The event is focused on the cars designed by Bruno Sacco, but other cars could attend.   Sacco was lead designer for Mercedes-Benz from 1975 to 1999.  His era covers a number of key models in Mercedes-Benz history such as the W126, W201, W124, R129, R230 and more.   Sacco also contributed to the W123, although mostly under the direction of Fredrich Geiger.

I had planned to take my 1987 560SEL.   I own three Sacco cars, the 560SEL, my 1987 560SEC and my 1990 300TE.   The 300TE was ruled out as the instrument cluster is still out, as is the centre AC vent.   I’m taking the SEC down to Melbourne later in the week, so I thought I would take the SEL.   However, after driving out of a multi-storey parking lot on Friday night, the drivers window failed to go back up.   I assume the plastic slide in the window regulator is broken or jammed.   That ruled it out and I took the SEC instead.    The SEC went well, and the wheel alignment and balance seems to have fixed my wheel wobble issue, although I still have some vibration at low speed turning.

As with the 2020 event, we started at Tynan’s Mercedes-Benz dealership.     We then took the Grand Pacific drive though the Royal National Park before ending up at HARS.    Unlike the last two events, we could not drive the cars onto the apron.   Some idiot drove a BMW M-car at high speed on an active runway, causing cars to be banned.  I hate these knee-jerk rules, they should have just thrown the book at the offender.

The drive through the national park was good as always, and the cyclist menace was not as bad as normal.   HARS is well worth a visit – they had multiple aircraft flying, and we could take a tour of the Super Constellation and the Boeing 747.    I took my three kids and they all enjoyed HARS.

After a couple of hours at HARS, we took a very enjoyable drive over Macquarie Pass to Moss Vale for lunch.   This was the same place we had lunch in 2020.

I understand there were more than 30 cars on the day.   This time the W124 was the clear majority.   In the first year, the W126 was king of the hill, especially the 420SEL.   There were probably as many 420SELs as there were cars today.   Although I am a big fan of the designs of Bruno Sacco, my favourite car on the day was the W111 280SE 3.5 cabriolet, a design of Paul Bracq.

The day was really good, and an improvement over 2021.   In 2021 the weather was rather poor, and we didn’t do the second drive for lunch.     I’m glad that was brought back.      We didn’t top 2020 as that event was huge and we had access to the apron to show off the cars.   I think that was what was missing this time – we didn’t have the showcase of all the Sacco designs lined up.

I certainly enjoyed the day and Youngtimer Sacco day remains one of the premier events on the MBCNSW calendar.

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Unfortunately we had heavy rain most of the day.   Not ideal for a drive day, but that didn’t stop a fairly good turn out on the day.   It’s a real credit to some of the owners in the MBCNSW that they still brought their cars out on a day like today.   To many classics become garage queens never venturing out unless the weather is perfect.   This is a shame as cars a meant to be driven and generally sitting unused is worse than occasionally getting wet.

Youngtimer Sacco Day 2021 started at Taren Point Bowling club.    The parking lot there had more room than the Mercedes-Benz dealership we started at last year.   After some time to look at the cars and for everyone to arrive, we left on the first leg of the drive, to Cataract Dam.

We took the Grand Pacific Drive through the Royal National Park, over Sea Cliff bridge and then up Bulli Pass to Cataract Dam.    Had the weather been good, the Dam would have been a lovely spot to have a bit of a walk and check out the scenery.   Due to the cold, rainy and windy weather, most people huddled under the gazebos.     There was a nice line up of cars in the parking lot though.

From the dam we headed to HARS via Broughtons Pass, Picton Road and then down towards Kembla Heights.    The chosen roads were really good – it was such a shame that the weather was so bad.   I would say the route was as good as last year, and last year was a high bar to follow.

Like last year, I took my 560SEL.    I was quite keen to experience my just rebuilt front suspension on some good driving roads.   The suspension is probably great, but the alignment is clearly out as the car was a real handful in the wet.   Really twitchy handling at speed, strange behavior during cornering and not a very enjoyable experience.   After my mechanic did the work, he sent the car to be aligned.   I’m not sure what went wrong, but my suspicion is that they used the wrong specs.    After I got the car back, I noticed it was making the tyres squeal on minor cornering, so I took it back for a 2nd look.   The alignment place assured him it was fine.   Its clearly not.     The W126 normally one of the most surefooted cars in the wet I have driven.

When we arrived at HARS, the cars were first assembled in a marshaling area.   Once they all arrived, they were brought into HARS in model groups.    I really liked the idea of lining the models up together, but this didn’t work very well on the day.   I hope they try again next year as it would make an impressive display.

Instead of a look at the HARS display and then a second drive to a different lunch spot, we had lunch at HARS and then were free to look around as long as we wanted.   Overall, I think that was a better choice.  While the food was nicer last year, it was better to have more time to browse the displays, and the food was fine at HARS.

Last year there was a section of the museum closed off due to an upcoming Qantas event.   This time that wasn’t the case, so we were able to tour the 747-400, the Connie and other large exhibits.   The 747-400 was VH-OJA, the first 747-400 operated by Qantas and the aircraft that set the record for the longest delivery flight at over 20 hours.

The club also had prizes for various things.   I managed to win the prize for the highest mileage W126 on the day – 335,000.     In addition, my two daughters were excited to be chosen to help give out the prizes.

The selection of cars at Youngtimer Sacco Day 2021 was more balanced this year.   Last year it was very skewed to the W126, the 420SEL in particular.   This year there was more balance of Sacco models, in paritcular a nice selection of W124s.   This changed so much I think I was the only 560SEL, but I think there were four LWB Nautical blue W126s on display.   There was also a nice selection of W126 SECs.

Overall the organizers did a really nice job with Youngtimer Sacco day 2021 and I look forward to next years event.

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The event started out at Tynan’s Mercedes-Benz dealership in Southern Sydney.   They were also the sponsors of the event.   Tynan’s is a large dealership, but their forecourt was soon overwhelmed by Saccomobiles as event attendees started to roll in.   The event was capped at just over 100 attendees due to COVID restrictions at the venues.   Had it been a normal year, numbers would have probably been even higher.

I took my 560SEL to the event, as the W126 is a Sacco creation.   I read an interview with him a few years ago and I seem to recall the 126 SEC and W201 as being to designs he is particularly proud of.   Others who attended the Youngtimer Sacco day clearly had a similar idea as the W126 was by far the most popular car there, mostly 420SELs.   The 420SEL is very popular in the club, so much so it’s almost a membership requirement!

There were of course other models represented at the Youngtimer Sacco Day.   There were a few nice W201s, W124s etc, although the numbers skewed to the 80s models and there were only a couple of the 90s and 2000s in attendance.   For the W124s there was at least three rare A124 cabriolets as well as a real AMG Coupe.

The first leg of the day took us through the Royal National Park on the Grand Pacific Drive.   This is a nice (but busy) drive through some good roads in the national park and over the sea cliff bridge.

The morning tea break was at HARS Aviation Museum.   This is one of those places I have been meaning to attend for years and never got the chance.   They have a really interesting collection of aircraft significant to Australian Aviation.   Its definitely worth a visit.    Not only was the museum really interesting but the line up was extremely impressive.    I took a couple of my young children to the event as they were interested in seeing the Aeroplanes.

It would have been logistically difficult, but it would have been quite cool to get them lined up my model given the number.   In any case, given it was Youngtimer Sacco Day, the Saccomobiles were all in the first row and then the other Mercedes-Benzes behind.

Once we finished up at HARS, there was a great route selected to take us to Moss Vale Golf Club for Lunch.    There were some great twisty parts of this road.   Surprisingly there was even a little floodway with about 1″ of water flooding through.   There were a couple of low slung AMG cars at the event that probably had to detour, although it was no problem for the W126.

The lunch at Moss Vale was quite nice, done in multiple sittings to comply with COVID restrictions.

The Club, in conjunction with Tynan’s had some nice door prizes.  I was lucky enough to win some detailing products.    The day was a big success and a credit to the organizers.   I hope it does run again next year.   Maybe they should also consider an Oldtimer Bracq day?   This could commemorate the cars of Paul Bracq including the W108/W109, R113, W111C, W100 and W114/W115.

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