Last year they moved it to September.  I didn’t attend as it was on the same day as the British car show, which I had already committed to attend.  This year it was on the same day as the ACT German car show I usually go to.  But I hadn’t bought a ticket yet, so I decided to go to the French Car show instead.  The last time I had been able to attend was 2018.   Between COVID19 and a job that required travel mid July, I have missed the rest of them.

The day turned out to be very warm for mid September, and a good day for a car show.  I still probably prefer the July date as I no longer have that travel commitment and September is so busy for car shows already.  For example, I know the Porsche show was on today too.

I took my Citroen DS.  My DS currently needs a new water pump, but the leak is small enough that a drive to Silverwater and back isn’t a big deal. There were a decent number of DS, although I think I was the only one with the hydraulic gearbox.   As usual there were the main sections for Citroen, Peugeot and Renault.  There were less of the smaller manufacturers including Bugatti, Simca, Delahaye etc.  Numbers seemed down from prior years, probably because of the changes.

There were some really nice cars on display.  The standout cars in the Citroen section was the Decapotable (the only one sold new in Australia), a lovely D Special (white with gold cloth interior), A grey safari and a CX turbo wagon.   There was even a 1953 Traction Avant that was almost identical to the one I used to own.  Same colour, built in Slough, the same big boot and late circular gauges like mine.  My car went to Queensland.    Outside the Citroen section, my favourite was The Peugeot 504 Coupe.

While numbers were down, the variety of the cars was pretty good, and there were good examples of all the main models you would want to see.  They had it set up so the cars to be judged were at one end and the cars on display were at the other.  I understand why that is, but I think it would have been better to have the similar models parked together.

After so many years away, I enjoyed being back at the French car show.  I can make it again next year.

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The show seemed a bit quieter than last year, perhaps back to what it was on the first year it was held at Hawkesbury Showground.  I’m not sure why that was, as it was a very warm day, hardly a cloud in the sky.

I took my Series 1 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas.  It is the first time I have displayed the car at the British car show.  In prior years I have taken my E-Type.  This year the JDCA display was pretty good, although it did seem a little smaller.  There is normally a large lineup of E-Types, but this year it was less than half of what it was last year.  I guess I contributed to that.   Probably the strongest display was the classic XKs, with great examples of nearly all the models.

Mark 2s and XJS were also quite well represented.  There was a single Mark 1, and a couple of 420s, including a Daimler Sovereign, but strangely no original S-Types.

I was parked in the section with the XJs.  It was a bit odd as it was the older XJs like mine, plus the new ones, except for the two XJ40s that were parked elsewhere.  I think it would probably better to have the Series XJs parked together, and then the modern ones like the X300 parked together.   But that is only a small thing.  There were a couple of nice series 1s, including one with a manual gearbox.  Probably the most impressive was the Series 2 XJ12 in brown.

As usual the other marques were well represented.  The RROC had a very nice display, as did the Triumph club.   I was a bit disappointed in what was on display in the Rover section, which is always of interest to me. I would have liked to see some more cars.  In the RROC section, a couple of cars caught my eye, including a lovely blue Derby Bentley, and a Silver Shadow II in a vibrant greenish gold.

This year I noticed a number of quite nice classic British station wagons, including a rather lovely Triumph.  As usual this year there were good vendors selling spare parts, keychains, books and so on.  Food vendors were down from prior years, and the options were a little limited.

I took a lot of photos on the day, but I wasn’t especially happy with how many of them came out.   I don’t think the focus was the greatest, or avoiding glare.   Still, it is always good to capture the array of amazing cars on display.   Given how vibrant the British car industry once was, it is a shame there is not much left.   A good example being Jaguar no longer building cars, and its future looking uncertain.

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Unfortunately this year, while the week leading up to the event had good weather, the day before was pretty rainy.  This didn’t bode well for the actual day.   The next morning was still rainy and overcast and so I decided to take my 560SEL. The W126 being very good in the rain.

We headed to McDonalds first, as I find the food at the actual event seriously overpriced for what you get.   Normally I would see a lot of cars obviously going to the show, but due to the rain we only saw a couple. For example we driving along with a Mini Cooper S for a while.

The club only had 20 tickets, and even with the rain I think they were all used.  However numbers were seriously down, so some clubs were perhaps more rain impacted than others.   It was still worth going.  I was quite impressed with old Police Vehicles display, and I saw three Jaguar 420s, a model that is often quite niche and forgotten about.

The rain stayed away apart from moderate showers, so while attendance was down a lot, it didn’t impact the show in a major way.  The Parade lap was ok.  It wasn’t as bad as a few years ago when they limited it to 40. While the speed limit signs say 80, the ‘safety’ car kept speeds to about 50-60km/h other than the straight.   Last year was more reasonable. My kids were confused as to why there were all these speed limit signs but we were kept so far below it.   I’ve worked out its better to take a really slow car if you can, like my 240D.

Even with reduced numbers its still great to see so many interesting older cars on the road.  This show seems to attract more pre-war models than any other I go to.  It is great to see the pre-war cars doing their parade lap.

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This month I took my Citroen DS.  I’m glad I did as quite a few other DS owners had the same idea, with five on display.  When I arrived, one of the marshals told me there were three others parked near the front of the display and to go down there and park with them.   That was great, and I headed over to park near a couple of DS21s and a D Special.   Later a couple of cars left so we could park all four of them together.  My car was the oldest, with the others being 73-75 models.

There was also a white car that came later and was parked elsewhere.   As well as the Ds, there was also a GS and a 2CV, plus a modern C6.  Given the weather the turnout was still very good, with the field about half full.   I got there a bit earlier this month and was able to drive in without too many headaches.  It wasn’t as packed as last time though.

This month St Ives had a whole section roped off for the BMW club.  I think that is a pretty good idea to feature various clubs.   The BMW club seems very performance/track oriented.  Most of the cars there were modern M cars, with the odd E36 and E30 thrown in for good measure.   They did have a few classics though, such as a lovely E9 coupe.

St Ives usually has quite interesting stuff that comes out of the woodwork.   This month there was quite a good lineup of Mopar muscle cars,  and a great lineup of Datsun 2000 sports cars.  The big Imperial crown coupe was also very impressive.  It made the Volvo P1800 parked next to it look like a toy.

Given it was cold and overcast, it was a pretty good day and I’m glad I went.

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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.

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I’m glad they didn’t cancel, as it was still a really good event.  St Ives is always about variety and this month’s smaller showing delivered.

I took my 1990 300TE along to the event.  It was the first time I have taken the 300TE to St Ives.  There was one other W124 (a coupe) and a couple of W123 coupes.   I was quite impressed with the citrus green car, which was for sale.

As well as that they were a few nice Lotus, a couple of 80s Ferraris, a Citroen XM and DS and a couple of 80’s Honda Hatchbacks.  You never see those anymore.   Even with a smaller show, it was still very much worth the visit.   As would be expected due to the weather, there were more modern cars than usual.  There were still some really nice classics though.

Cars and Coffee events are probably going to be impacted least due to high fuel prices.  Most people attend a cars and coffee event near where they live, so distances are much shorter.  This is certainly the case for me.

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In 2022 they had a car representing every year from 1950 to 2022.  In 2024 they did generations of the S-Class. They also did an AMG display one year, but I wasn’t able to make it.  This year the theme was 50 years of the W123.  Given the theme, I took my 1981 240D.   This is the second trip my 240D has made to Canberra this year, as I also attended the 50 years of the W123 event in January.

I’ve always enjoyed this event, there are normally a good variety of cars.  The last few times i’ve been it was held at Queanbeyan showground.  However, from what I hear, Queanbeyan council are not as friendly to car clubs as they once were, so its was moved to Canberra.   The new location is Thoroughbred Park, which is a horseracing track in Lyneham.

I had refuelled my 240D at $1.879 on the days the pointless war in the middle east started.  My goal was to get there and back on one tank and have fuel to spare since diesel is almost at $3 per litre.   I left Saturday afternoon and ending up driving through quite a big hail storm near Marulan.  There was so much hail on the grass beside the highway it looked like it had been snowing.   The W123 is made of thick steel, so I didn’t encounter any damage.

The Wheels event was held in the customer parking area and some parks nearby, not on the actual track.  Lyneham is a central location, and easier than Queanbeyan showground, but there is far less room.   In previous events the ACT club has been able to spread out and make a really good display.   This year the space allocated was quite small and the cars were all jammed in.

Nevertheless the club attempted to show off the W123s by having a ‘fan out’ display in the middle of the allocated area.  It worked reasonably well, but would have ben better with more space.  There were quite a few cars that had to park outside the main area.  The issue seemed more allocation than lack of space in general, as there was a big paddock behind the military vehicles that was mostly empty.

As with the W123 event, I was parked next to the 300D in 476 Goldbraun.  Such a great colour and a car that has been in the owners family since 1981.   There was a good selection of nine W123s including a coupe, a wagon, and all the popular models (280E, 230E, 300D etc).

In addition to the W123s the ACT club also had a nice selection of other cars, starting with a pair of nice roundies, a lovely red finnie, a beautiful W111 3.5 coupe, a W109 a couple of W116s, W126s W124s etc.  It was a pretty good selection of all the major models of Mercedes-Benz.

As for the other marques, space seemed to be a bit of a challenge for the too.  The BMW display only had a couple of classics.  The new ones are all nostrils and a bit hard on the eye.  Getting past those, there were some really nice and interesting cars on display.  This included a huge American convertible with a folding metal roof.  the rear of the car was very long to allow it to be stowed away.  There were interesting curiosities like a Stanley steamer, a couple of Bristols and a pair of landcrab utes.   The Jaguar section was quite good.  There was a lovely Series 1 XJ6 with a manual transmission and a red interior.  While white isn’t my favorite colour, a red interior and a manual transmission makes it very tempting.  The red XJC was also very nice.

They didn’t just have regular cars, there were also military vehicles and micro cars.   The Microcars were quite good.

The ACT club had a catered lunch which was a nice touch.  The food at these sort of events is normally pretty bad and overpriced.  Sandwiches and fruit from the club was a far better option.

The drive back was pretty uneventful.  I arrived back late afternoon after covering 610km with abut a quarter of a tank left.  I’m still undecided if I should refuel the 240D now, or park it for a few weeks to see what happens.  Most of my other cars are full and I don’t really fancy $3 diesel.

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On the way I filled up my 240D for the first time on this trip.  I had gone through 627km from 62.7 liters of diesel, which I don’t think is that bad with my foot to the floor the whole time and the A/C on max. I have a 80 liter tank from a 280E in my car, giving it very good range.

We had a pretty good turn out of W123s at the cafe and everyone was able to grab some breakfast before heading over to the Show and Shine at the Spanish Club for the 10am start.

As each car drove in, they were allocated a number for judging.  This also made it easier to see how many cars we had.  The numbers slowly ticked up and up as more cars arrived.   We had the cars arranged by body style, with a couple of rows for Saloons, plus a row each for wagons and coupes.

In the end, we had 83 cars there on the day.  That was an amazing result.   I went around and cataloged all the cars on display.  I must have missed a couple, as my count ended up as 80 cars, which consisted of:

• 300D – 17
• 280CE – 17
• 280E – 16
• 230E – 10
• 300TD – 7
• 240D – 4
• 280TE – 3
• 250 – 2
• 200 – 2
• 230TE – 1
• 230 – 1

Like with the number of cars from yesterday, the models were heavily skewed towards enthusiast models.  It also had at least one example of every model sold new here in Australia, and a couple that were not like the 200.   The 230 and 250 were sold new here, but few now remain and it was good to see a few examples.

The states were also well registered, with the 80 cars I counted registered in the following states.  Some of the NSW registered cars were probably local, from places like Queanbeyan.

• NSW – 34
• Victoria – 23
• ACT – 11
• Queensland – 10
• SA – 2

As would be expected, we didn’t have any cars from Northern Territory or Western Australia.  It would have been a stellar effort to drive one across the Nullabor in the peak of summer.  Regardless, it shows the popularity of the model, with so many people driving so far to attend the event.

It was also striking how many really nice cars there were on display.   Additionally, how well some cars wore their milage.  There were plenty of cars that were totally immaculate with over 300,000km on the clock.

As well as displaying the cars, everyone got to compete for some prizes.   The first two awards were by vote.  The crowd favorite was exactly as it sounds.  I voted for a lovely 300D in 476 Goldbraun.  It had been in long term family ownership and these period seventies colours are so thin on the ground now.  The deserving winner was the 300TD that won best in show at the ACT concours last year.

The next award was the workhorse award, which was for a car that had lived a full life but was still on the road and being used and here at the event.  The fitting winner of that car was a 300D with over 600,000km and plenty of battle scars to show for it.   This car was also piloted by the winner of the youngest owner award, fitting to see the next generation of W123 owners at the event.

We also had an award for the rarest and most unusual options.  Each person had to fill in the options list for their car.  My car, being a 240D, scored a goose egg for the options list.  Its not even sporting a lockable glovebox.  I did pick up some points for still having my Becker radio.

After some confusion with quite a few cars apparently having ABS brakes and column shifters, we worked out that the car that had the rarest options was a 300TD with a five speed manual transmission, cloth interior, sunroof and a few other options.

The next award was for the car with the highest mileage, standing at almost 850,000km.  Quite the contrast to the car that won the lowest mileage award with 28,000km.  There was also an award for the longest distance travelled to the event, a little over 1500km from Queensland.

There were plenty of cars that has been in low term family ownership.  However, the car that won the award had been picked up by the owners father brand new from the factory in 1977.  That car was one of the now rare 250 models on display.

As well as the awards, everyone was able to get a commemorative grille badge for their car.  These were only available on the day, so it will become quite a status symbol of being one of the 83 W123s that were there on the day.

The number of cars really exceeded all expectations, and it really showed the passion of the W123 owners group for their cars.  Not just for owning them, but also for using them.   I think its a bit sad that some models of Mercedes-Benz have become so valuable that they have passed into a different type of owner who rarely use them.  Pagodas are now like that for the most part.

I really enjoyed walking around and seeing so many amazing W123s.  And the range of colours on display was pretty special too. The weather was very hot, but that didn’t seem to deter anyone.  I know a few cars that left after the show and shine to head back to Sydney struggled in the heat a little.

After the show and shine, there were some optional activities.  I did the one at Questacon, which is a favorite of my kids.   Surprisingly they are far more interested in this than W123s.   Given how how it was, it was air conditioned which was good.

The final part of the day was the official dinner at the Belconnen Labour club.   This was where the awards detailed above were handed out, as well as a trivia competition and some other prizes, such as Penrite Oil.   The dinner was fun and low key, much better in my opinion than the ‘gala’ dinners that often go with events of this nature.

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I last attended in September last year, and it was a lovely summer day today, worth going before it got too hot.   I took my 1973 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas on its first car show outing, at least under my ownership.

The MG club had obviously decided to go in a group and they had a great line up of MGs at the front of the oval.  It was quite impressive.

Some of the cars I liked the most were:

• A really nice turquoise series 2 XJ6
• A couple of great early rotary Mazdas
• A time warp early W123 230 Carby
• Totally original red Saab 900
• Mercedes 220S Roundie

Getting out of the event was far easier this time.  They had big signs and marshal to stop people trying to turn right as they exit the venue.  There is a U-turn bay just up the road, so turning right is not necessary and needs to turn across four lanes of traffic.

While some cars arrive very early and end up parking in the unpaid areas, before the organizers are there to collect the nominal $5 entry fee, I thought it was quite interesting that a group of Ferraris seemed to go around the fenced off areas bypass the entry fee.

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The goal of the event was to try and entice out some of the interesting older cars in the club that rarely come to events.   Last year seemed like a good start so we decided to run the event again this year.  I personally really like the Linwood house open days.  There are normally other really interesting cars, and its a very easy and relaxed day where you can come and go as you want.   I used to go as a spectator when the Rolls Royce club would display there.

This year there were excellent displays from the Rover club, the Holden FB-EK & FE-FC Holden Car Clubs, Wolseley Car Club, MG Restorers Car club and Ducati owners clubs.  The Ducati club and Rover club were having their concours event.   I’m a big fan of Rovers, in particular the P5 and P6 models.  It was nice to see their display.   I don’t really know much about motorcycles, but the Ducati display was large and impressive.

Coinciding with the event was the 60th anniversary of the introduction of the W108 and W109 models at the Frankfurt Auto show on the 16th of September 1965.   It was an opportunity to celebrate the W108 and W109, as well as the 250SE coupe and cabriolet models that made their debut at the same show.  In fitting with this, I took my 1965 250SE Cabriolet which was made in October 1965.

Our display was a bit up and down.  We had pretty good sign ups for the event but actual attendance was pretty limited.  That was a surprise given how nice a day it was.    On the positive side, there was a rare early 300GD which was a real time warp.   We also had a C114 280CE in amazing condition, plus an excellent original 220SE Coupe and 280SE 3.5 coupe.   In addition, a new member brought his W108 280S manual along.   The car has been in his family since new.  It was purchased new by his father in Singapore and then brought to Australia when the family moved here.  The car had been laid up for a couple of years and has recently been put back on the road.

Being a car sold new in Singapore it was a CKD car, probably made in Malaysia.   And of course given the Singaporean Heritage, it has an elaborate Nippondenso boot mounted air conditioning system installed.  It would have been far more powerful than the factor air, and even has a small refrigerator in the boot for drinks.  The system is not currently working, but can hopefully be repaired.

I think for next year if the club attends one of the Linnwood House open days, we should re-think the type of event.  There doesn’t seem like there is a lot of interest in its current form. It seems like it would be better to combine it with some other event to broaden appeal and also have others to help with promotion.

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