Transport Museum Wythall’s magnificently restored 1931 Birmingham City Transport AEC Regent double decker bus has won a major award thanks to the team behind it’s “sheer bloody-mindedness in getting the job done.”
OV 4486 won the prestigious Restoration Award, presented at the 2022 Royal Automobile Club’s Historic Awards ceremony at its Pall Mall headquarters. The award recognises excellence and outstanding contributions to the UK’s historic motoring and motorsport industries, highlighting the organisations and individuals responsible for influencing and driving the British historic motoring movement.
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The judges said the bus was chosen for the award “for its survival against the odds, its importance in British transport and social history, the remarkable attention to detail and quality of its restoration, and the amazing dedication of the volunteers who have worked so hard, unpaid, to save and restore this evocative vehicle.”
The restoration of AEC Regent 486 was completed just a few short months ago. The long story of its life in Birmingham from entry into service in 1931 to its scrapping (or not, as it turned out) in 1946 and then its miraculous appearance in a field in Herefordshire in the early 1970s after being thought long gone is akin to a miracle. Even its reappearance and challenging recovery is a story of its own in a period when bus restoration was uncommon and facilities in which to carry out such work were virtually non-existent, unless you enjoyed toiling in the open air or draughty farm buildings.
The judges added: “The whole team at Wythall and before are to be congratulated for their tenacity and sheer bloody-mindedness in getting this job done over 40 years. Starting not once or twice but four or five times is to be applauded. Thanks to thousands of man hours, hundreds of individual donations, corporate sponsorship, much appreciated personal legacies and specific fundraising projects amounting to around £500,000, 486 is better than new and a tribute to all the men and women involved.”
“This award is a credit to the many volunteers who have toiled for years to get this job done. Their perseverance and sheer tenacity has resulted in the Rolls Royce of bus restorations, it has to be seen to be believed,” said TMW spokesman Denis Chick said: “We are delighted to win this prestigious ward and the recognition for the restoration team.”
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