In 2013, Bruce Lawson completed a biography of Charles Rolls, pioneer motorist and aviator, Victorian/Edwardian racer, garage proprietor and co-founder of Rolls-Royce.

In 2014, Bruce joined the Society of Motor Historians, which then had an American affiliate. Looking in the American magazine, he found a local number and a reference to the Cloverlands Museum. He rang and spoke to an erudite and very spry lady, Gillian Rogers, who asked him and his friend, Roy, to visit the museum at just five miles away from their homes!

On visiting, they were told there were never any visitors, but were stunned to find 1500 model cars in an adjoining barn, ,some dating back to the Forties., with a hand-written card index for each item! She made many of the models herself. As officers of Montgomery Institute, Bruce and Roy offered, to rent the collection, and display it.

The models were removed from Llansantffraid to Montgomery in May 2015. A further Canadian collection of three hundred cars was offered (and accepted) following an article in Model Collector magazine. This collection has now been purchased outright. Meanwhile, Gillian had recommended a keen and knowledgeable model car collector to join the team, and Bruce, Roy and John Nunn became Custodians of the collection.

They were, in turn, joined by David Beare, an SAHB member and motoring historian from Montgomery with published work on Panhard and other cars, and Max Tomlinson from Llansantffraid, a published writer on Bugattis, who later married Gillian. She herself, was a motoring writer – another member of the Society of Motor Historians (SAHB) and whose self-published book ‘Driving Through the Decades’ is on sale in the museum, and chronicles motoring in her family from 1929 up to the Millennium.

A collection of a thousand items was later given by Richard Loake from Liverpool- being Formula 1 and touring cars, almost since records began.

During the pandemic there was time for some forward thinking, and the organisers felt ground floor premises were necessary with more space and disabled access, together with enhanced parking for increasing numbers of visitors, and catering. The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway Preservation were approached, terms agreed and the collection was moved in May 2022, assisted by a grant from the Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (PAVO), and opened a month later, the largest public model car collection in Wales.