In the end I made a good choice.  Torrential rain in the days leading up to the day had the Berry event cancelled.  Instead of cancelling their event, the Rolls Royce club moved indoors.   It was supposed to be held by the water in Newcastle.  The backup location was a hotel parking lot.   Unlike most hotel parking lots, it was not a dingy affair, even the floors were painted. It worked out quite well, as there were areas for the main families of cars (e.g. pre-war, separate chassis, Silver Shadow based, Silver Spirit based and moderns).

I drove up to Newcastle in my 560SEL. I’m taking it on a 4800km road trip in July.  This was a good trial after having a new radiator fitted and fixing a few minor annoyances myself.   The rain was very heavy, but I find the W126 a very surefooted car in the wet.  Nothing else jumped out at me as needing to be attended to.

Given the weather, I was impressed with the display.   There were a fair number of cars that had traveled from Victoria and Queensland.   There was also a great selection of pre-war cars and the RROC must be one of the few clubs that extensively use their pre-war machines.   These cars need to be used an appreciated and it’s always nice to see the on the road.   There was a good selection of the early cars as well as a couple of examples of the V12 Phantom III.

Moving on to the other models, probably my favorite on the day was a Victorian registered Bentley S series, and of course the two different Bentley Continentals were not to be missed.   As you would expect, the largest numbers were in the Silver Shadows and related models such as the Corniche and Camargue, and the Silver Spirit and related models such as the Bentley Turbo R.

There was also a section of modern models on display.  These don’t hold a great deal of interest to me, but were good to complete the history.   I enjoyed the day and it was good to see the event happen despite the weather.

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Given the wild weather of the past few weeks, I was impressed with the number of cars sporting interstate plates.   There were plenty of cars on Victorian, Queensland and South Australian registration.  This is in addition to the expected ACT and NSW cars.   Even more impressive was the number of pre-war cars on display.   I’m always impressed how much these owners actually drive the cars – and drive them long distances.   In my view at least, turning a car into a garage queen is about the worst thing that can be done to it.   Not to mention using the cars keeps important skills alive and makes it worthwhile for parts suppliers to keep parts in production.

The other advantage of walking over to the Rolls Royce Club federal rally display was the better food options on offer!

As you would expect, the Silver Shadow (and its derivatives) and Silver Spirit (and its derivatives) dominated the display.  These are the only models that were sold in large numbers.   There were cars of all types and conditions, from the show cars to the driven regularly.   My favorites tend to be the later small horsepower prewar cars, and the Silver Cloud and its Bentley S series sister.   I would like to own one of these one day.

It was certainly worth the walk over to see the display.

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The museum offers volunteer tours of the reserve collection twice per day.   Despite many people at the museum during my visit, I was the only one to avail myself of the tour.   I ended up with a two hour private tour of the reserve collection instead of the 45 minute highlights a big group would get.   This was the highlight of the whole museum for me.     The tour also included the Jaguar Heritage collection.

Probably the most fascinating part of the tour was some of the descriptions of an early Lanchster.   I had heard of Lanchester, but more about the cars they built during their ownership by Daimler.    However, the most interesting cars were built by Frederick Lanchester.   Like W.O. Bentley, Lanchester was a brilliant engineer but not a great businessman.  And unlike Henry Royce, who had Charles Rolls and then later professional managers, Lanchester never had a partner to handle the business side of things.

The car we looked at had an epicyclic gearbox, years before Henry Ford adopted it for the Model T, twin crankshaft engine for smoothness, was much faster than the competition and many other clever touches.   Sadly, the Lanchester brand ended up building a series of forgettable cars under Daimler ownership.

Another interesting part of the museum was a collection of test cars showing off different safety ideas of the 70s.   One in particular looks like a mousetrap – it was designed to come up during a collision to improve pedestrian safety.   There is also another one to try and show American regulators how silly a proposed law was that focused on rear visibility.    It is fitted with a large periscope as the only way of complying with the regulations.

The collection also contains three interesting Rover P5 models.   The main collection houses one of the Queen’s P5Bs and the overflow collection has the other.   There is also the Prime ministerial P5B, and interesting for me, a 1965 P5 Coupe with a manual transmission.   A similar car (transmission aside) from my old rover and identical spec to a couple of cars being restored by a friend of mine.    Continuing the Rover theme, there is a Rover Speed 14 Streamline Saloon, a rather performance oriented model by the company.

Also of interest was a very impressive Daimler Green Goddess.   This is a very imposing car and you can certainly understand the stir it created when first unveiled.   However, if I could have taken one car home from the museum, it would have been the Bentley R Type Continental.

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This is a nice event.  It is not well known by the general public and has a relaxed atmosphere.    As usual there was a nice selection of Rolls Royce and Bentley motor cars from the marques entire history.   As you would expect Silver Shadow and Silver Spirit models dominated.   There was a reasonable selection of 50s and 60s cars, and a few rather nice pre-war models as well.

This was the first car event my 9 month old daughter attended.    Not a bad one to start with some classy cars on display.   The cars only put her to sleep for some of the time!

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Not only is the display quite a sight, but its one of the few times of the year you’ll sit in traffic behind a Jowett and have a Daimler behind you.    One of the highlights was seeing a Bentley 6.5 liter in the Vintage Sports Car Club.   I was hoping to see a Derby Bentley as well, but unfortunately it would appear there were none in attendance.    Was hoping a member of the Rolls Royce, Bentley or Vintage sports car clubs would bring one along.   There was a rather nice S Series Continental though.

As usual, the Jaguar Club had a great display, especially the E-Type register.    As with last year, no XK140s on display but a few with other clubs.    There are always large numbers of MGs, Minis etc on display too.    After the big Flynn auction I was wondering if there would be a big display of Rovers this year, but it as pretty similar to last year.    For some reason this year there were only a few Jensen Interceptors on display.   The Bristol club had a nice handout of their key models including numbers in the club and production volume.   A nice touch.

It is great to see some of the more forgotten marques, such as Riley, Alvis, Wolesely, Humber.   These cars are going to need their next generation of enthusiast.   And the marques that are defunct but perhaps better known like Austin, Rover, Daimler etc.   These shows certainly help show off the cars to people who may not have been familiar with them.

UPDATE (1/9/17):  There was a lovely Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that looked it it had been through a very thorough restoration.   I noticed an interesting switch on the side of the car.   Through a friend in the Rolls Royce club, I was able to find out its function.   It controls fuel pumps.   The Silver Ghost apparently has a mechanical pump and a manual pump that can be operated by the passenger.   The switch allows the selection of one, both or neither of the pumps.   It is quite a clever system, as it’s easy to forget that back at the time this car was new, the infrastructure to support the automobile was also in its infancy.

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I took my DS which actually shares some of the Hydraulic systems with these cars – the Silver Shadow has hydraulics based on the old Citroen red fluid system and the Silver Spirit has the green fluid system same as my DS.   The hydraulics are not as extensively used as in the Citroen, but they are used for the brakes and self leveling suspension (along with regular springs and shocks).

I would like to own one of these cars one day – I am partial to a Bentley S series.

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The show was worth the trip and despite early rain had a good showing of cars.   As well as RROC, the Rover Club and the Daimler club had displays on, and was able to learn a bit more about Rover P5s.   I’m told the Mk2 P5 Coupe is the one to have.

For the Rolls Royces, there was a nice selection of cars including a very impressive range of pre-war cars.  Far larger than any of the clubs I am a member of.   As you would expect the Silver Shadow and Silver Spirit were the most popular cars on display, but there was a good mixture of cars.   My two favorites were the early Bentley Corniche coupe and the Bentley S3 Flying Spur.   The 2015 Rolls Royce Owners Club Concours was worth a visit and I will go again if the times work.

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Some of the cars I liked were a very original looking Bentley S1 Continental, a couple of nice Jaguar XK140 FHCs, and a former vice regal Rolls Royce Phantom V that took Sir William Kerr to make his announcement that he had dismissed the Whitlam Government.

An interesting piece of information I overheard was during a discussion by some Jaguar Owners, one of them mentioned that there is a man in Melbourne who is making 5 speed gearboxes that are a better fit than the ones out of the UK and America.  Many sporty Jaguars were originally sold with Automatic transmissions that really don’t suit the character of the cars.   Many have been converted to manual over the years, either from a wrecked car or through a 5 speed transmission.   This is particularly the case for MK II models.

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