| The Shannons Eastern Creek car show is always one of the biggest events in the calendar for the Sydney car scene. I’ve been going for years, but this is only my second time displaying a car. This year I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEC and brought my three children along with me. Last year I took my 250SE. When you display a car, you get to take it on a parade lap of the track. This year the show changed quite a lot after many years of using the same formula. I don’t think these changes were for the […] Last night was the monthly MBCNSW Night drive. We didn’t do one in June, primarily because that week coincided with the week most of Sydney seemed to have the flu, so most people cancelled due to illness. We were back again for July, doing a route from Engadine to Campbelltown via Picton Road. This drive was a bit of a combination of new and old. We’ve done similar drives before, but in the other direction. Last year we did a Camden to Engadine drive via Picton Road for example. However, in that case the only real overlap with this drive […] Today was my first ever observation rally. After having gone to car events regularly for well over a decade, I had surprisingly never attended one. The premise is that you and your navigator follow along a set of directions and get points for correctly deciphering the clues. Today, the MBCNSW was running one, dubbed The Amazing Rally. I thought it would be fun to give it a try. It was a requirement to bring a navigator. Why stop at one when I could bring three? I enlisted my three kids as navigators. They are 8, 6 and 6, and I […] This morning I attended the MBCNSW cars and coffee event in Silverwater. It was held at the Armory café down by the water. It is quite nice down there, and there is plenty of parking. The venue the club used last time is probably nicer, but has a severe shortage of parking. This forced the cars to triple park and making it very difficult to leave. This venue has loads of parking, but the downside is that there are a lot of other cars already in the parking lot from the general public so its a bit of a shame […] The May night drive was a little bit different. It turned out to be the farewell drive for one of our night drive regulars who is moving to Queensland. Based on that, we had a good turn out of people along for the drive. We also had a few others come along just to the starting point. That is quite a good option for those who don’t want an especially late night, as it gets their car out for a bit of a run, but an earlier bed time. We met in Windsor near the Harry’s Cafe de Wheels. Despite […] National Motoring Heritage Day occurs every year on the last Sunday of May. The goal is to try and encourage as many classic, vintage and veteran cars out as possible and display them at various shows and events. One of the biggest is held in Berry, where they anticipate around 600 cars each year. The Mercedes club normally attend this event and this year had capacity reserved for up to 30 cars. The 2022 event was cancelled due to weather, and I last attended the 2021 event which was excellent. That year the club combined it with the 50 years […] Today I attended a MBCNSW event dubbed the Longroof Long Lunch. I wasn’t actually planning to attend a car club event today, but due to the torrential rain forecast for this weekend, I ended up with a free morning at the last minute. Despite the weather forecast, all the torrential rain fell overnight, leaving both days quite nice. The premise of the event was to celebrate the Mercedes-Benz wagons. Obviously any club member could join, but the focus was for wagon owners. I think its great the club is starting to embrace these sort of niche events. There used to […] Last night was the monthly MBCNSW night drive. This month was a repeat of one of the best drives we did last year. The route takes some of my favorite driving roads in Northern Sydney – nice and twisty with almost no traffic. The weather leading up to the drive had been excellent, but heavy rain is forecast for this weekend. A perfect opportunity for club members to get their classic out for a nice autumn drive before the weather changes. All these factors aligned and we had a line up of some of the best cars ever made […] The March 2023 night drive route was another new one. We try to rotate them around the city, so this one ventured south. The route started at McDonalds Heathcote, before venturing south on the Princes Highway (not motorway) and then turning onto Appin road before finishing up at the Campbelltown Chubby Buns burger truck. This is a different Chubby buns location to the one we visited last year. The route worked very well, and I would certainly do it again. As well as the actual drive last night, I did a trial run two weeks ago. Enjoyed the drive […] Today I joined the MBCNSW for a drive to the Australian Motorlife Museum. The museum is located in Kembla Grange, near Dapto. It primarily focuses on pre war cars, motorbikes and automotive memorabilia and there are over 100 vehicles on display. I had previous visited the museum in 2018. I was looking forward to a return visit as the collection does change, and there is so much to see you’ll always find something new to look at. The treasurer of the MBCNSW is a board member of the Museum, so he organized a guided tour of the museum. That was […] | |
