This visionary, this deal maker, this man who had come close to death was ready for them – and made an offer they couldn’t refuse.
“My big idea to give something back to Taunton was to open a car museum in the centre of the town, and I knew just the place: a failing food store called County Stores that had been trading since 1832,” says Hawkins. “I told the council I wouldn’t make buying my land difficult if they would help facilitate my plans. They agreed.”
That was the easy bit. The hard part was relieving the owners of their keys and then, with sleeves rolled up and talented tradespeople hired, refurbishing and converting the tired 23,500sq ft shop. That took a year, and by the time the museum was ready to be occupied, Hawkins had burned through £3.5m.
Meanwhile, he was continuing to buy display cars from private sellers and at auctions. “All told, the cars have cost me around £2.5m,” he says.
At last, in November 2023, County Classics Motor Museum was ready to open; The Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond cut the red tape and the first visitors passed through the doors.
Just as they did then, greeting today’s arrivals are more than 100 cars, most of them spanning the 1950s to the 1990s, and an equal number of motorcycles.
An eclectic mix of the common, the rare, the beautiful and the fascinating, most of the cars are low-mileage and have just one previous owner, and all of them are in original condition.
For a flavour of how diverse the collection is, it includes Ford Capris, probably the most rust-free Fiat X1/9 in the country, a Ford Mustang Mach 1, a Datsun 280ZX, a super-rare Nissan Cherry Europe GTi, a Porsche 911 3.2 SC, a 1961 Porsche 718 RS 61 Spyder, a genuine 1997 AC Cobra Superblower 5L, a pair of Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 Group A and Lancia Fulvia S1 rally cars, a Ford Racing Puma, a Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9, a Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1, a rare Subaru XT 4WD Turbo and an Audi Quattro Turbo.
All these plus a Jaguar E-Type, a Triumph Dolomite, a Morris Marina, a Mini Metro, a Toyota MR2 Mk1…
