Welcome to the HVRI website.

The Historic Vehicle Research Institute is an educational charity.  Its registered purpose is:

To conduct or promote research into all aspects of historic vehicles including their preservation, their use and their place as part of our heritage. HVRI is interested in the social, cultural, economic, psychological, informational and technological contexts of historic vehicles and aims to disseminate the results of such research.

There are two main strands to this work: research into the nature and extent of today’s interest in historic motor vehicles and the assembly of a substantial photographic archive illustrating road vehicles from the horse-drawn era onwards.

HVRI works with partners in both spheres.  On the research front, those are the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs [FBHVC], the University of Brighton and the University of Chester.  On the photographic archive, HVRI has come together with the University of Brighton, the Photographic Archive of Transport Heritage, and www.motorbase.com to build an international archive of our mobile heritage.