Australian Motorlife Museum – NMHD 2026
Today is National Motoring Heritage Day (NMHD) for 2026. It is held each year on the 3rd Sunday in May. The idea behind it is for all the national car clubs to organize an event on the same day so the public see historic vehicles out and about. This is presumably to promote the motoring hobby and showcases the depth of interest in it.
In prior years I’ve often attended the big car show in Berry. That was always quite a good event, but the location means it seems to be cancelled due to weather as much as is actually held. The last time I was able to attend was 2023.
This year I attended the event at the event at the Australian Motorlife Museum. The Illawarra section of the Jaguar club were also there so I could have gone with them too. I’ve been to the museum a few times before and it is always well worth the visit. The last time was also in 2023.
As well as the trip to the museum, the event also included a scenic drive to the Museum. The meeting point was at Partridge VC rest area. I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEL. I chose the 560SEL for two reasons. Firstly, the forecast was for rain and the W126 is very stable in the wet. Secondly, I had recently had the intake manifold gaskets replaced and this would be my first decent drive in the car since that job was done.
This all sounded good on paper, but there was a small problem. The club hadn’t actually picked a route or nominated anyone to lead the drive from the rest area to the museum. After waiting about 30 minutes, we realized nobody was coming. We set our GPSs to the museum and just headed there. At least it wasn’t raining at the time.
While I have been to the museum 3-4 times, I had never been on event day before. Going on an event day meant they had a number of the cars running and driving around. There was a replica of the Benz Patent Motorwagon from 1986, a car from 1901 and another that I think was from the nineteen teens. We actually passed the latter on the way to the museum on the motorway. It was getting along rather nicely.
One thing I learned was that most of the cars from the 19th century didn’t have brakes. I had assumed they would also have rudimentary rear wheel only brakes. But apparently they didn’t. I wouldn’t want to ride a pushbike without brakes, let alone a car – no matter how slow.
The museum even had a steam car on display from 1901 with no brakes that was used until about 25 years ago. Apparently driven to a church service each week. I can’t fathom driving on the public roads in 2001 with no brakes at all, even if the church was close by to the owners residence
As well as the cars that were driving around, they had a nice display of club pre-war cars just outside the entrance. For example a bevvy of Austin 7’s parked outside. Going to the museum on a day like this was worth it and an extra benefit from the normal way of attending the museum.
Inside the collection was good as always – focusing mostly on pre-war cars. The collection does change from time to time, so while many cars were the same as from my last visit, there were a few changes.
My two favourite cars were the Minerva and the Black and Red Auburn. The Auburn actually has an interior made from pigskin and during the restoration the owner had the pigskin tanned. Apparently this wasn’t that easy to have done.
Cars from this era were painted with a brush. I found out that the way to get a good finish is to heat the paint as it means the brush stroke are not all that visible when it cools. I had just assumed it was done with lots of wet sanding.
For this event, I took my 11 year old daughter who enjoyed seeing some of the really old cars, as well as seeing some of the memorabilia they had on display. This included automotive stuff as well as other things like typewriters and sewing machines.
it was a good day overall, the car went well and we enjoyed visiting the museum.
