Auto Brunch St Ives May 2026

Today was the monthly St Ives Auto Brunch cars and coffee event.  It was a lovely warm Sydney Autumn day and it was probably one of the biggest turnouts I’ve seen.   After all the bad weather we were back on the main Oval and I think it was 80% full this time.  Last time we were off to the side.

I arrived at about 7:50AM and the lines to get in were already quite long.  Quite a few people got sick of them and parked in the spectator parking which I think is a shame to save $5.  Probably next time I’ll try to get there a bit earlier.

I took my 1977 Mercedes 450SLC.  I have been driving it this week and my son and I gave it a quick wash the day before.  A friend of mine had his almost identical car there on the day which was unplanned.

The best part of going to St Ives is seeing what interesting and unusual cars will be on display.  Today it was all about Saabs.   I don’t know if it was a event by the Saab Club or just a group of Saab enthusiasts but there were a few really nice cars.   For my mind, the best car of the whole show was the 1979 Saab 99 Turbo.

The car had been restored and it showed, even down to all the decals in the engine bay.   The car must have been such a revelation in the last 70s.  I think the original 99 design is more interesting than the later 900, down to some of the subtle curves in the bodywork and the design of the interior.  The wheels and turbo badges are also a nice touch.   The 900 is still a cool car, but it’s a bit more homogenized.

There were some other nice Saabs there including a black 900 turbo and a pale blue 900.   I prefer the Saabs from then the company was independent, but the later cars still have some interesting touches.

As well as the Saabs, there were some other cars that caught my eye including a Milan Brown 450SEL 6.9 with a cream velour interior.  Milan brown is one of those colours that has incredible depth when the paint is nice, but looks terrible when its a bit faded.  This car has great paint and it goes so well with the velour.  As well as the 6.9 there was a nice Derby Bentley, a very nice blue BMW E24 with a manual transmission.   The Volvo Bertone coupe was striking too.   These are not pretty cars, but so interesting and unusual that I was happy to see it.

In addition to the cars, its always good to run into a few friends along the way and its a great Sunday morning.