The Silverstone Experience

I had the chance recently to visit the newly-opened “Silverstone Experience”, and I have to say that I was suitably impressed. It is a project that has been a long time in gestation: having originally been conceived back in 2012, via a public announcement in 2016, the original opening was scheduled for October 2018, but various delays – including building contractors going into administration – meant that the £20m venture was finally opened at the end of October this year.

The project has benefited from funding from the National Lottery Heritage fund, and is housed in the only remaining genuine WWII hangar from the time of Silverstone’s foundation as a wartime aerodrome. I will admit that my expectations were not sky-high. Museums come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and having been to a number of car museums in my time, I was not convinced that the Silverstone Experience would occupy my attention, educate or entertain me. In fact it did all three.

I won’t spoil your trip by providing any ‘spoilers’ here – although if you want to know exactly what to expect then the website provides a virtual tour and lots of information to guide your visit. Like all the best events, the Silverstone Experience begins with a pre-show and ends with a highlight cinematic “Ultimate Lap”. In between, there are exhibits from all eras of Silverstone’s history – even from before Silverstone itself (whether as race circuit or RAF airfield) existed.

What I particularly liked was the way in which the exhibition finds things that will appeal to everyone. Even folk with no real interest in racing will find something of interest. There are lots of interactive elements to the exhibits, whether that be in the form of levers to pull or buttons to press, and I guarantee that even the most died-in-the-wool Silverstone aficionado will learn something new.

There was always a danger with making a hangar into an exhibition space that it would end up with the look and feel of Ikea, but that trap has been successfully avoided – it is the kind of space where you wander about, attention being grabbed by something in one direction and then falling back to go an alternative route to cover the other areas. And it bears repetition, there are a lot of facets to this exhibition.

Publicity material for the Experience suggests that it is a two-and-a-half-hour tour. However, when I went, it was relatively quiet and one was not curated around the venue or told what to do or see, or how long to linger (looking at an Audi R18 e-tron quattro, for example). However, I am told that if, or should that be when, the exhibition becomes busy, visitors will be required to move through the exhibition in a prescribed time. That would be a shame, in my view, as to fully get everything that the exhibition has to offer could easily eat into more than 150 minutes.

Inevitably, the Experience offers a gift shop, with all the usual sorts of trinkets, but there is a cafeteria as well, which I did not try. The intention is clearly for the Silverstone Experience to become a reason for making a trip to Silverstone even when there is no racing on, and I am sure that the estimates of half-a-million visitors a year depend on people making a special trip. It will also depend on the organisers’ ability to change the exhibits around. Museum CEO Sally Reynolds says that, with willing donors and the BRDC archive to draw upon, there is no reason for visitors to see the same things on show on subsequent visits. The plan is clearly to make regular changes to many of the cars on display.

At £25 for entry for an adult, it is not cheap – however, a visit to the aforementioned website: www.silverstone-experience.co.uk will provide various discounts and offers, of which I would heartily recommend that you take advantage.