| I recently drove down to Canberra in my 1965 250SE. This was the first time I had taken the car on a longish trip in a couple of years. The main reason for that was the running issue had been experiencing with the car over the last few years. I finally solved this issue last year by fitting a new electronic distributor. On the way down I noticed how bad the ride was. The car was quite bouncy and not very enjoyable to drive. While the car didn’t do any long trips, I was using it quite a bit on short trips to troubleshoot the running issues, so it seemed strange that the tyres would be flat spotted. I checked the pressures on the tyres and they were all fine, perhaps even a little higher than they needed to be. On the way back I had the same issue even after slightly reducing tyre pressure. I also noticed a crease on the tyre sidewall, it was very slight, but still noticeable. As the tyres were 8 years old this year, I had planned to change them anyway, so I decided to get a new set right away. I was worried that the tyres were starting to separate internally. On the last set of tyres, I made a mistake. Instead of looking up the original tyre size, I just replaced what was on the car. This was wrong. The tyres on the car were 195/70 R14. This was too low profile. Depending on the source, the tyres were originally either 185R14 or 195R14. The technical data book for 1966 says 185R14 and the Mercedes public archive says 195R14. They also have some old bias ply sizes. This is what it looks like my car was delivered with per the data card: 7.75 14 Continental. 185R14 is now a hard size to find. 195R14 isn’t hard to find in a light truck size, but almost impossible in a car size. Light truck tyres are not suitable for a classic luxury car, they are going to provide a terrible ride. However, 195/75 R14 is available in a few decent options. This is very close to the original size and in my view a pretty good alternative. I went with the Hankook Kinergy Eco 2 K435. This is the same tyre I have on my 450SLC, albeit in a different size. I’ve been quite happy with these tyres on my 107. 
I went with five tyres in the end. The spare tyre pre-dated my ownership of the car. I couldn’t see a date code on it, and by the tread the tyre reckoned that from the tread it was from the late 70s or early 80s. It looked quite good, but I wouldn’t have wanted to drive very far on it. The tyre fitter also mentioned to me that one of the tyres had started to separate internally, so I’m glad I changed them. Tyres shouldn’t be used if older than about 8 years old and mine were getting up to that age later this year. As well as the tyres, I had the car aligned. I’ve have a few issues with the car feeling like its wandering at speed. I’ve had a few issues with older cars not being aligned against the right specs, so I photographed the relevant pages of the technical data book. since fitting, I’ve only driven the car a short distance, but the steering feels better. I’ve known that the blower motor needed replacement on my 300TE since purchase. It didn’t like to work on low settings and would make pretty bad squeaking noises. The second to last owner had even planned on replacing it, but ran out of time before he sold the car. I had it on my list to do and ideally planned to do it before the trip to Tasmania in December/January. I looked into this and found an excellent video from ‘MMWA’ on youtube on how to replace the W124 blower motor. If you own a W124 and you don’t subscribe to this channel, you should. Since MMWA does such a good job of explaining the job, I’m not going to repeat things here. My car is quite similar to his in terms of this job. Its a series 2 with the manual A/C rather than the full climate control found on US Spec cars. Based on the video, I ordered the exact blower motor he used. Some of the motors available from the usual suspects were either brands I hadn’t heard of, or don’t trust. Since I got busy with work and other things, the trip was coming up and I decided not to do this job. Since its quite involved I was worried that I would have some issue or break some part and I wouldn’t be ale to reassemble the car in time. In retrospect, I’m glad I made this decision. On the way back from Tasmania, the blower finally failed on the last day of the trip. Since it was the middle of summer, I wasn’t that keen on using the car without A/C, so I set about starting the job. 
As is outlined in the video, its quite involved. It was interesting that the bits on my car that were broken were totally different to on his car. In particular, he talks about speed nuts around the wiper surround that were totally missing. In the service history, the motowiper was replaced with a used unit a few years ago. I guess they were lost then. After a few hours I had the old W124 blower motor out. It was a Bosch unit, and it was really hard to move by hand. No wonder it failed. 
The next day I returned assuming that it would be a simple matter of installing the new blower and putting the car back together. However, the blower I had would not fit. the squirrel cages were about 1cm offset from the housing. I tried moving the cages, even lubricating the shaft with WD/40. They would not move. I wasn’t that keen on this anyway, as back years ago I bought a motor only blower for my 107 and tried to use the hot water method to transfer the cages from the old motor to the new. They never really balanced and not long later I finally found a whole blower and replaced it. My blower motor came in a plain brown box, unlike MMWAs. At this point I was wondering if perhaps I had been sent a series 3 blower. The series 3 cars have cabin air filters, and in the EPC, the blower is a little different. I’ve never owned a series 3 car, so not sure if this was my problem, or I just got a blower that was damaged or faulty. 
Since I purchased the blower from a vendor that didn’t ship to Australia, and used a remailer, returning it wasn’t going to be simple either. In the end, I did what I should have done in the first place. I looked up if there was still a genuine blower for sale, and there was. It wasn’t even any more expensive than the aftermarket one. So now I have a genuine bower on order that should fit correctly. The car has been off the road since mid January, since It would be irresponsible to drive with no wiper. This months night drive fell on a leap day, September 29. The next time a leap day falls on a Thursday will be 2054, so it was a night not to be missed. The main part of the drive was to drive the back roads of southwest Sydney, starting with Mulgoa Road. Last year we had a drive that started from Krispy Kreme Penrith. It was quite popular, as a few people bought a box of doughnuts to take home for the family. This seemed like a good place to start this drive, as it was on the Mulgoa road exit of the M4. Our destination was the ever popular Chubby Buns burger truck in Campbelltown. Given we were starting at a doughnut shop and finishing at a burger truck, it seemed obvious to dub this run the Heart Attack Run. The weather in Sydney on the day was an absolute stinker. 38C and almost 100% humidity. It had been hot and humid all week, in keeping with a pretty unpleasant summer here in Sydney. Probably based on the weather, we had five people come on the run. As with most of these drives, the W124 was the most popular option, with three cars. A 1986 230E, 1990 300TE and 1991 300E. In contrast, we had a brand new demonstrator Mercedes EQE Electric SUV. One of our club members is an automotive journalist and had this car on test. I took my 1977 450SLC. At first, the heat was so bad, that the air conditioning struggled to keep the cabin cool, but as the night progressed it worked better and better. We met up at Krispy Kreme, but this time nobody was particularly interested in doughnuts. I guess nobody wanted a heart attack after all. After after a short drive through some heavy traffic areas in Penrith, we entered the back roads in the area. While they are a bit bumpy in places, it was a nice relaxing drive with very little traffic. Most of the drive was quite good, although the approach to chubby buns was a bit convoluted. We had the odd drop of rain due to the humidity, and some quiet entertaining lightening in the distance, but no actual bad weather. 
While nobody was all that interested in doughnuts, the Chubby Buns burger truck was a big hit with everyone. It was great to get out of the house and do this drive after sweltering in my home office all day. Editors Note: This is part two in a series by Nick Gruzevskis about owning a Modern Mercedes convertible – in this case his R170 SLK230. The first part can be found here. Sometimes the journey on improving a classic car seems to be more fulfilling than using the car. I’ve now owned the Sally the SLK since July 2022. Every time I looked at the colour
combination of silver and the two-tone interior (red/black) I thought wow what a great colour combination, but then when I got closer to the interior plastics, specifically the paint
on the plastics she had all seen better days. In my last update I wrote, I stated “the quality of the interior plastics vinyl paint is awful. Last September I decided to attack this problem, removing all painted interior trim pieces. I knew I would need to be careful when removing trim, as the plastics can quite literally crumble/break in your hands. Given my SLK had been garaged all its life I thought I’d be ok. Still, some of the plastics quite literally broke when removing screws or panels. It was also obvious interior had been re-painted at least twice, maybe three times.
  After removal this is what interior looked like:
I dropped off all the trim pieces to Bill Moussa at BM Leather Creations, where the paint needed to be stripped, the plastics that were broken went to the plastic welders, then back to Bill for two coats of two pack paint and two coats of clear. It is a long and arduous task and not cheap just given the labour required. In between dropping the plastics off, I purchased a 2001 S430 and then sold it a few months later. When seller asked me why I was selling it, I said I needed to focus on getting my SLK back on the road. Anyway, I digress. Fast forward to Feb 2024 and interior plastics were all ready for collection. Bill had done an amazing job. Now the rest was up to me, to carefully re-install. I picked a good day to re-install, temperature was expected to be 34C, in a garage that wasn’t insulated. I started early and by midday I had most of the interior trim back in. I did have a heart stopper moment when the roof wouldn’t go up or down but found the cable connecting to the roof button wasn’t fully pushed on. I can’t believe the transformation; the interior just looks fabulous. Sally the SLK is now ready for the AOMC British and European Day on the 18th of February. 
Author: Nick Gruzevskis is a contributor to classicjalopy.com, and the custodian of a great collection of classic and modern cars. Links to some his other articles can be found here Today was the annual Wheels car show in Queanbeyan. This is one of the biggest multiple marque car show in the Canberra area and is akin to the Eastern Creek show in Sydney. I joined the Mercedes-Benz Club of the ACT as part of their display. MBCACT always puts on a special display for this show and Wheels 2024 was no different. The goal was to show the different generations of the S class (and predecessors) and the E class (and predecessors). I wasn’t able to go last year, but the theme was AMG cars. In 2022, I took my 450SLC and the theme was a car from each year from the 50s to today. In order to show the different generations of the S-Class, I was asked to bring my W111 Cabriolet. This was a great opportunity to take the car on a longer trip now its running properly. Of course, less than a week after I agreed to show the car, the power steering pully disintegrated, but I managed to get a used pully and have it installed in time. 
On the drive there, the engine ran perfectly, but the ride wasn’t all that good. I think it may be related to the tyres, perhaps they have flat spots. They are 8 years old now, so its time for a change. As in 2022, the show was good. MBCACT was allocated a much smaller area this year, although there was actually plenty of room at the showground. Probably something that can be addressed for next year. There are some nice cars in the MBCACT and this year was no different. I had a very original 230S W111 on one side of my car and an immaculate 280S W108 on the other. The 230S is still with the original family. Having all the S-classes lined up allowed for the different design features to be observed from one generation to the next. It was intresting to see that the W116 still had tiny vestigial fins. Kind of like the vestigial legs of a whale. The rest of Wheels 2024 was also very good. There was a lot of variety. For example, it was quite cool to see a Stanley Steamer puffing around the showground. A bit smaller than in 2022, but that probably had to do with the weather. While the morning of the show was hot and sunny, the day before had been stormy and storms were forecast for the afternoon. On the way back, the rain was torrential. All the modern SUVs were pulling over onto the shoulder, and few seemed to understand how to operate their rear fog light. The W111 Cabriolet just kept going, albeit at about 50km for long stretches. We started our 2024 night drive schedule with a drive south. This month’s drive was held a week earlier due to the holiday long weekend and the absurd double demerits regime in NSW. In the days before the drive, there had been torrential rain, but luckily the weather fined up on the day and it was just a bit overcast. The recent rain did have one impact – we had to change our route along the way. This was to be the same route we did in July 2022. However, McKel Ave, which would have taken us down into the Royal National Park was closed. We decided it to just skip that bit and focus on driving the Princes Highway (and avoiding the Princes Motorway). As the weather had been terrible, it was quite a small turn out this time, three cars. I took my 1977 450SLC and there were two W124s – a 230E and a 300E. The small group made for a very relaxed drive and easy to modify the route. 
At the starting point, we briefly spoke to a man with a HR Holden Special on a trailer. The Holden looked pretty good, and had been earmarked for a full restoration. Apparently this guy does a full restoration every three months in his home workshop, equipped with a spray booth. We were all a little envious of the parts prices on that era of Holden as well. The drive turned out to be nice and cruisy and a good way to start the 2024 night drives. I’ve been touring Tasmania in my 1990 Mercedes 300TE this last week and a half. While there are regular classic events here like Targa Tasmania I’ve been quite surprised how few classics I’ve seen touring around during my time here. It’s a great place to go touring in an older car. Not only is there great scenery, but there is little traffic, the temperatures are not too hot, the roads are mostly great, and its not speed camera infested. I drove down from Sydney and took the car on the Spirit of Tasmania. In addition, the roads are quite twisty so quite fun at legal speeds. Based on this trip, at some point I will probably plan a road trip to Tasmania to explore more of the great roads. 
The purpose of this trip was a family holiday. There are plenty of travel blogs that cover the main sights to see, so in this article I will mostly focus on the roads I enjoyed driving on. I ultimately did 2,400km in Tasmania, plus the trip to and from Geelong. Devonport to LauncestonThis was one of the biggest surprises on the trip. When I disembarked the Ferry, my destination was Launceston. Instead of taking the clogged up A1, I took the back roads to via Exeter. This was primarily the B71. There was almost no traffic and it was a great one our drive to Launceston. I had time to check out the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania before I collected my family from the airport. The museum was well worth it. Given I enjoyed this drive, I also took the B71 back to Devonport for my return ferry. North East TasmaniaThe first full day of our trip we explored North East Tasmania. The A3 is the main road here. At least east of Scottsdale, its pretty good. We went via the Bridestowe Lavender farm, so took the B81 for the first part of the trip. All of these roads were pretty good. After Scottsdale, we headed on the A3 towards the little blue lake. The road to the little blue lake is paved, but only to the little blue lake. After that most of the roads east of here are unsealed. We headed to Eddystone point lighthouse. This is nearly all unsealed roads, and I don’t think worth it. In retrospect I would have stayed on the A3 towards Pyengana instead. Our destination was St Helens, and there was a dairy and bush walk we could have done in the time that would have been preferable to a 100km of unsealed roads. Some of the roads are not really maintained properly, the GPS wanted to send us down a road that would challenge a billy goat. Of course the 300TE handled the regular unsealed roads very well, I just don’t enjoy driving on them. Great Eastern DriveWe spent two days on the east coast. We went north from St Helens to The Gardens to start the drive through the Bay of Fires. This was one of our best days on the trip. The bay of fires was amazing and the road down the coast is great and full of amazing sights. 
Over the two days we did the main road (A3) from The Gardens to Triabunna in various stages as we checked out the Bay of Fires and Freycient National Park. The Bay of fires was our favourite including clambering over rocks to the blowhole at Bicheno. The fish and chips in St Helens is great, whereas the Lobster Shack in Bicheno is a bit overrated. Overall, taking the A3 from Launceston all the way in towards Hobart would probably be a good drive, although we didn’t stick to the A3 the whole way. Around HobartWe did a few drives around Hobart. The first was getting there from Little Swanport on the east coast to Hobart Via Oatlands. The first part of this drive was pretty good, but the roads around oatlands were not as good – rough and very narrow. When we left Oatlands we made the mistake of taking highway 1 which is terrible. Next time I would have paid more attention and taken the B31 which looks a lot better. The A1 was full of drivers who drive a 30km below the speed limit. From Hobart we also did a few day trips, the first was Bruny Island, which was a lot of fun. There is one main road down Bruny Island with some side roads. Its not a bad road, but quite busy. I wouldn’t go there just to drive the road, although as a tourist destination Bruny Island is worth it. 
The next one we did was Port Arthur. These roads are pretty good, although quite busy in places. Better than Bruny Island comparing roads. The final thing we did before leaving for Strahan was Mt Wellington. It was very cold and wet that day, so no view. Also not as fun a road in the wet as it would be in the dry. Hobart to StrahanThe drive from Hobart to Strahan was one of the best of the trip. We were on the A10 nearly all the way. The first part getting out of Hobart is a bit boring, but about an hour of Hobart this road turns great. The section from Derwent Bridge to Queenstown is probably the best of it. Getting into Queenstown involves going over the mountains and then down via multiple hairpins. The scenery is quite amazing as Queenstown is the result of the mining companies being allowed to do whatever they wanted. Rampant pollution created acid rain and denuded the hillsides turning the place into somewhat of a moonscape. It was much worse in the 90s when I went through here as a child, but its a huge contrast from the lush rainforest from earlier in the drive. Tailings from the mine have also turned the river orange, which is quite the sight. 
The section from Queenstown to Strahan wasn’t bad, but mostly road works so hard to evaluate. Strahan to Cradle MountainI think this was the best drive of the trip. We went via Queenstown as we wanted to check out the town and didn’t have time on the way in. from there we went to Sheffield, Mostly on the A12. This road was highly enjoyable and I would come back to Tasmania just to drive it again. There are great up and down sections, sweeping corners, great scenery and more. Cradle Mountain to LauncestonThere wasn’t an obvious alternative to highway 1. My kids were not going to tolerate me adding significant time in search of a better road, so we took highway 1. What a dreary road. I think the main take away from this entire article is to avoid highway 1 at all cost. What we didn’t doOur trip didn’t take us to the north west of the state, and the south west is largely inaccessible. We also didn’t visit the central part of the state. With 2023 at a close, time for another fleet update. Like last year, I will cover the highlights and lowlights for each car, major worked performed, how much I used them and plans for the future. In 2023 I managed to drive my classics almost 18,000km. Classics need regular use or they deteriorate badly, so I’m glad I was able to drive them so much. I would sell a car I don’t drive regularly, unless there was a specific reason preventing it. The cars are listed in order of their use in the year. It’s not exact, as I note down the odometers after each fuel up, however it evens out. I don’t own a modern car, so I use the logbook days across all my classics any time I need to go somewhere. Highlights and LowlightsThe big highlight was the Concours Run, my road trip to Melbourne and back the scenic way. I passed 20 years of ownership with the 450SLC, and It was also a highlight finally getting to the bottom of the issues with the 250SE. While it was sad to see the the 300SE and 280SE go, it was a good first year with the 300TE. Fleet ChangesI sold two cars in 2023. The first was my 1986 300SE W126. I was sad to see this car go, as it had been a great daily driver for the four years I owned it. With my kids growing up, the 1990 300TE is going to be a better choice as a car that is used for family duties. Therefore, I sold the 300SE and bought the 300TE. My 300TE is a 1990 model and so far proven to be a great car. I also sold my 1979 280SE. I’m glad I was able to get that car on the road and running so well. However, the opportunity to buy the W116 I have always wanted presented itself, so I’ll be unveiling the replacement soon. Both cars have gone to great homes, so I’m really pleased with that. 1987 Mercedes-Benz 560SECIt was a very eventful year for my 560SEC. I took the car down to Melbourne for the MBCV concours, and to Canberra for the MBCACT concours. The car did very well on both trips, although I did have to limp it home 500km with no alternator. In order to have the car ready for so much usage, I had the transmission rebuilt. The car drives so much better now. Since I returned from Melbourne, I’ve noticed the car is losing coolant, so I will need to get the bottom of that. 
- KM Driven: 5,400
- KM on Odometer: 174,500mi (280,500km)
- Spend Level: High
- Availability: Very good
- Highlight: The concours run
- Lowlight: Losing my alternator on the concours run
- Work this year: New speakers front and rear, rebuilt transmission, rebuilt alternator, drag link and alignment.
- Plan for 2023: Work out why it’s loosing coolant.
1990 Mercedes-Benz 300TEMy 300TE was a new addition at the start of the year. It replaced my 300SE. It has proven to be a really good versatile family car. I prefer it to my wife’s newer S211 E350. So much so that I took it on a family road trip to Tasmania, where I still am as I write this. I had a few things to do to the car this year, but overall I’m happy with the purchase. I also got to know a great group of hands on W124 owners. 
- KM Driven: 4,500
- KM on Odometer: 379,500km
- Spend Level: High
- Availability: Excellent
- Highlight: Taking the car on a family road trip to Tasmania.
- Lowlight: Not being able to get the ignition barrel out.
- Work this year: Misc improvements, fitted factory cross bars, Fan clutch, thermostat, Becker radio, tailgate struts, refurbished the instrument cluster, front and rear speakers, center vent and various prep for the Tasmania trip.
- Plan for 2023: Fixing the tailgate soft close
1987 Mercedes-Benz 560SELIt was a fairly uneventful year for the the 560SEL. I used it on quite a a few good club events this year, like the Amazing Rally and the Berry car show. It also saw quite a lot of use as regular transport. I had planned to take it to Sacco day, but the drivers side window regulator failed in early November, and I’ve not had a chance to look since. I’m very close to passing 340,000km which will be a good milestone for the car. 
- KM Driven: 2,200
- KM on Odometer: 339,500km
- Spend Level: Negligible
- Availability: Good
- Highlight: I took the car on some great club events this year.
- Lowlight: The drivers window regulator failing the night before Youngtimer Sacco Day.
- Work this year: Rebuilding the Hirchmann power antenna.
- Plan for 2023: Fixing the drivers window regulator.
1977 Mercedes-Benz 450SLCThis year there were no major trips in the 450SLC like last year. I used it on a few club events and quite a bit as a driver. I’m really enjoying having the Becker Mexico in place, I should have done this years ago. The car had a major service this year and in March will have the timing chain replaced. 
1965 Mercedes-Benz 250SEI continued to battle the running issues that have plagued the car for the last 18 months or so. Finally, they seem to be solved with a 123 Ignition distributor. I took the car on a couple of night drives and displayed it at the German car show before the power steering pulley broke. Given all the time the car was running poorly or unavailable, I’m surprised I managed to drive as much as I did. 
- KM Driven: 1,250
- KM on Odometer:
- Spend Level: High
- Availability: Poor
- Highlight: Finally fixing the running issues
- Lowlight: Losing my power steering pulley when the car was running so well.
- Work this year: Fitted a 55A alternator and a 123 ignition.
- Plan for 2023: Replace the power steering pulley and fix leak in the heat exchanger.
1965 Jaguar E-TypeNo major issues with the E-Type this year. The E-Type gets used the least as everyday transport as compared to the other cars. I find myself using it for many of the test runs for the Mercedes Club night drives. It is in its element on the twisty roads we prefer for those drives. I think I detected a hint of noise in the clutch throwout bearing this year, so I may have a clutch job in my future. These cars got a bad reputation for reliability, but I find mine to be very reliable. 
- KM Driven: 1,100
- KM on Odometer: 70,850mi (5 digit)
- Spend Level: Negligible
- Availability: Excellent
- Highlight: Trouble free drives
- Lowlight: none
- Work this year: none
- Plan for 2023: Nothing specific.
1970 Citroen DS21I actually used the DS quite a lot this year. I just didn’t take it on any long trips. I think I ended up with 40 entries in the logbook. Most of these were fairly short trips, hence only recording 600 km on the odometer. It was a fairly trouble free year for the DS, I just had some work done to the spheres to fix the ride quality. 
1979 Mercedes-Benz 280SEI sold the 280SE this year, so only had access to it for the first few months. Since selling the car, I’ve seen it a few times at club events with its new owner. It now has even more work done and is looking great. - KM Driven: 450
- KM on Odometer: 223,000km
- Spend Level: Negligible
- Availability: Excellent
- Highlight: The car went to a great home
- Lowlight: Selling the car.
- Work this year: Fixing the sunroof switch and adjusting the SLS.
- Plan for 2023: N/A
1986 Mercedes-Benz 300SEThe 300SE was sold first in the year, which was the main reason the KMs were low this year. Since I sold it in January, I drove it pretty much daily until I sold it, as I knew I would not get an other opportunity to do so. - KM Driven: 450
- KM on Odometer: 298,500
- Spend Level: None
- Availability: Full until sold
- Highlight: The car went to a great home
- Lowlight: Selling the car
- Work this year: None
- Plan for 2023: N/A
While I was in Launceston earlier in the week, I visited the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania. This is a nice little museum quite close to the centre of Launceston. I had driven down to Tasmania in my 300TE, and had a few hours to kill before picking up my family from the airport. The National Automobile Museum of Tasmania was a perfect way to do that. The museum seemed to have a dual theme of Australian Motorsport and cars that were significant to Tasmania in some way. It also had a huge collection of Motorbikes. As I understand it, the museum does not own most of the collection – they are on loan. This probably means the collection rotates over time. There were a couple of highlights for me in the collection. The first was the 1974 Citroen DS. This was the winning car from the London – Sahara – Munich World cup rally. Citroen DS’ had a surprising amount of success in long distance endurance rallying. Not only was this car a winner back in 1974, but it was also entered in the 2013 Peking to Paris rally too. The car had 47,000km on the clock from these two events. The London to Sydney rally is probably the more famous, but cars did not win in that event.  Another car I found particularly interesting was the actual car that was rescued from the 1975 Tasman bridge disaster. A ship hit the bridge causing a section of it to collapse. Four cars went into the Derwent River and the occupants lost their lives. This one almost joined them, but the automatic transmission pan caught the edge of the remaining section of bridge. After the miraculous escape, the family never sold the car, and it remains in original condition.
 It was also interesting to see the 1976 BMW 530MLE, a South African built predecessor to the M cars. I hadn’t been aware of this car, and apparently only six survive. Another car it was surprising to see in a Tasmanian car museum was the Rolls Royce Phantom VI which had been the official car for the Governors of NSW.
As well as the exhibits, the museum had quite a good gift shop and I picked up a few interesting magazines to read. The museum is well worth a visit for anyone in Launceston. I’m currently in Tasmania on holiday with my family. Our goal on this trip is to tour around Tasmania so a car was a must. On a trip like this, I had two main options. The first was renting a car – either paying an arm and a leg for a miniature van, or squeezing a family of five into something horrible like an MG ZS. The second was driving my own car down and touring around in that. This could have been my wife’s modern car – an S211 E350 Mercedes, or one of my classics. For me, it was an easy choice and I decided to take my 1990 Mercedes 300TE. To prepare the car for the trip, I did some preventative maintenance over the last couple of weeks. There were a couple of things I didn’t get around to, such as replacing the noisy blower motor and the front arm rest. They can wait until my return. The night before I was still fighting with my bluetooth module working intermittently. I have set it up, so I can see the status LED by removing the shifter surround trim. I could see it was trying unsuccessfully to pair with my phone. After doing a factory reset, I was still not able to reliably collect, so I replaced the module with a new one. I also fuelled up the night before. I wanted to leave early so I had plenty of time for things to go wrong on the trip, so I got up at 5:00AM and left at 5:20AM. In retrospect, I think this was a mistake. In the end I had many hours to kill at the end, and I really could have used that extra hour of sleep. I didn’t sleep all that well, so I was quite tired when I started out. My first leg was fairly uneventful. I stopped for breakfast at Sutton Forest. The weather leaving Sydney was wet and foggy.  I had planned my next leg to be much longer, but I only made it to Goulburn before I started to feel rather drowsy. I stopped to buy a couple of drinks at the service station and stretch my legs. My stretches were observed by the Big Merino, one of the plethora of ‘big things’ that are to be found in regional Australia. The 300TE was running well.
 Neither the Big Merino or caffeinated drinks were enough to combat my drowsiness, and I pulled over again at a rest area just outside Gundagai. I’m not normally able to sleep during the day, but I thought I would attempt a short nap here to recharge my batteries. It actually worked. I didn’t sleep properly, but I dozed off for about 30 minutes. That 30 minutes of half sleep made a huge difference and I felt quite good after. I always thought those government signs advising a power nap were wishful thinking, but it really worked for me in this instance.
 With my power nap on the road to Gundagai, I was able to make it through to Holbrook without incident. This was the furthest I had ever been on the M31. While I’ve driven to Melbourne twice, I’ve taken the scenic route both times. The scenery on the M31 is OK, although not a patch on what is available on more indirect routes.
Holbrook is quite a nice little town and I stopped for a short break. I was curious to see the Oberon class submarine, HMAS Otway, the hull of which is in the middle of the town. I had also planned to stop at the bakery in Holbrook, but there is a huge line and I didn’t stop. By this time, the 300TE needed a fuel up. I had covered 549km at 11l/100km. I think that is pretty good. It was at this point something rather strange happened. Once I refuelled the car, I moved away from the bowser to a regular parking spot to check the oil. The petrol station was very busy so I didn’t want to hold up a bay. I noticed a loud and strange noise coming from the front of the car. I was a bit perplexed what it could be, as the key was in the office position. Since I was parked on top of where they top up the petrol station’s tanks, in the I assumed it was coming from some kind of pump in the tank, not my car. Turns out I was wrong. I checked my oil, which was still full, and attempted to re-start the car. The key did nothing. I checked I wasn’t in gear, or anything stupid like that. The car wasn’t. I went back and looed under the bonnet, and I could definitely hear something making a loud noise, but before I could work out what it was, the noise stopped. Once it stopped, I was able to restart the car as normal. I can’t think of many things that can spin with the engine off and the key in the off position. I can only assume that the starter was still spinning, but not engaged with the ring gear. Whatever it was, it was using a lot of power. When I checked my battery monitor log while killing time in Geelong, I could see a huge current draw around that time. It was around 12:20PM. 
From Holbrook, I drove right through into Euroa. The traffic got heavier as I entered Victoria. The speed cameras also got far more prevalent. In Euroa, I stopped for a short dinner stop. After all the fog and rain of earlier in the day, it was now over 30C and quite sunny. After Euroa, the traffic built up and the speed cameras got more frequent as I entered Melbourne. The traffic flowed surprisingly well. I was expecting to see a few classics driving around. The only car I saw on H plates was a Toyota Landcruiser from the 90s. I got to Geelong right on 6PM. I had 3 hours to kill, as I had a text message from the Spirit of Tasmania informing me that I wasn’t able to check in until 9:00PM. By this point, I was pretty tired, so would have liked to check in earlier. This trip really showed off how good the seats are in the W124. I didn’t feel any discomfort at all for driving such a long distance in them. I had dinner in Geelong, had a bit of a walk around and waited in the car until it was time to drive to the port. When I got there, I found a lot of cars had gone much earlier. I think next time I would have gone around an hour earlier. I think I would have gotten onto the ship earlier than I did. They send that message to stagger arrivals as they know some people will come early anyway. 
It took about 45 minutes from arriving to be driving onto the ship. During that time, I didn’t see one other classic. Just acres of SUVs and dual cab utes. The lead up was like being in a 45 minute traffic jam, as you most slowly forward from time to time. It is still better than the horror that is air travel. 
Being a low car, I ended up on deck 6. One of the staff who saw my wagon came up and asked me about it. Turns out he has two Rolls Royce’s back in Tasmania. A Silver Spirit and a Silver Cloud III. They both looked very nice from the photo he showed me on this phone. He also told me that I would probably see quite a lot of classics on the road in Tasmania. Their special interest registration does not require a club, and allows for over 100 days use on a logbook. 
I booked a cabin, which turned out to be on deck 7. My cabin was one of the interior cabins with no windows. I didn’t get the point of windows on a night crossing. The cabin was clean and well equipped with a nice ensuite bathroom and four beds. Since my family were flying down, I only needed the one. My only criticism was that the cabin was too hot for my taste, and the bed was a bit hard. There was a thermostat in the room, and it did actually work, but I still wasn’t able to get the cabin as cool as I like to sleep. At first it was really hot, but it at least became tolerable. I like to have my room really dark when I sleep, which is an advantage of a windowless cabin. The onboard internet does not work in the cabins, and I even had no reception when docked at the port in Geelong.  The cargo areas are locked during the voyage, so brought a little day bag with me with a change of clothes, toiletries etc. I was lucky as the seas were very mild for my crossing, with only 1m swells. I was surprised how fast the ship goes, at 27 knots.
The next morning I woke up around 7AM and was able to to check out the ship and have some breakfast. They have a lot of facilities such as movies, various lounge areas, a bar, restaurant etc. The food was OK, but not great. We docked about 15 minutes late, and then each deck was called. They started with deck 5, then deck 3, then my deck 6. It was a fairly painless process getting off the ship. The only thing I didn’t like was how careless most of the passengers were when waking past the cars with their bags. I had people constantly bumping into mine. It didn’t help that I was in the middle lane in the middle of that deck, so there were a lot of people to get past my car. The paint is not the greatest on my 300TE, but I wouldn’t want to be parked where I was on a show car. 
My family were not arriving to Launceston until 3:30PM, so I had plenty of time to get to Launceston before they arrived. The National Automobile Museum of Tasmania was very close to my hotel, so I planned to visit the museum before I picked them up. I’ll cover the museum separately. I took the scenic route to Launceston and I’m glad I did. The road was excellent, full of great scenery and sweeping turns. Tasmania is very green compared to the rest of Australia. The guy on the boat was right – I already saw a lovely Jaguar Mk2 and a Mercedes 380SEC. I refuelled in Exeter, returning 11.3l/100km. Not bad considering the long process to board the Spirit of Tasmania. On my Sydney to Launceston Road trip, I covered 1070km over two tanks of fuel. Instead of wasting money on a rental, I now get to drive my own car in Tasmania and not suffer the misery of air travel these days. | |
