely to tell the truth very much,
01:23
but luckily you will because you're here to improve and criticize and generally fix, aren't you?
01:29
I see idea, but I'm not trying to lose my job, so I might make up some stuff as well.
01:36
You're a museum specialist rather than a car man, aren't you? And that was
01:41
a thing you made very clear from the beginning. What did you make of the place?
01:47
Have you been here before, before you came here for real?
01:51
Yeah, that's a really interesting question because when I was choosing what I want to apply for,
01:57
so the bit of background is that I was working in museums in this country, in England,
02:02
for a long time, and then I decided to go and work abroad, and I ended up working in America
02:06
for 11 years, and then came back to this country mostly because the grandchildren were born and
02:11
wanted to go and see the grandchildren. But I then needed to look at what actual museum I wanted to
02:17
work in, and which we would be, because as a museum specialist it's not necessarily down to the
02:23
objects that are in it, it's more down to the stories that you can tell and how interesting
02:27
the place is and do you want to work there. So I worked at the Royal Armies for a long period of
02:33
time, so I think Leeds didn't know this place existed, worked in the museum industry for like
02:37
20 years, didn't know this place existed. So it really was a question of not knowing that this
02:43
museum had been going for long, so there was some work to be done to erase its profile. But also,
02:48
when you look at a museum you have to say what's its product, how deep can its foundations be,
02:55
because lots of museums are built, we all know the stories of the museum, the baked beans, the
03:00
museum with the sheep and the, it's actually a museum of the Armstrong's as well, my last name
03:05
in Scotland. I know what an exciting museum that is. You've been there? I've been there, I was asked
03:10
to do some work for them and it's basically a shed in a place in Scotland where the Armstrong's come
03:17
from and it's full of stuff to do with the Armstrong's and it's five quid to get in and if
03:22
you're not an Armstrong where the hell would you go? So they're not doing too well on the numbers,
03:26
so I did some work with them. But you know there are these museums all over that are really formed
03:32
by people who are real enthusiasts in their subject and then can't understand why nobody
03:37
else is interested. So you have to make sure that their product you've got is really good and so this
03:43
is a really good museum from a point of view of the foundations that it's got. It's got a great
03:47
product, it's got a great building which is always interesting because a lot of these buildings have
03:51
a lot of work on them and this old and it also has a conference centre which drives people too when
03:58
the boot comes. There's another income stream. I always say if museums were successful and profitable
04:06
then the private sector would run them and they're all run by charities, they're all run by the
04:10
government or they're run by local governments because museums are not a great model for making
04:16
huge amounts of money paying your shareholders. That's not the reason they're here for. So this
04:22
place has got a really good product and a really good foundation and good income streams that are
04:28
not necessarily in normal museums. So it was a good solid place to come to work for and then
04:36
I'm answering all these questions before you're answering questions. Oh I've got plenty more.
04:40
So and then because I'd just come from a maritime museum full of boats it was the same
04:46
sort of topic. Boats are large objects that transport people that people love, people are
04:52
really enthusiastic about the first one they ever had as well as the most beautiful historical one
04:58
that they've got in there now they've made some money. So it's a similar kind of topic and so I
05:03
was really interested in that case. So when you walk into any museum but it's the proposition
05:10
really that you look for first? Yeah well the thing about museums is that it's fun right? Yeah and
05:15
that's one of the things that we sometimes forget we get so precious about the objects
05:19
that they stop being fun and you're supposed to whisper you know you're supposed to go and
05:23
if you look at the museums particularly in America they all look like Greek temples because
05:27
that's the Greeks for the places where the knowledge is. They've all got steps and then
05:31
the top of the steps there's going to be some the founder on a horse somewhere and then you go
05:37
inside and you're supposed to shush and read these tiny little labels that you can't quite
05:40
read because they're tiny and then you get bored they're not fun and and people want to spend
05:45
their money particularly in today when we haven't got a lot of money we want to do some fun things
05:49
and family things and make memories not necessarily you know go along and worship these particular
05:55
objects so well that's really interesting what do you see is do you when you first came here
06:01
did you see instantly things you could improve? Well yeah this is my this is the bane of being a
06:07
museum director at length of time I've always been a museum director as if you walk into any
06:11
museum and you immediately start looking at what the lightning is like where the toilets are and
06:15
where the way finding is any good and what they're doing and so and about that time that's
06:19
usually when your wife says I'm off to the cafe you're on your own so it's a it tends to be
06:25
so yes you're always looking to see what you think so you could improve what seems you could
06:28
be. Give us a give us a flavor of this place it's a massive roundhouse
06:37
auditorium or sort of exhibition space which is right next to Jaguar factory with the Aston Martin
06:42
factory on the other side of it yes so it's in this sort of interesting area but what did you
06:49
give us give us your first thoughts give us your well I thought when I first arrived
06:53
that it's a really modern looking building and I wasn't expecting that because it's been here for
06:58
30 odd years so it's a cool looking modern building which has to be because it's about something that
07:03
is cool the cars and the shapes and the design is important so you don't want to have just some
07:07
warehouse of cars so it's a cool looking building when you get there there's a huge parking lots
07:12
outside car parks they change it now car parks not parking lots back to America car park outside
07:20
which we use for shows so there are a lot of shows here so you know this week there's a motorbike
07:25
there's actually a motorbike one on sunday the bamboo run which is historic motorbikes
07:28
but three weeks ago there was the BMW show 5000 people last week we launched an exhibition based
07:36
around the Forza Horizon 6 game we got like 5000 people came for that so big shows happened because
07:43
we can use these parking lots in the outside area and then the building itself is a large
07:47
round building which allows you to wander around it rather than have to follow a route and that's
07:54
got and then outside and that's the cars you would expect to see yeah you know the first mini the
07:58
first Land Rover the things you would expect to see for British built cars and then outside there's
08:04
another huge building which is our collection center which is really just where we put everything
08:09
else that we couldn't fit in this building in a warehouse but because if you're a real petrol
08:15
head it's a place you can wander through and see the collection it's not just locked away somewhere
08:19
that you can't see it yeah there's a lot of extraordinary stuff there isn't there you know
08:23
experimental cars that people didn't even know existed yeah there's a lot of that interesting
08:28
it's also a Jaguar Daimler how it's just Truster based so there's a big exhibition from them and
08:34
it's also where we have a little workshop so we got five people that work in the workshop that
08:39
conserve cars rather than rebuild cars that's right there's a deck you can watch them you can
08:45
watch them do it yeah yeah and it's very similar to when I was in America the seaport where I'd
08:50
worked before because they had a large a shipyard where the big ships would come in and they would
08:55
be worked on as well so where was that in Mystic in Connecticut so if you're going halfway between
09:01
Boston and New York there's a place called Mystic for those who are old enough you'll remember Mystic
09:06
Pizza with Julia Roberts it's that little town it's a little village fishing we used to be a fishing
09:11
village but now it's full of sailors in New England elite and there's a huge huge
09:21
museum there the living history museum really which has old little ships in it as well is it
09:27
is the job for somebody like you when you go into a job like that or this one
09:32
do you do you attempt to sort of join the community or do you sort of stay as a
09:37
as a and a kind of a critic or a manager you know what's the
09:43
it's vitally important that you become part of that community yeah because people especially
09:47
with Mystic is a small village most people have worked there at some point or their father'd work
09:51
there so this museum's the same so in the auto industry in this area where we are in the heart
09:59
of the automobile industry right you know the commentary round is in Birmingham etc everybody
10:03
has either worked in the industry or had some brother who worked in the industry or a father or
10:07
a mother or some relation or grandfather who worked in the automobile industry and it's really
10:12
important for me who's never worked well actually I have worked in the automobile industry let's come
10:21
that and understand how much people are passionate about the car industry and I don't mean passionate
10:28
as in I'm passionate about that particular car although you might be but I'm just passionate
10:33
about the automobile industry in this country yeah it's one of the things that I was going to
10:39
sort of tackle you on was that about being a museum specialist is that I'm a I'm a car specialist
10:45
I love cars and one of the things that Jesus you offer about use people who know about museums
10:51
is that they tend to say to you well of course it's not just about you car geeks it's about
10:55
other people they're more important than you are and I'm sick of being told I'm not very important
11:00
than a car museum right that car geek is important surely so that you're always looking for your
11:08
aura how many people you can get in the building right because you need to make the money so they
11:11
always look at how we can expand that audience and introduce we have a massive
11:16
core audience of car geeks and that's that's an audience in its own right it's like if you had a
11:22
if I had a museum that was all about I don't know the national portrait museum and I was looking at
11:27
all the paintings and there might be simply a real fascinating by the painters or painters
11:32
themselves that's a very small niche but a car is just it's democracy everybody's had a car or
11:40
known a car it doesn't matter whether you've had an old jalopy that cost you a thousand pounds
11:44
and that you still love or whether you've got the latest Ferrari it's just that kind of I am a car
11:50
I have a car connection in some way so by saying it's not just for the car geeks that's ridiculous
11:57
because everybody's a car geek yeah because I mean I'm buying a car for my wife now who isn't
12:02
particularly a car geek but God she's looked at some cars before we came to the right one
12:06
so have you come to the right we've come to the right one I'm going on Saturday well I hope so
12:10
let's try it out but it's you know everybody has got a passion for them and an involvement with
12:17
them or something it might not be really that interested what's under the hood it might not
12:22
be that interested in you know all the kind of history of it but they are interested in the car
12:27
and they have some relationship with it yeah I think that's very true so you've been here six
12:33
eight months you said you must have drawn some conclusions by now what what what's going to change
12:41
well the big change for there will be some big changes coming down the line I mean changes that
12:47
will cost us a lot of money and but we'll go to various different funds to do so as we go down the
12:52
line but but in the small areas that change I want to see a lot more movement so we have all
12:57
these cars that you can come and see but we don't drive many of them and cars are not there to just
13:02
look out for there to be driven so they look like most of them run don't they yeah so we try to keep
13:07
all in running which is fascinating but if I remember the public can I come I want to see them
13:12
going I want to see them moving around so over the summer we're going to have a lot more cars
13:15
going out with our volunteers to take people on even even it's just like a five minute trip around
13:20
the museum but a lot more to see the visually cars moving backwards and forwards and just being
13:25
static to look at because we do pride ourselves in trying to keep them all running as possible
13:30
you know I went to the London to Brighton and that's the site to be seen when they kind of
13:34
leave that in the morning to head from London to Brighton run that's fascinating so we want to
13:41
so that's one of the things we're going to be changing pretty quickly and we're also trying
13:46
to link as much to do with how people perceive with cars now so the Forza Horizon exhibition
13:51
that we've currently got on looks at how the digital world perceives cars so the Forza game
13:57
for those that don't know it is 42 million players around the world it's the biggest car game in the
14:02
world and people sit in their bedrooms and actually the average age is 41 apparently so it's not a
14:09
kids game wow and didn't they that yeah no they play those games and they drive those cars and that
14:14
might be the only time they ever see those cars is on the screen so what we're trying to do is say
14:19
you can actually come and see the actual cars yourself here in real life but people are engaging
14:23
with cars now through the screens as much as they are through your podcast but also you
14:29
we know how many of these things on Instagram and different kind of programs socials I mean
14:36
there's somebody they've got 21 million followers and all of that that's how they're engaging with
14:41
it they've seen the success of Top Gear and the TV programs now the Formula One TV program
14:49
the real popularity of these is that people are seeing them through the screens so our
14:56
job really is to help them make the connection between looking into the screens and then seeing
15:00
the real thing as well this was Forza Six wasn't it yeah Horizon Six so that there's been loads
15:06
of iterations of this before I believe five of them yeah yes why do you reckon they chose
15:12
to launch that here well that the company who makes it is a company called Playground Games
15:17
and Playground Games are based in Leamington Spa and Leamington Spa is down the road
15:21
okay and the people who worked in Playground Games brought their kids here and loved it
15:25
wow so they just came to visit us and said hey this we really like this place we're going to be
15:30
launching this new Horizon Six I mean they launched it in Los Angeles and so you know
15:35
where it's like lost it's like you know it's like only fools and horses it's just sort of Los
15:39
Angeles Dubai indeed but we've did it here as well so it was a big
15:46
oh yeah 5,000 people we had drifting we had a guy Sonny Kang who's the who's placed hang
15:54
in the Fast and Furious series of films he was here so we had thousands of people
16:01
no that's great big success yeah huge yeah and it's still on it's on until November
16:05
so people can still come and try I mean I I've played the game it's upstairs in our mezzanine
16:10
level so it's upstairs in mezzanine level they have these huge screens and they're actually
16:14
sitting in what seems like a car and trying to play the game I end up in the paddy field
16:18
going round and round in circles no matter what I do but some people are very good at it and then
16:23
the actual cars that are in that game or some of the cars that are in that game are highlighted on
16:28
that on the mezzanine level and within the museum we've got about 25 of the cars that appear within
16:34
the game and we've bought some in as well about it with Polaris which is a really weird thing we've
16:39
got you know Aston Martin's in here the Valkyries here those kind of things that's great you know
16:45
it presumably does a lot of good for the museum too it does yeah and I hope you're impressed by
16:49
the name I'm named a few cars no I'm very impressed after eight months I may have got them completely
16:53
wrong but do you find that do you think you're going to finish up knowing something about cars in
16:58
the end so what happens is all the stuff about boats goes out one year and I think about cars
17:01
comes in the other year but what is what is interesting about being your museum director
17:07
rather than a car or a boat or whatever expert is that I find the stories that are fascinating
17:15
the ones that most people find fascinating so if I took you on a tour my tours would be about the
17:21
people and the cars and the interesting facts and the fun bits of that it wouldn't be about telling
17:26
you about the mechanics and the engineering of those things and a lot of people just want that
17:30
they just want that kind of well I do even though even though I care about the compression ratio and
17:36
crankshaft and all the rest of it I think I'm still interested in there's a couple of tales that
17:41
that we discussed just before we started talking one of them concerns a jagger which is over there
17:46
over the way tell me that story oh yes that was when I came for my interview when he gave me a hard
17:51
time I was just looking you asked me which car I thought was the most interesting one and there
17:56
was a there was a car in the collection that center that was and forgive me I'm
18:05
seven cars made in Coventry of this particular type of car and then it was made during the
18:10
Second World War and they're all in this warehouse and a bomb hit it from the blitz during the
18:18
German attack and six of the cars were destroyed and the seventh one just got a bit of damage to it
18:24
and we have that seventh one in the collection and so it's labeled the car that Hitler couldn't
18:30
destroy and it's still a great because it's got a great story behind it and you can see where the
18:34
shrapnel of the bomb hits the back of the car and you can see but it gives but because six were
18:40
hit it gives you it immediately takes you to the Coventry and how Coventry was devastated during
18:47
the Second World War and starts to think about that and it adds to the storyline not just about
18:52
let me just look at this car yeah so I found that really interesting yeah yeah you've also got a
18:56
story about uh how you dealt with being the director of the Armory's Museum didn't you which
19:01
which I think you you started off like describing as a as a museum full of guns and knives which
19:08
yeah it's an interesting so the the Armory's which is a national museum it's based in Leeds the
19:15
head officer in Leeds but it also looks after the White Tower and the Towerland and then the place
19:19
called Fort Nelson in Portsmouth is a national collection of arms and armor and most people
19:24
think it's about knights in armor jousting and a lot of it is but it's also every other weapon
19:30
that ever has been in this British army right up to modern day and everything and everything
19:35
but what of course it is is a museum full of things that put holes in people or holes in
19:40
things if you're hunting yeah so that's a really difficult story to tell especially if you're
19:45
trying to invite bus loads of school kids in exactly it's supposed to be primary school kids who mostly
19:51
have people who are teachers who just don't want to engage with that particular storyline with those
19:55
kids and that's that is the key number of children that normally go into museums is that
20:00
Canada age range you know and you open the museum two days after Dunblane not a good time is that
20:06
what happens that's what happened oh so uh so you've got a museum full of guns
20:10
that are bound and a full of knives which are more or less bound in this country for the right
20:15
reasons I lived in America it's the right reason but uh but uh you're trying to encourage people to
20:22
come to that museum and say and so you've really got a really really niche market of people who
20:27
want to go and look at those things but we looked at it and said well what happens if it's not about
20:32
that what happens about it's about protection what about all these objects these guns and knives
20:37
were developed to protect a nation or an individual or a lord or somebody's house or whatever it
20:44
happened to be they were designed and built to give form protection if we start looking at protection
20:48
can we look at things like well let's take a look at a knight's helmet
20:52
knight's helmet's put on when he's jousting to protect him from being hit in the head by a bit
20:57
of stick it's not the same kind of helmet that a kid might wear on a skateboard so let's look at
21:02
the helmets and do they what kind of materials they're made out of uh and talk to go into that
21:07
kind of stem work that we're doing with that let's look at night crime uh kids are stabbing
21:11
into the for why why why are kids taking knives well they're taking a knife because it's cool
21:16
they perceive it as cool and they're fighting they're going to get attacked that's the same
21:21
reason why a 17th century guy used to walk around with a sword because he's thought it looked cool
21:27
and he was fighting he's going to get attacked he's Romeo and Juliet so we can once you start
21:31
opening that kind of storyline it opens it too much why no audience and you found that that played
21:37
well even with the the the officialdom didn't it yeah because yeah yeah we start work a lot with the
21:43
home office and with the police and all those things because museums are very neutral places
21:47
they can look at things from a neutral perspective they don't have a agenda and people believe museums
21:53
so and a world where people are not believing anybody anymore so nobody believes a politician
21:59
nobody leaves anything on the website forgive me but nobody leaves a journalist nobody believes
22:04
nobody believes these people very much anymore because there's so much false stuff going on
22:09
museums still have a level of belief you come in here and see a car and it says this car was built
22:14
in 1974 you'll believe it's 1974 because it's a museum they've done their research they know
22:20
what they're talking about yeah so you have to be very conscious of that when you're telling
22:25
those stories that you're really giving the factual side of it out and that you're ensuring that you're
22:31
telling the right kind of stories presumably that's quite an it's a significant investment just to
22:38
make sure that everything you say is accurate yeah well that's why I was saying why museums
22:41
don't make any profits because you know you need a curatorial stuff and you need an academic stuff
22:47
and you need an archive stuff who are doing all this research or they're doing all this research
22:52
but they're not necessarily generating revenue so you have to you know balancing all those things
22:56
off is that is that the nub of your your own interest in this the the desire to just put
23:03
things on the record better truthful partially I mean I think my my main desire is a phrase I use
23:10
if we're not having fun they're so the main thing is that we really enjoy what we're
23:15
doing and make it a joyful thing so that when the visitor comes to do it they get joyful and they
23:19
pick up biosmosis all this factual stuff the Americans have a horrible name for it it's called
23:24
edutainment oh dear so exactly it's about educating but also entertaining yeah and so
23:31
that's what we're trying to do have so you have a good time you enjoy it you have
23:34
memories you have a it's a nice place to go to but by the way you're also learning all this stuff
23:40
yeah I reckon I've been here hundreds of times I reckon I'll learn something over the same time
23:45
yeah it's a funny place like that yeah I was just you're gonna have to remember
23:50
remind me of the name as well so I was just this thing yesterday where we're opening a blue plaque
23:54
to oh Eleanor Thornton Eleanor Thornton okay so the lady who was used as the model for the spirit
24:01
that goes in the front of every rose voice yeah she was a proper fast woman I gather yeah she was
24:06
but she was like it's 1920s you know 1910 1920 and she and she had a fascinating tale a fascinating
24:13
story and then it opened had a blue plaque went on the wall of where she used to live in
24:17
Levington Spa yesterday and I went to it and I just went to it because I wanted to represent the
24:21
museum because we're quite connected the rose voice and societies the rose
24:25
voice owners club but when I got there this is when I learned all about this woman you know
24:30
but killed on a by a torpedo in the first world war while traveling with Lord Buley to uh
24:36
you know illegitimate child to Lord Buley who uh and shared child then you know is giving away
24:42
and but at the actual blue plaque were the great great grandchildren so you know fascinating story
24:47
and tale all about this yeah one thing to do with a car that you could open up so many stories
24:54
personal stories as well as the biggest story as well yeah yeah that sounds great I wish I'd been
25:00
there yeah it's good um what what people always people always in another generalization that's
25:06
what we do in journalism um it's often said that museums are hard to finance what what holds this
25:14
place up why why is how can it open its doors all of every day you know where does the dog come from
25:20
well it's different streams and there's one of the reasons you know when I looked at the museum
25:24
that I was interested in coming to so there's a conferences that we have so we have a huge conference
25:28
space now because the museum is built on a bit of a slope you can take cars and push the cars
25:34
into the conference spaces so car launches things so we can hold 600 people in some of the rooms we've
25:40
20 on rooms so you can put a couple of cars on the stage can't you on the stage yeah so that makes
25:45
about two and a half million quid or something out of that and then there's the visitors who've
25:49
come to the doors who've paid for the ticket to come here and then the shows so the shows are
25:54
really big so even on a Saturday that's raining uh we'll have to do more because of that show that
25:59
we do on a Saturday without that show so we do a considerable number of shows all the way through
26:04
the year the big ones are the BMW show and the Landrover so
26:10
and then we do even do things like some train shows as well but they're the ones that
26:14
you know we've got I think it's 34 this year we're doing 34 shows wow so that's a whole you can camp
26:20
here too can't you if you ask not yeah you can stay overnight yeah stay overnight we're building a
26:24
hotel so we're in the middle of just starting to think about putting a shovel in the ground to
26:28
build a hotel which we should open in spring of next year uh which will have about 130 rooms in it
26:35
gosh and then next door to that we're building which we just signed a couple of weeks ago
26:39
a uh at least to put an EV uh station in there working a big one isn't it yeah it's about 12 EVs
26:46
it's the Dutch company that we're working with and they're putting it into that space there because
26:50
we're only two minutes off the m40 yeah so cars if we're only people can come and charge their cars
26:56
so presumably those two things could make a big difference here couldn't they
27:00
I hope so I mean it's it becomes much more a destination yeah then just to kind of come
27:04
to see the museum it's much more a destination passing through yeah so you know you've got
27:08
bring your car charge it up while you're charging up you can go around the museum
27:11
yeah really interesting of course yeah so all so that that's that was all happening and pretend
27:16
that's something to do with me but that was all before I got here but I'm making it happen at least
27:21
but but uh the big thing for this museum I think is that it hides its light under the
27:26
bush a little bit it's a fantastic museum it's got some incredible objects within it it's got
27:31
a great story to tell it's in the heart of the British automotive which is still a massive industry
27:35
for this country even though people think you know we're not building cars anymore the the work that
27:40
we're doing in uh in technology and the various changes that the British engineers are making
27:47
and small organizations all over this country is it's still the world leaders yeah I need to tell
27:52
that story as well yeah I think so the the people that you're right next door to
27:59
are building particularly distinguished cars don't they we're going to see this electric
28:04
jaguar which controversial but it's going to be extraordinary having just been shown the car
28:09
without disguising on it I can say it looks fantastic yeah and of course Aston Martin right
28:13
next door yeah um and we are of course in the middle of the the old oxford corridor where the
28:19
place is full of formula one teams and God knows what yeah it's it we are and that's how
28:24
serenity is connected to me in some particular way and we're having in about two weeks time we're
28:28
having a four day STEM session for school children so four days of bringing in people from Aston Martin
28:34
people from JLR people from playground games and digital people who will come and talk to the young
28:41
potential new engineers so the kids will be in these big auditoriums yeah yeah yeah we go and they
28:46
and they'll actually stand up and talk yes so they've got like 400 kids they'll do some activities
28:51
as well because otherwise it's boring yeah but they do some activities but it's all about you could
28:55
be an engineer you could work in this area wow or you could do anything in this area because
28:59
it's not just about engineering there's marketing and finance and all those other areas that you
29:04
could be working in if you really work really hard you could be a journalist in this area
29:08
nobody wants that no that's okay fair enough what museum director so you uh you know we're just talking
29:13
about what the future could look like based around the automotive industry is that sort of
29:19
the last question is that the the the reason places like this will survive you know in 20
29:26
years 30 years time you still see a role for yeah I think so I think that we kind of there's
29:34
various different types of museums isn't there's museums you can go and just look at things on
29:36
the walls and look at beautiful objects there's nothing wrong with that to see those two objects
29:40
and there's those ones that actually have a sort of egalitarian work that's gone on with the people
29:45
who build the stuff and get their hands dirty we're one of the hands dirty ones I think and so
29:50
we will have a role going forward what that's going to be I think there's going to be much
29:54
more to do with the technology that is going to be necessarily telling us about the history I
29:59
the phrase I use is is that we are not just keepers of history we are active participants
30:04
in it we're going to be doing things that make a difference to the future not just show you
30:08
stuff that was in the past yeah that's exciting well thanks for talking to us Peter Armstrong and
30:15
I look forward to a a long and happy tenure in this place let's do it again in eight months
30:19
I'm still here that would be up to you cheers thank you
