Visiting the world's biggest private motoring library

“Hold on,” says Butler. “I’ll start it up so that you can hear what cars were meant to sound like when I was young in the 1960s.” Slightly more rorty than the MG TD that 76-year-old Butler has owned since he was 16.

And there’s more: a slingshot dragster with a flathead Ford V8, a Dodge Ram V10 pick-up, a Jaguar D-Type replica and a Buick Grand National (the one with a turbocharged V6). In another garage are some IROC (International Race of Champions) Camaro race cars, one of which was first raced by Graham Hill.

I have been misinformed. Butler has a vast collection of not only magazines but also books. Surely, it must be one of the largest automotive libraries in the world? “I think the Collier Collection in Florida is larger,” says Butler, “but then there are things that I’ve got that they haven’t and vice versa, of course.” One reason why this is turning out to be such a great day is that Butler does not boast about the rarity of items or their value. There’s just genuine fascination and passion for what they represent as historical pieces.

Such as the race programme for the first-ever meeting held at Brooklands in 1907. Just as I’m taking that in, it’s joined in my hands by a similar publication from the first event held at Indianapolis in 1909. Butler has every single Indy 500 programme, from the first-ever meeting onwards.

But back to the magazines. One of Butler’s favourites is La Vie Automobile. “It was published from 1904 to 1956 and what I love about it is that it was edited by the same man from issue one until the end. I bought these from the General Motors library,” he says.

For me, the ‘pass the defibrillator’ moment is a complete set of Hot Rod magazine. “Wow,” I say. “Right back to the early days when Gray Baskerville was first writing for the magazine.” Butler’s head turns towards me a few degrees: “I’m impressed.” Having established my hot-rodding credentials, Butler pulls out the first catalogue produced by hot rodder and tuner Ed Iskenderian and then an early So-Cal Speedshop brochure.

I’ve been an on and off subscriber to Car and Driver since the late 1970s and unsurprisingly Butler has a complete set. The magazine started out as Sports Cars Illustrated until in 1961 then editor Karl Ludvigsen changed its name. Naturally, Ludvigsen’s brilliant Porsche: Excellence Was Expected is on these shelves. “The first car book I ever bought,” says Butler, “was on the MG T-series cars, which happens to be the first book that Karl wrote.” Ferrari Racing: A Pictorial History by Colin Goodwin is in the Ferrari section and I add nothing to its value by signing it.

Occasionally, there are gaps in the shelves filled by an objet d’art, such as an Edelbrock cylinder head off a flathead Ford V8 or a carburettor off a Miller. (Butler owns the 1932 Miller FWD, a fantastic four-wheel-drive Indy racer that’s one of only two built.) “Ever seen a Goodwood Ton?” asks Butler as he passes me a small pyramid-shaped object. “It was given to drivers who achieved a 100mph lap at Goodwood.” Fetch back the defibrillator: this one was awarded to my hero Mike Hailwood for lapping the circuit at over 100mph in a Lotus in 1964.

The pace is not lessening. I’m handed a book titled Sports Cars of the World. The flysheet is inscribed: ‘To Dean, best wishes, Neil Armstrong’. “He was my neighbour in Ohio,” says Butler.

Although he’s not an autograph collector by choice, there are some good ones in the library. Butler’s favourite car of the dozens that he’s owned and raced is a Bugatti T51 once raced by Louis Chiron, so unsurprisingly the Bugatti section is well populated. There’s a programme from the event that celebrated the centenary of Ettore Bugatti’s birth that is signed by, among other Bugatti luminaries, Louis Blériot (son of the aviation pioneer) and Elisabeth Junek. Junek was a Bugatti driver who is one of the greatest women drivers of all time and who beat Tazio Nuvolari in a straight fight. “Look at this,” says Butler, “a cook book of Czech recipes written by Junek. It’s the only cookery book in the library but I had to have it.”

There don’t seem to be many biographies, I point out. “In a different room,” says Butler. And sure enough, there is every racing and car industry biography you can think of. My own collection is not bad but Butler has everything I’ve got and a 1000 times more. A wonderfully fat biography of François Cevert, for example, but unfortunately in French.

Butler has an online business meeting at 3pm that he can’t miss. He told me about this a week ago so it isn’t a ruse to get rid of me. That said, if he hadn’t had that meeting, he’d have had to invent it because I would be here forever. 

At every turn, there’s a new delight. An album of photographs from the early days of aviation, including shots of Blériot. Uncaptioned and never published. A treasure. Butler’s wife is Russian, an eye surgeon (there’s a longer word to describe her speciality but neither Google nor I can spell it) and one of the team that pioneered laser eye surgery. Her father was chief electrical engineer of the Russian space programme in the 1960s. Needless to say, Butler has a large collection of Russian motoring and aviation books.

What a day, what an enthusiast and what a magnificent collection.