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Formula One: high speed logistics

Added August 11th, 2011

Between 2007 – 2010, EFM was given the responsibility to look after the movement of “Formula One: The Great Design Race” – a touring exhibition charting the history of F1 from its origins to modern times and comprising several historic and modern Formula One racing cars, which have been transported by EFM across the world for a series of major exhibitions. With the age of several of these cars, it was extremely important to handle them with the due care and attention usually reserved for fine art. For example, they were only able to be moved by pushing the wheels – no body parts could be touched – and all the cars could only be moved around in covered vehicle transporters to prevent exposure to the elements. Prior to the sealing of each container, EFM had to secure the cars and place a large amount of silica gel bags in each container and car to help reduce the moisture in transit. The fragile mirrored glass display plinths were also professionally crated by EFM into custom-built exhibition touring crates to protect them in transit during the tour.

The collection of the Cooper, Brabham and Williams cars from their Donington Grand Prix Museum home heralded the start of the world tour. The addition of the classic Lotus and the modern day Renault from EFM’s long term storage warehouse completed the group, which was on its way by road to the Design Museum in Helsinki before travelling onwards to the Tokyo Opera City Gallery via ocean freight. On arrival in Tokyo, the street outside the Gallery was closed off for an intricately orchestrated night move – due to the size of the cars, they would not fit in the main Gallery Lift and had to be lifted through the 3rd floor window via crane and a bespoke platform. EFM Project Managers were in attendance at all stages to supervise the safe handling of the cars and the exhibition display components in and out of all venues and loan locations.

Following on from Japan, by 2009, the exhibition had grown in size, with another world tour kicking off. The full original exhibition plus a number of additional cars were loaned and shipped down to New Zealand by sea freight for the next leg of the tour, which opened at the Te Papa Museum in Wellington. Eight cars and the display materials were crated up and shipped on their long voyage across the world, to the waiting team at the Museum, where again the EFM Project Managers were on hand to receive the containers, unload the cars and safely position them inside the museum. Fortunately this time the cars did fit inside the museum goods lift, which left time for the newly loaned McLaren to be hoisted into position above it’s mirrored plinth. At the close of the Te Papa exhibition, the cars were again safely returned to their lenders in the UK but were turned right around and were soon off once more by road, via dedicated vehicle transporters to spend a month at Sportmax in Budapest during the Summer of 2010.

Due to time constraints and to coincide with the inaugural Korean F1 Grand Prix, a select part of the exhibition tour, including several of the cars, was then sent via air freight by EFM from UK out to the Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul Arts Centre in Seoul, Korea, where it was exhibited during September and October 2010, before EFM finally moved the exhibition back home from Korea to UK and safely returned all the cars and display materials back to their lenders and the Design Museum. All lenders and owners expressed their delight in a successful exhibition and the safe return of their priceless vehicles.