W123 50th Anniversary – Day 2: Swap Meet and Scenic Drive
The second day of the 50th Anniversary of the W123 started with a swap meet. Day 1 had been about getting to Canberra and a welcome BBQ. We assembled at Black Mountain parking lot, which was the departure point for the Scenic Drive we would do later. This was a great location to do it, as the parking lot was basically empty. There was plenty of room for 50ish W123s and for parts to be laid out behind some of them.
I have more W126 spares than W123, but I brought a few things that I thought could be useful. The set of mudflaps I removed from my car, a used grille insert, some HD motor mounts I found too harsh, some suspension bushes and a few other miscellaneous things. The only thing I sold as a reproduction exhaust Y piece for an early W123 M110 engine. This is the same as on the W116 280SE, and I had bought this to put on my old 280SE, before realizing the entire exhaust needed replacement.
I ended up taking home more than I arrived with, which is either a big success or a terrible failure, depending on how you look at it. I’ll go with the former. I managed to get a brochure set for my W123, some spare hubcaps, a toolkit, a first aid kit, a non-working Becker 1402 and a few other bits and pieces. I was pretty happy with my haul. It was good to see many people embracing the swap meet and I think it was a big success.
After the swap meet we did the scenic drive. The organizing team picked a great route for us. We came down Black mountain and headed towards Anazc Parade towards the National War Memorial. We then turned back down Anzac parade so we could see the W123s on both sides of the road.
After Anzac Parade, we crossed over Lake Burley Griffin and drove past Parliament House. A Parliament house we had a photographer stationed to take photos of the cars driving past. We probably couldn’t have actually stopped, as the AFP are probably not lovers of W123s. Their loss.
Photo Credit Kanwal Singh.
From Parliament House, we headed over for a lap through the National Arboretum. This has quite tight corners with views back over Canberra and is quite scenic. We then left Canberra city and headed out towards Cotter Dam and onto Paddys River Road and Tidbinbilla Road. These turned out to be a good driving roads and a good place to exercise the 240D.
Our final destination of Lanyon Homestead. Despite the organizers sending out detailed route instructions, a google map link with waypoints set and even printed instructions for those who wanted them, it was surprising how many cars went shooting off the route. I don’t think the organizers could have done any more and I think everyone took it in good spirits and reached the end, even if not quite on the roads planned.
Lanyon Homestead is a restored 1850s homestead which pre-dates Canberra. It was quite interesting and there was lunch available. While everyone went to queue for lunch, I was curious about the different models we had on the drive, so I did a quick Inventory:
- 300D: 9
- 280E: 9
- 280CE: 9
- 300TD: 7
- 240D: 4
- 230E: 2
- 200: 2
- 230: 1
- 280TE: 1
I’ll be curious how this changes for the show and shine tomorrow. I don’t think this spread of models is probably that representative of the surviving W123’s in Australia. It looks like it skews hard towards ‘enthusiast’ models such as coupe, wagon and diesel models. The mainstream cars like the 230E are hardly represented at all. On the other hand, you have to be a big fan of the W123 to dedicate an entire weekend to celebrating it. And even more so to go roaring around twisty roads in 34c heat.
I found myself parked nose to nose with another 240D from Queensland. I found out that it is also a 1981 model and was produced a month before mine and is only 209 cars separated in the VIN sequence. That car was originally a Sydney car with a Yorkstar inventory plate, and my car was sold new in Melbourne by Lanes. There was another 240D, nearby, that one a manual, which was a few thousand cars earlier than ours.
While I counted cars and obsessed over chassis numbers, most sane people did a tour of the homestead. After some of those tours, it was possible to get some photos of the cars in front of the historic homestead, three cars at a time.
With that done, it was time to head out and back towards Old Parliament house for the tour of the Museum of Australian Democracy. The tour was quite interesting. I shared my 9 year old daughter’s astonishment that the first female toilets were installed in the mid 70s. Apparently in 1927 it was assumed there would never be female Parliamentarians. However, in 1943, a female MP and a Senator were elected. For the next 30+ years, they and every subsequent female MP and Senator had to use this absurd system where they would take off their shoes before entering a male bathroom, with the men knowing not to enter if ladies shoes were outside the door!
The bathroom is still in use today for tourists and a rather bemused lady came out as a whole tour group were all standing and looking at the bathroom door.
With the tour over, last order of the day was to go and wash the 240D, now quite dusty from the dirt driveways of the homestead.
