I'm on a business trip in the UK right now and stumbled upon the Michelin House in London (Chelsea), which is the company's original British headquarters and showroom floor, built in 1911 (100 years ago last week, to be exact). The architecture and b... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Thanks for telling us about it! I'm in London now and then and I will for sure make a visit there next time.
Cool Pictures but when I open them up the ones that are not sideways to start with are upside down.......or is it me
Working on and planning a trip to London for late this year. This is one of our stops planned while making the rounds. I was born in Ipswitch and this will be my once in a life time return to my birth place. Seems like the biggest problem is time, so much needs to be seen, but will be on a cramped schedule.
I have been a great fan of that building and everything Michelin since I first saw it. But not white walls on a 20/30 luxury car, you would have been a real Flash Harry or a Cad to do that - if they were even available. Despite what you see on todays restored cars it just wasn't so. Earlier -pre 1914 - tires were often made of white rubber by the 1920 just about all wellbased wheel tires were black Even more surprising to traditionalists is that for the last 65 year Michelin have been selling and fitting RADIAL TIRES to cars - shock horror! So in 1949 your 32 Ford may have pulled in to be fitted with a new set of radials. I know of a least one that was.
That's an iPhone 4 bug. I spent an hour at the Apple store trying to explain my problem to them. In the end they blamed it on facebook and vBulletin. I now make sure my phone is oriented a certain way before taking a pic. Jay - Great pics and write-up.
I'm in my computer and got my neck busted trying to see the gravity defying pictures LOL. Cool pictures, the stained glass in the face of the builiding is very nice! thanks for sharing
I absolutely love that Bib air compressor in picture #7! And the trike in picture #6 is pretty cool as well.
Thanks for the awesome pics! That Bib is one handsome dude, even with the spare tire around the middle.
Be careful after dark! HRP <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WBYwLdSKo90" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>
Funny thing is ive been to the restaurant and never even noticed the museum bit!! learn a new thing every day!
If you are in the UK for a bit and want to see some stunning world speed record cars, go here - bit of a trip from London but worth it. http://www.beaulieu.co.uk/beaulieu/index (National Motor Museum)
Is this the place? I snapped this shot from a shuttle bus window (if I remember correctly) on my way from the airport to Chelsea about three years ago (on a vacation to England). It's too bad I didn't get to see the museum...the building was incredible from the street.
I worked in that building for a couple of years in the 70's driving a truck delivering tyres around London, and my wife Irene worked in the office there for 16yrs. The story goes that all that stained glass was removed during ww2 and stored in the basement, it certainly wasn't there when we were. When Conran the furniture store bought the building they found the glass and restored it to it's former glory. Under the Bibendum stained glass was the tyre fitting bay. Anyway, I thought you might like a little bit of history,(for what it is worth) Charlie!!
If you are into bikes and are visiting in London,another great place is Ace Cafe: http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/default.aspx I was there few yrs ago,it was totally worth of it.
Used to drive past it almost daily before I moved to California...nice write up Jay...wave to my Mum!
I use to drive past it all the time, never went inside. Also if your in the area on the last Saturday of the month is the Chelsea Cruise.