Auto Brunch St Ives September 2025

After a year of miserable weather, today was one of the nicest days I can remember for a long time.  While I hadn’t originally planned to head to St Ives, I was up early and the day was so nice, it would have been a crime not to.

I took my 560SEC and headed over there.   I think many people had the same idea as it was probably the biggest one I’ve been to.   Probably half of the entire oval was full, and there were hundreds of cars in the areas outside the oval.

St Ives continues to be by far the best cars and coffee in Sydney.   Most of the other events are far more one dimensional – dominated by a particular class of car.   The thing that St Ives has is the insane amount of variety.   You still get the Porsches and Mustangs that are the mainstay of other cars and coffee events, but you’ll also get Singers, Lancias, De Sotos, De Tomasos and more.    I normally run into quite a few other people I know on the day.

Getting in was easier than other times I’ve attended as they have the cars do almost an entire lap around the oval before entering on the far side.  This means the cars are not banking up right out to the road.   Despite that, about a quarter of the cars don’t pay the $5 entry fee and park where the event used to be held, or in the public parking lots.

The morning was great and I got to see a lot of really nice cars.  There was a surprising number of Jaguar XK sportscars from the 50s on display for example.

Getting out was the hard part.  It probably took me about 45 minutes to exit the venue.   It didn’t look like they had the second exit operating like they often do, so that reduced throughput.   There was also only one way out of the oval.   Its also amazing how entitled some people are.   When it was clear that most attendees were lining up around the edges of the oval to leave, it was amazing how many people tried to jump the queue and push their way through the middle.   I won’t let these people in on principle but I guess because most of the attendees really value their cars, they mostly got away with it.   It certainly made the exit slower than it needed to be as it became a free-for-all.

Despite the traffic snarls, it was still a nice morning and I look forward to next time I am able to attend.