Wednesday 31 October 2012

Arnold Clark cars are out of reach

As a popular attraction the Glasgow Riverside Museum is a success. Last week children were climbing on tramcars and marvelling at railway locomotives. The architecture may be avant garde but the car collection, accessible and touchable in the old Kelvin Hall is unreachable. Arnold Clark has sponsored a wall of classics, from Austin Seven to Porsche 911 Turbo on shelves the height of a Glasgow tenement. A museum is supposed to be where a student can examine an artefact. No question of taking the cars down for an occasional drive. Getting a crane to one would mean shunting a large locomotive. The old Kelvin Hall had cars displayed in a dummy showroom, like one of Arnold Clark’s originals off Great Western Road. It looks as though, like the parliament in Holyrood, the architecture went to politicians’ heads and, just like Holyrood, the cost went from £57million to £74million. Glasgow taxpayers coughed up £51million. It displays, without irony, the Lord Provost’s Rolls-Royce. A little note explains it is no longer used owing to heavy running costs. Red Clydeside has forgotten, in its embarrasment, that Lenin owned nine.

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