Bay to Birdwood – Day 1 – Bathurst to Griffith
Today was the first full day of our big road trip to the Bay to Birdwood in Adelaide. We met at 0615 for an 0630 departure to maximize daylight hours. Events later in the day would make that worthwhile. All the cars started right up and were ready to go.
After the rain and fog of the drive up from Sydney it was a beautiful clear day, although cold at first. Our first leg was to Grenfell which was about 160km and two hours. This is quite a nice road with undulating terrain and nice sweeping curves. While there were some trucks on the road, it was not busy. My W116 cruised along very nicely.
At Grenfell, our destination was the Chrysler Museum. It contains just under 20 cars and they range from the thirties to recent models. The main focus is on Australian built Chryslers from their golden era in the 60s and 70s. The owner of the museum is also the owner of most of the cars and very passionate about them. We had a tour and learned a lot about the cars, including many Australian firsts for Chrysler. He does not share the same enthusiasm for Holden or Ford!
The 1933 Royal 8 coupe was probably my favourite, although the original Charger with only 28,000km from new was very impressive also. The museum costs $10 to enter and one of our group called ahead a few weeks ago and set up the tour. It is well worth it.
After the museum, we had breakfast in a café recommended by the owner of the museum, and then snapped a few photos of our cars at the Grenfell Silo art.
From Grenfell, we left the major reads and headed towards Temora for a fuel stop. These roads went mostly through farm country or bush and while there was the odd truck, we mostly had the roads to ourselves. At the fuel stop I recorded about 13l / 100km which I think is pretty good for a 450SE. From there we continued on some of these back roads down to Canola way which is much busier.
Before we reached it, the Corvette cut out randomly. It coasted to the side of the road but after a few minutes was able to start up again. However, once we got onto Canola way, it broke down again. The shoulders were not especially safe to stop, so a few of us stayed with the stricken Corvette while the rest of us went about 2km ahead to find a safer place to stop and wait. The Corvette was throwing codes about a mass airflow sensor, which was the first area of investigation. Both groups were attacked by relentless flies while we waited.
After about 30 minutes, the Corvette still wasn’t starting. The rest of us decided to proceed to the next major town, Narrandera. This was our planned stop and if the Corvette still wouldn’t start somewhere we might be able to find a mechanic to have the Corvette towed to. However, about 10 minutes later the guys discovered the fault. a connector that provided power to the coil was lose. Plugging that back in had the Corvette back on the road.
We had a late lunch in Narrandera and then hit the road again, this time towards Griffith. It was about an hour long drive and was uneventful. It had become quite hot and the air-conditioning of the 450SE was keeping me very cool. Our destination was Resto Pros, a restoration shop near Griffith. One of our group had phoned ahead and organized a tour for us.
We were all very impressed by the Resto Pro’s operation. The owners of the business were very friendly and gave us a comprehensive tour. The quality of the workmanship seemed top notch. While it looked like they would restore a wide variety of cars (such as the 20s Citroen we say), the main focus seemed to be Australian or American cars. We saw a 1940 ute that had two and half years of painstaking body restoration. Since the cars belong to customers, the team at Resto Pros asked us not to post photos of the cars on social media, so this article does not include any.
As we went to leave, the Corvette refused to start. The was a horrible grinding sound from the starter. We tried tapping it and moving the back and forward in gear, all to no avail. The owner of the car got underneath and the starter seemed to be loose and a bolt missing. Access isn’t easy on a Corvette but he managed to get it tightened up after a while. This is where having some extra daylight hours at the end of the day really helped. We may not have heard the last from the Corvette though, as the air conditioning compressor is making an ominous sound.
We then refuelled the cars. I got 16l/100km this time. We went a little faster and there was more air-conditioning use in the afternoon. We ended up covering 504km for the day, and went to have Pizza at a local Italian restaurant. It was a great day, although unfortunately I seem to be coming down with a cold.
