Last year numbers seemed a bit down from prior years.   Probably the move put people off.   However, it felt bigger and busier this year.   While the new location looks further away on the map, in terms of time taken to get there, there is very little difference.

I took my E-Type and joined the rather impressive line up in the JDCA section.   It was a good showing this year.   The strongest displays were the E-Types, XK120/140/50, XJS, XJs and Modern XKs.   Surprisingly there were almost none of the big saloons like the MK VIII, and numbers for the compact saloons seemed down too.

Looking around at the other clubs, there was a great display as usual from the Rolls Royce club, who always have a range of lovely cars.  I enjoy seeing how the pre-war cars get plenty of use.   The Daimler club also had a nice display as well.

Being a British car show, there were of course large displays from popular models like the MGB, original mini and so on.   It is always nice to see those cars, but what makes this show so good is the sheer variety of cars.  I’ve been going for years and I always see something new and interesting and rare.

The show was held on the same day as the French car show.  Normally I would attend that event with my Citroen DS.  However, by the time I properly looked at the British cars, it was a bit late to go over.   I hope next year the dates are not combined.

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The Kings school had two main advantages.   It is centrally located in Sydney and the grounds are beautiful. It was normally on at the same time as the school fete, allowing family members who were not all that interested in cars to attend.  At the same time, it had a number of drawbacks in that the cars were kind of spread out, getting in and out of the school grounds was a pain, and the drive there an back along congested Pennant Hills road was fairly unpleasant.

Hawkesbury Showground is not nearly as pretty as the Kings School.  However, from a practical standpoint it is a better venue a car show.   Ingress and egress is very easy, parking for spectators is plentiful, and it is next to a railway station.   The cars were all located near each other and each of the clubs had quite a bit of room to spread out.   The big drawback is that it is in the northwest corner of Sydney, which probably put some people off.   On the positive side, the drive to the show is a lot of fun if you take the back roads like I did.

This year numbers seemed down quite a lot.  I suspect the new location had sometimes to do with that.   The weather was quite windy and there was a forecast for rain, which never came.    I thought the new location was quite good, so I am hoping that club members hear reports of a successful show in 2024 and give it a go in 2025.

I took my Jaguar E-Type and was parked in a nice line up of E-Types.   The Jaguar Drivers club had quite a good location at the show, and while numbers were done, a good representation of models.   I admired a very nice Series 1 XJ12.  This is a model I would like to own one day.   There was also a very nice 420, and a series 1 XJ6 I liked.

As you would expect, MGBs and Minis were popular at the show, and there was a good showing of Morris Minors.   I thought the Triumph display was probably the best.  They had gone to a lot of trouble arranging their cars and had their flags up.    The Aston Martin display also had a good number of quite rare cars.

While it wasn’t as big as in prior years, the Rolls Royce display is always a highlight.  I saw a 20hp with a really simple but lever mechanism that released a step when the door opened.  The step did not just flop down but gently lowered itself as the door opened.  Simple but so very effective.

As a fan of the Rover marque, i was hoping to see some good selection of their cars.  However this years display was quite small.   There was a single P5B saloon, three late P4s, five p6s and a few SD1s.

On the whole I thought the event was a success at the new location and I hope it is able to build up from here and regain its previous size.  I enjoyed the day.

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It felt like a summer day today, with temperatures of around 33C.   Probably quite hot for many of the old British cars, and a few of the spectators as well.   It was a lovely day though, without a cloud in the sky.

I decided to display my E-Type again.   In 2019, I didn’t display due to the large speed humps scraping the exhaust system in 2018.    I was assured by the club that it was better now, and it was.   I’m glad I had the car on display, as there was a nice line up of E-Types there in the JDCA section.

The two best displays were from Jaguar and Triumph.   Both organized their displays really well and had their models in groups of similar cars.  For Jaguar, this was by the model registers.  For Triumphs they did something similar.   It was really quite impressive seeing the two rows of Stags for example.   I wish they would do that at the German car show, as it looks so much better.   It’s such a shame to have them in no particular order.

For some reason the 2023 British Car show felt smaller than in previous years.   They were only using two fields and they were not especially full.    Perhaps because the school fete was not on, the day was less attractive to some?  Or perhaps because after three missed shows, people were out of the habit.   It can’t have been the weather.

Regardless this is still probably the best car show in the Sydney calendar, and was well worth a look.

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In lieu of this event, the JDCA organized a replacement event at short notice.    The last All British Day was in 2019, so most club members were keen for an event.   Instead of the full car show, a JDCA cars and coffee type event would replace it.   I think this was a great idea.

To facilitate the event, the club booked all the parking lots of a restaurant in Bicentennial Park.    This provided a great location for almost 100 Jaguars to be on display in a very centrally located park.   It was a real credit to the organizers how quickly they were able to find such a good venue with little notice and put on such a good event.

The Club had the venue from 6:00AM to 11:30AM.   I arrived at about 7:30AM and I would estimate a bit more than half the eventual cars were in place.    The cars were organized by register, customary in the Jaguar club and I think a good idea.

In the E-Type register we had 15 cars on display and a good mix of the various models of E-Type.    There were also good showings from the compacts (e.g. MK2, S-Type etc), The XJS, XKs, XJs and the moderns.

In particular I was admiring a fully restored Series 1 XJ in dark blue.   It was in superb condition and really shows off the lines of the original William Lyons design.   At some point I would like to own a Series 1 XJ12 or Daimler Double Six to go with my E-Type.

In any case the JDCA cars and coffee event was a big success.  I think it would be worthwhile running it each year in addition to the All British Day.

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The Jaguar Drivers club ran an event today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Jaguar E-Type.  The goal was to get at least 60 E-Types for a photo shoot at Mt Panorama.   In the end we got really close with 58 cars on display.   At least one car didn’t make it up to Bathurst, sadly heading back to Sydney on a tow truck with a bad clutch.

It was a beautiful day for a drive up to Bathurst.   A lovely Autumn Sydney day.   We met up at the M4 services and then drove up in a loose convoy to Bathurst.   There was a photographer along the route somewhere, so there will possibly be some good photos of the convoy coming.      The meeting point was a vineyard on the Mt Panorama circuit.    It really was a lovely venue and the cars were all lined up in one of the fields.   There was a separate place to park for the other cars.

As part of the event they had a drone doing photography, a club member interviewing people about their cars and some proper photos taken of the field.

Most of the club were staying up in Bathurst, but I did it as a day trip.    I managed to drive up and back on a single tank of fuel.   My car ran well, although the brake fluid light came on a few times on the way home.  I am not sure why as I checked and there was plenty of fluid in the reservoir.

All in all, it was a great way to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Jaguar E-Type.

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This year the Jaguars were moved from the top paddock to the middle one.  This pushed clubs like Rolls Royce and Daimler down to the bottom paddock.  In itself this isn’t so bad, but it has a few flow on effects.   Firstly, the Jaguar display felt a bit cramped and smaller in numbers.    There was a nice line up of E-Types and MK II’s, but other models were in smaller numbers.  Secondly, all cars had to use the same entrance which resulted in traffic gridlock.   I’m surprised there were not more cars overheating trying to get in.   My engine fan was to fail later in the day, but luckily it was still ok at this point.   What was worse was that the cars needed to move over a series of about 5 speed humps that scraped the exhaust system on my car quite badly.

They made better use of the bottom paddock to account from going from three to two, but I’m not really sure to what end.   Instead of the Jaguars on the top paddock there was a food truck and some stands for car dealerships.   It was a bit of a nothing use for a great space.

I can live with the two paddocks, but if they keep up the same route into the event, it would force me to stop bringing my car.   I did have my car on display this year, and ideally would at future events as well.

The two displays I was most impressed with this year was the Triumph display, which had a great turnout of all sorts of interesting triumph models.   And of course perennial favorites Rolls Royce.   This year they had a number of older vehicles that were in stunning condition that I had not yet seen before.  I think a couple of them were Silver Dawn’s, but I am not an expert in 50’s Rolls Royce.    Even though it was at the shannons display, I got to see a Derby Bentley too!  As a coupe, they want serious money for it at the auction coming up in November.

For the first time since I can recall, 3 litre Rover P5’s outnumbered v8 P5Bs.   The P5 was eclipsed by the P5B, and its nice to see the P5 survivors.  There was also a great little MG from the 50s with a dolls house style caravan.   Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take a photo.   In the Daimler section there was a very impressive older Daimler, I think from the 20s, with a sleeve valve engine.

I also spent some time trying to see if I could find a match for the interior light in my Traction Avant in other British cars.   I’m sure it would have been a standard part used in other cars but I have not yet been able to identify it.    In summary, the 2018 British Car show was a great event and hopefully I will be back in 2019.

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For the 2016 British car show, I brought my E-Type and put it on display for the first time.  I did not put it in for judging as judging in the Jaguar club is very hot competition!

This year, in my view the best display probably went to the Jaguar’s in terms of coverage of their model range and interesting cars.    As usual, a good selection of E-Types, MK2s, XKs etc.   Surprisingly, there was a whole row of MK2s, even a couple of MK1s, but only one S-Type.    I always think the S-Type gets a bit of a bad rap and find it quite a handsome car.     Also no MK X, which again is a car that is somewhat under-loved.     It also seems, at least in Sydney that there are good number of XK120’s and XK150s, but you rarely see a 140.

For other cars, as usual the Rolls Royce club had a nice display of cars, and the pre-war cars are always interesting, especially a Phantom I and a 20/25.   There are also always plenty of the old British favorites, MGBs, Minis, Frog-Eye sprites etc.  As well as those more common ones, you could also see fire trucks, stationary engines, buses etc.

All in all a good display and well worth it.   The 2015 photos can be found here.  My favorite cars from the day can also be found here.

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Last year the show was rained out, but there was no chance of that for the 2015 British car display.   The biggest showing was put on by the Jaguar club, with a nice selection of different models.   In one area, there was a racing green Mk1 parked next to a racing green Mk2 which provided a nice contrast.    Jaguars always have an impressive representation, as there are plenty on display from other clubs such as regional clubs, motorsport clubs etc.   I’ve always been a big fan of the XK140 FHC, and I saw one of these in a regional club.     One owner of a 420 had made a matching trailer he called the ‘Draguar’ and was trying to sell it at the show.

Probably the most impressive display was that put on by the Rolls Royce Owners Club.    Considering the exclusivity of these cars when new, their numbers were very impressive and there were a couple of special displays such as a Phantom II restored chassis, the Vice Regal Phantom that I saw at the German Car Show (special guest).    There was even a 1910 Rolls Royce that made quite an entrance, full of passengers and a backfire as it moved into position!   It is great to see such a car still on the road and being used, and seeing this car on full rego shows the farcical nature of the NSW historic plates scheme.    I also got to see one of my favorite cars, the Bentley S3 Continental, with a lovely example on display, as well as its sister car (the Rolls Royce version).       There are a lot of Bentleys from the RR era as part of the RROC, as well as some part of the Bentley club, but from a casual observation, the Rolls Royce club seems to be the popular choice for the Bentley owner of this era.

There are also nice displays from all the usual suspects, including hundreds and hundreds of British sports cars.

The 2015 British Car Display was held at the Kings School, who also run their annual fete, providing options for those who are not enthused by seeing all the variants of compact Jaguar lined up.

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The run started in Glenorie (I took Galston Gorge which is a far nicer drive in an E than the M2) and proceeded along the Old Northern Road to Webbs Creek Ferry (adjacent to Wisemans Ferry), and then up the river to St. Albans.    It was a lovely drive and one I had not known about before – I knew of Webbs Creek ferry, but didn’t know where the road went – only that I had seen the other end of it far north and it was unsealed.   The road is sealed, at least to St. Albans and it is worth a drive as there is a very nice pub and a gently meandering road to get there.

While the run was organised by the E-Type register, there were a few XKs, MK2s, a Mk1, XJs and some modern Jags too.

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In the photo above, there is an XK120, and two Series 3 E-Types.   The XK120 looks fairly stock, but it is actually a fairly heavily modified car, that includes air-conditioning, an automatic transmission, power steering and the like.   While I like to keep cars reasonably stock, well thought out modifications that result in the cars being used more are to be encouraged, as there is nothing worse than trailer queens.   Personally, If I were modifying an XK120, I would go with a 5-Speed manual instead of the automatic and probably forgo the power steering, but it is a lovely car and is used regularly.

The new year run is an annual event, I attended last year, but due to weather I didn’t take the E-Type.    The E-Type register is also proposing a semi-regular unofficial run.   I will probably try and attend one or two if I get the chance.

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