Boomtown Gallery

This gallery explores Coventry’s road transport industry in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

The gallery shows how during the 50s and 60s Coventry was a boomtown, with the car industry thriving and people coming from all over the world to work in the city. It goes on to explore how the industry began to suffer during the 1970s, with industrial disputes causing the industry to decline.

The gallery depicts a Triumph stand at the Earls Court Motorshow, a production line from one of Coventry’s largest car factories, and a re-created slip road from Coventry’s ringroad, showing how Coventry has been physically changed by the influence of the car.

Throughout the galley there are interactives, film and video showing unique archive footage and interviews with people who worked in the factories or lived in Coventry during this period.

At one end of the gallery is a re-creation of a huge sewer tunnel with a Mini motor car springing from it. This depicts the famous tunnel scene from the 1960s British movie The Italian Job, which was filmed in Coventry’s new sewer system which was being built at the time.

Images by Haydn Bailey Photography

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