Rolls Royce Club Federal Rally 2025 display

Today was National Motoring Heritage Day.   There are always a lot of car related events to choose from.  Originally I had planned to go to the big display in Berry with the Mercedes-Benz club.  Then a friend told me that the Rolls Royce club were holding a display for the final day of their Federal Rally.  I attended their 2022 display in Queanbeyan and was quite impressed so I decided to go there instead.  I’ve been to the Berry event a few times now (2023 and 2021), so thought it would be a good change.

In the end I made a good choice.  Torrential rain in the days leading up to the day had the Berry event cancelled.  Instead of cancelling their event, the Rolls Royce club moved indoors.   It was supposed to be held by the water in Newcastle.  The backup location was a hotel parking lot.   Unlike most hotel parking lots, it was not a dingy affair, even the floors were painted. It worked out quite well, as there were areas for the main families of cars (e.g. pre-war, separate chassis, Silver Shadow based, Silver Spirit based and moderns).

I drove up to Newcastle in my 560SEL. I’m taking it on a 4800km road trip in July.  This was a good trial after having a new radiator fitted and fixing a few minor annoyances myself.   The rain was very heavy, but I find the W126 a very surefooted car in the wet.  Nothing else jumped out at me as needing to be attended to.

Given the weather, I was impressed with the display.   There were a fair number of cars that had traveled from Victoria and Queensland.   There was also a great selection of pre-war cars and the RROC must be one of the few clubs that extensively use their pre-war machines.   These cars need to be used an appreciated and it’s always nice to see the on the road.   There was a good selection of the early cars as well as a couple of examples of the V12 Phantom III.

Moving on to the other models, probably my favorite on the day was a Victorian registered Bentley S series, and of course the two different Bentley Continentals were not to be missed.   As you would expect, the largest numbers were in the Silver Shadows and related models such as the Corniche and Camargue, and the Silver Spirit and related models such as the Bentley Turbo R.

There was also a section of modern models on display.  These don’t hold a great deal of interest to me, but were good to complete the history.   I enjoyed the day and it was good to see the event happen despite the weather.