How do you get a car onto the first floor of a Grade One listed building is not a problem many people will ever have to answer. For one, why would you want a car on the first floor? It doesn’t make any sense. Well, it does if the car is a 1907 Colibri and the building is York Castle Museum.

The car is to be included in the museum’s exhibition 1914: When the World Changed Forever, which opens on June 28. It will feature in the introduction for the exhibition, setting the scene of the peaceful, prosperous pre-war years, known as the Belle Epoque. This was also a time of scientific discoveries and new technology, including the introduction of the motor car. The first time such a machine was seen in York was 1904, so the curators at the museum were keen to include an early automobile in this section of the exhibition.

To do this required a great deal of planning and preparation. Collection facilitator Rob Wake and technician Geoff Hutchinson disassembled the car as much as they could, so it could be moved in manageable chunks. But the chassis of the car could not be easily dismantled, so had to be moved in one go.

On Friday the car was taken from its off site store to the museum on the back of a truck. Once at the CastleMuseum the crane was used to gently lift it onto a fork lift. Then came the tough bit, moving the fragile, rare and expensive chassis five metres in the air and then slowly edging it through a first floor window which was only two inches wider than the crate the chassis was in…

The forklift’s pistons began to strain as the car slowly began to rise. One metre…two metres,,,A crowd began to gather, the curator’s began to wince. Geoff, poised, cool, calm, ready at the window for the imminent arrival. Instructions were being shouted by the skilful forklift crew from CIS Industrial – “Left a little, forward, that’s it, that’s it.”

And then, in a moment, it was in. The team move up stairs and help gradually edge it in from the window ledge onto a pile of crates. Relief. Job done, smiles all round. Well, not quite… Rob and Geoff now have to remember how to put the car back together again!

The Car

The Colibri model was produced around 1907 in Hameln, Germany.  It has a wooden, carriage built body painted blue, with wooden and metal running boards and metal bonnet with brass radiator.  It has leather seats inside, a folding canvas hood and wooden spoked wheels, a spare wheel on the side.

There are two brass lamps one either side of the windscreen and AA members badge no. 9892.  A red metal ‘Shell’ oil can is fixed to the running board.  It has a twin cylinder engine with 860cc, a cylinder bore of 83mm and a piston stroke of 95mm and mechanical side valves.  There is a three speed gear box with a reverse gear as well and a cone clutch, a Claudel Levallois carburettor and a Ruthardt H.T. Magneto ignition with drip feed lubrication.