By George Joseph

The Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust was formed at the end of 2002. It is a registered charity. The trust is managed by a committee of trustees. The trust aims to restore and preserve the historic passenger and commercial vehicles. The Bridgeton garage has around 150 buses, coaches, commercial vehicles and fire appliances in the collection. Interestingly vehicles from the collection participate in events within the city and beyond, often allowing the public the opportunity to travel on them.

GVVT operates a project called “Back on the Road” since 2005. It is a unique social inclusion programme. It was established in 1999 as the first of six Employment Projects of Scotland Against Drugs (SAD) which was a Scottish Government initiative to tackle drug misuse in Scotland. The project was set up to provide opportunities for recovered drug addicts to prepare themselves for going back to work.  

GVVT project supervisor Gordon Kerr described the programme to us as;

“Back on the Road is designed to support people in their recovery from addiction through a work programme. We take referrals from the community health and care sectors and we provide a work placement for them. During that process, we hope to restore a vintage commercial vehicle.”

– Gordon Kerr, Project Supervisor

Over 80 recovered addicts passed through all of SAD’s Employment Projects around Scotland between 2000 and 2007, 30 of them participated in the Back on the Road project at Bridgeton Bus Garage.

GVVT welcomes everyone to their garage to see and explore their collection of vehicles and the various programmes they undertake. With monthly open Sundays from April to September, they anticipate some exciting time at the garage.

Tickets to the Open Sunday events can be bought from their site or on the door.

As per the words of Martin Walker, one of the trustees, all vehicles irrespective of the dates, are part of the history. People of all ages come and admire them. The vehicles bring back memories and it is important to keep the heritage of these vehicles alive, he concluded.