MBCNSW September 2025 Night Drive – Picton and Appin Roads

Our September night dive route was a new one.   None of the roads were new, but one of our regulars suggested it would make for a good drive to combine Picton and Appin roads into a single night drive.

It sounded like a great idea, so I tested the route in my 450SLC a few weeks ago.  I’ve found its important to test these routes at night, as things that work during the day don’t always work at night.  In addition, the state parks service closes a lot of roads that go through the national parks.

On the day of the drive, we had quite a good turn out, even with a few people having to pull out.   I find it odd that the club would schedule an executive meeting over the top of a registered club event, as we lost a few people to that.

As well as many of our usual suspects, we also had a new member in a very nice CL500, plus our normal W124 crew in a couple of 300Es and a 300TE, a 380SEC and another modern Benz.  I took my 450SE.    To everyone’s great interest we also had a C4 Corvette on the drive.  Its a 1986 model with a 5.7 SBC.  Its great when members bring non Mercedes cars to these drives as it adds variety.   The C4 had been imported to Australia in 2011, but stored until earlier this year.  The owner has dealt with a few fuel delivery related issues, changed the tyres and so on.   This is its first major drive.

We met up at Camden McDonalds, which was closed even at this early hour.   More and more of this McDonalds advertise opening hours based on the drive through, but close the actual restaurant.  Since I’m not a savage and don’t eat in my car, this is particularly useless.

After everyone admired the Corvette, we set off.   We started down the old Hume highway.   The roads were quite good and had fairly limited traffic.   After having to slow down for a truck and a roundabout, I noticed the Corvette have to abruptly pull over.  Its lucky I was able to see.  Normally I can really only see what is happening with one or maybe two cars behind me at night.   But we were going down a hill and the corvette has very distinctive headlights.

The Corvette had conked out.   It was able to restart and idled well, but died with any revs.   After looking for a while, turns out the brand new mass airflow sensor had died.  Disconnecting it had the engine running well again.

We continued on our way and the drive was really good.   It was a nice fast route with little traffic and pretty good roads.   My 450SE did well on its first night drive, and so did the Corvette once the MAF was disconnected.     The only downside was a 15 minute roadwork delay.   The roadwork wasn’t there two weeks ago.

We finished our drive at Chubby Buns Hoxton Park.   The Campbelltown location is temporarily closed.   It was quite busy and had expanded since our list visit.