National Motor Museum completes toy car record

A museum in Hampshire is hoping to have broken the world record for the longest line of toy cars after nearly doubling the length of the current record.

It took visitors and staff at The National Motor Museum, in Beaulieu, 10 hours to lay the line of 24,189 toy cars bumper to bumper throughout the museum and its grounds over the recent bank holiday. The current record is 14,310 toy cars set in Fussen, Germany.

Official adjudicators spent three hours counting and checking the line-up which ran alongside World Land Speed Record breakers including steam car Inspiration which broke the world steam car speed record in 2009.

Measuring 1.91km, cars in the line were donated by members of the public and celebrities including Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and motoring journalist Quentin Willson. Sir Stirling Moss donated a model of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in which he won the 1955 Mille Miglia - a road race covering 1,000 miles through Italy in the fastest sports cars of the time.

Bloodhound SSC, (soon to be the world's first 1,000mph car) was the 14,311th toy car which set the new record. No toy tanks, trains, caravans or boats were allowed.

The final cars in the line-up were signed models of Bloodhound SSC and Thrust SSC (which hit 763mph in 1997 making it the only supersonic record car in history) donated by Land Speed Record breakers Wing Commander Andy Green OBE and Richard Noble OBE.

The line of toy cars will now be officially verified by Guinness World Records before being sold at the museum to raise money for Naomi House children's hospice in Winchester. Valuable toy cars from the line-up will be auctioned for the hospice.