The weird & wonderful delights of the Isle of Man Motor Museum

Slide of At the top of the Isle of Man in Jurby, is a cache of magnificent automotive treasures, the like of which you'll not have seen before. Packed with cars that you've either never heard of, or only seen references to online or in books, the Isle of Man Motor Museum  has more than 500 vehicles. This includes around 200 cars, some commercial vehicles, hundreds of motorbikes and even a space capsule, and these are just a few of the brilliant machines on show. Slide of 01: The founders The collection is the result of three decades of collecting on the part of Darren Cunningham and his father Denis. The museum opened in 2015 and as Darren says: "We like to have cars in our collection that visitors will not have seen anywhere else, and to offer that to everyone there has to be a really wide variety." As these pictures show, it's fair to say the objective has been achieved. Slide of 02: Peel P50 The P50 has a much higher profile than it used to, thanks to the antics of a certain TV show. Built on the Isle of Man, at 1370mm long (54in) the single-seater Peel is the smallest road car to ever be produced in series, and as you'd expect there are no fewer than three in the collection, including this original example, one shown in exploded view, along with a 2011 replica. Slide of 03: Lotus Carlton With 300bhp family hatchbacks now common, and 600bhp saloons even more so, it's hard to imagine how much the Lotus Carlton ruffled feathers when it arrived in 1990. Its 377bhp twin-turbo straight-six provided a 177mph top speed, which was enough to make some newspapers very angry indeed, though they didn’t seem to mind Ferraris… Slide of 04: Citroën DS The Citroën DS and ID were made in big numbers over a production run of two decades (1955-1975), but of the 1.5 million or so built, just 1365 were convertibles, or Decapotables. This one is a 1962 DS19, built independently by Chapron but supplied through the Citroën dealer network with a factory warranty. Slide of 05: Sunbeam-Talbot 90 The first post-war motor show in the UK was the 1948 Earls Court bash, and this was one of the cars on display. The 90 was a premium family car, and this cut-away was produced by the factory to show it off in all its glory. With the car on axle stands and driven by mains power, the engine, drivetrain and wheels all rotate. Slide of 06: Peugeot 205 GTi Among all of the really weird stuff in the collection are some more mainstream gems, including this very original 205 GTi 1.9. It's in private hands and the lucky chap who owns it bought it as a daily driver before lending it to the museum. Slide of 07: Ford Executive Just about a contemporary of the Fiat 130, the slab-sided Ford Zephyr/Zodiac Mk4 was in production between 1966 and 1972. At the top of the model range was the Executive, complete with power steering, a sunroof, walnut dash and seatbelts. Slide of 08: Rolls-Royce Camargue The only production Roller to be designed by Pininfarina, the Camargue was seen as something of an ugly duckling by many, even though it was the world's most expensive car at the time. Just 531 were made between 1975 and 1986, and this 1981 example has covered just 12,000 miles so far. Slide of 09: Custom Cloud Under those garish glassfibre add-ons is a 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo trying to get out. The brainchild of American Jon Tedesco, the Custom Cloud was meant to provide the luxury of a Rolls-Royce for a quarter of the cost. The guys from Crewe didn't take kindly and tried to shut him down, being only partially successful and forcing a redesign of the car. Slide of 10: DeLorean DMC-12 The DMC-12 was one of those what-might-have-been cars. Loved and hated seemingly in equal measure, it did things differently which meant it was compromised, but with more development it could have been a contender. Production lasted just two years; this example is one of the ultra-rare right-hand drive prototypes. Slide of 11: GM Scenicruiser Darren bought this 1954 Greyhound bus to drive around the US a few years ago. Estimated to have covered 5 or 6 million miles, it has air suspension, air-con and was originally powered by a pair of 4.7-litre four-cylinder diesel engines; it was later re-engined with a fairly monstrous 9.3-litre diesel V8, good for 1000lb ft of torque. 1001 Scenicruisers were built, originally all for Greyhound, between 1954 and 1956 – and by all accounts was a fairly nightmarish project all round, stemming largely from that (initially) convoluted engine setup. Slide of 12: Gibbs Aquada Lots of companies have tried to produce a commercially viable amphibious vehicle, but so far it's proved to be a tricky proposition. In 2004, New Zealand company Gibbs unveiled the Aquada, but it sank without trace (thankfully not literally), with just a handful made. This one was the company’s sh