Behind the wheel of classics at Rootes Drive it Day

This year's D-ID proved dry and quite sunny, a major stroke of luck given recent unsettled weather patterns, so many classic cars ventured out across the UK. The starting point for my run, organised by Hagerty Insurance, was the Jaguar Land Rover Classic facility in Ryton-on-Dunsmore. It's just south of Coventry, on a swish-looking business park built on the site of the old Rootes Group assembly plant. Originally the factory was built to make wartime aircraft before its post-war Rootes career, ending up as a Peugeot plant as history, takeovers and re-brandings took their course.

The last time I was there, I watched Peugeot 206 estate cars being made. Now, JLR Classic is restoring early Land Rovers, Range Rovers and E-types, and creating 'continuation' examples of the Jaguar XKSS having already done the same with D-types and Lightweight E-types. The company's Heritage Collection vehicles are also stored here, including those of the James Hull collection apart from the ones recently sold at the Bicester Heritage auction. There are so many cars that a second storage deck has been built to help house them. 

This being a past Rootes site, I felt it appropriate to arrive in my past Rootes car. My 1968 Sunbeam Stiletto was made at Linwood in Scotland rather than Ryton, but at least it can claim some genes common with the larger, more conventional cars that were made in the Midlands. James Hull's compulsion to collect extended to three of my Stiletto's siblings slightly incongruously stashed here at JLR Classic, one each of saloon, coupé and van silhouettes, along with one car – there may be more I didn't spot – which was actually built at Ryton, a Sunbeam Rapier Series III or IIIA (it's hard to tell without getting up very close). 

Other cars not expected in such a venue included a couple of Maseratis, several Citroëns including a Chapron-bodied DS Décapotable, Fords including 100Es and two Mark 1 Fiesta XR2s, an Austin A70 Hereford 'woodie' and… well, the list goes on. JLR's own relics included a prototype XK8 'mule' in black disguise and two mid-engined CX75s, the strikingly handsome car we all wish Jaguar had put into production.

And so to the road route, Bicester Heritage its destination after 56 miles of backroads within striking distance of the Cotswolds' north-eastern edge. Five miles after departure we saw Wappenbury Hall on our left, the grand former home of Jaguar founder and luminary Sir William Lyons, before joining the arrow-straight Fosse Way and leaving it again to pass by the Aston Martin factory, the JLR R&D facility and the British Motor Museum all nestled together at Gaydon on the former A41.

Shortly after passing the Edgehill battlefield, however, I had to divert away from the route and on to another mission. A stone's throw from the Bentley Drivers' Club HQ just outside Wroxton, on the Stratford Road west of Banbury and reached via a fantastic sequence of uphill, bends best enjoyed with more engine oomph than my little Stiletto can muster, is a new and important enterprise in the classic-car world. Or one corner of it, anyway, and the Sunbeam Tiger roaring up those bends gave a further clue to anyone watching. 

Drive-it Day was the official opening day for the smart and spacious new home of the Rootes Archive Centre Trust, where are kept many full-size engineering drawings (150,000 of them), much publicity material and a fascinating collection of notes, reports, assessments and photographs from the Rootes Group and its Chrysler UK successor. It was due to be thrown out by Peugeot during re-development of its Coventry sites, but it was rescued in 2002 and has since been stored on three different sites.

The trust was formed in 2004 with support from the various owners' clubs catering for Rootes cars and has gradually accumulated enough funds through appeals, donations and loans to acquire this new building in Apollo Park. The Rootes family arrived in force for the opening, clearly delighted at this haven for the archives of the dynasty's once-powerful force in the British motor industry. 'Long may it prosper and thrive,' concluded the speech of Lord Nicholas Rootes, son of Linwood factory mastermind Geoffrey Rootes and grandson of corporation figurehead Lord William Rootes, just before the Reverend Bill Rootes cut the ceremonial ribbon.

The new centre will be a focal point for meetings of member clubs and their umbrella organisation and, crucially, its engineering drawings are already enabling new parts to be manufactured. There was a party atmosphere to the whole event, with Rootes cars and trucks from humble Hillmans to fierce Tigers, from delivery vans to a replica of the Hillman Hunter that won the London-to-Sydney Marathon in 1968, and the always-amusing presence of Rosemary Smith, glamorous 1960s rally driver and Irish wit. 

My start-to-finish Rootes immersion, from former factory to new archive, was complete. Now I had to get to Bicester Heritage (the quick way, on the M40, strangely short of classic cars) before everyone went home from the Sunday Scramble that was the Hagerty run's destination. Fortunately, it was still busy by the time I arrived, with all of this classic-car enterprise park's businesses open and the usual immense variety of old-car arcania parked all around.

My favourite car at Bicester? It has to be the 'outlaw' Lancia Aurelia with its chopped-down roof, recently built by restoration specialist Thornley Kelham. It's all my classic-car fantasies rolled into one…