Derbyshire's Great British Car Journey strikes deal to sell Autocar magazine front page copies as wall art

Great British Car Journey at Ambergate is the first organisation to be licensed to reproduce and sell images from the Autocar archive. The partnership with Haymarket Media Group represents an exciting new development for the business.

The deal, secured by the award-winning car museum, follows the digitisation of more than a million pages of Autocar magazine, which has been published since November 1895. The images from the newly digitised archive will be reproduced on a range of on-demand wall art, including framed and unframed canvases and prints as well as metal plaques.

Richard Usher, founder of the visitor attraction, has selected an initial 75 front covers, dating from 1925 to the mid-1960s. They feature a range of British marques and models that have either disappeared from, or are rarely seen on, UK roads, including the Austin Seven, Morris Minor and the classic Mini.

The selected front pages feature early hand drawn colour illustrations and photography. “They are stunning images and evocative of a bygone era,” said Richard.

Richard said: “This is a tremendously exciting development for Great British Car Journey. We are excited by the opportunity to present the Autocar archive and to share it with other car enthusiasts.”

Autocar is one of the world’s oldest car magazines, and the weekly’s archive is made up of around 6000 magazines.

Rachael Prasher, managing director of Haymarket Automotive, added: “Day-to-day we inevitably tend to focus on our future, but we are incredibly proud of our past, and it makes perfect sense for us to partner with a company that understands the history of the brand and the industry so well. Many of the marques that appeared on the Autocar front covers can now be found within the visitor attraction.”

Richard said: “We will be adding more Autocar covers to our online store in the future, however we were keen to get the store launched ahead of Christmas.”

The Autocar prints, available in four different sizes with starting prices at £16.99, can be bought online at https://greatbritishcarjourney.com/buy-merchandise or ordered within the giftshop at the Great British Car Journey classic car visitor attraction.