In prior years I’ve often attended the big car show in Berry.  That was always quite a good event, but the location means it seems to be cancelled due to weather as much as is actually held.  The last time I was able to attend was 2023.

This year I attended the event at the event at the Australian Motorlife Museum.   The Illawarra section of the Jaguar club were also there so I could have gone with them too.   I’ve been to the museum a few times before and it is always well worth the visit.   The last time was also in 2023.

As well as the trip to the museum, the event also included a scenic drive to the Museum.  The meeting point was at Partridge VC rest area.   I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEL.  I chose the 560SEL for two reasons.  Firstly, the forecast was for rain and the W126 is very stable in the wet.   Secondly, I had recently had the intake manifold gaskets replaced and this would be my first decent drive in the car since that job was done.

This all sounded good on paper, but there was a small problem.  The club hadn’t actually picked a route or nominated anyone to lead the drive from the rest area to the museum.  After waiting about 30 minutes, we realized nobody was coming. We set our GPSs to the museum and just headed there.   At least it wasn’t raining at the time.

While I have been to the museum 3-4 times, I had never been on event day before.   Going on an event day meant they had a number of the cars running and driving around.   There was a replica of the Benz Patent Motorwagon from 1986, a car from 1901 and another that I think was from the nineteen teens.   We actually passed the latter on the way to the museum on the motorway.   It was getting along rather nicely.

One thing I learned was that most of the cars from the 19th century didn’t have brakes.  I had assumed they would also have rudimentary rear wheel only brakes.  But apparently they didn’t.   I wouldn’t want to ride a pushbike without brakes, let alone a car – no matter how slow.

The museum even had a steam car on display from 1901 with no brakes that was used until about 25 years ago.   Apparently driven to a church service each week.   I can’t fathom driving on the public roads in 2001 with no brakes at all, even if the church was close by to the owners residence

As well as the cars that were driving around, they had a nice display of club pre-war cars just outside the entrance. For example a bevvy of Austin 7’s parked outside.  Going to the museum on a day like this was worth it and an extra benefit from the normal way of attending the museum.

Inside the collection was good as always – focusing mostly on pre-war cars.   The collection does change from time to time, so while many cars were the same as from my last visit, there were a few changes.

My two favourite cars were the Minerva and the Black and Red Auburn.   The Auburn actually has an interior made from pigskin and during the restoration the owner had the pigskin tanned.  Apparently this wasn’t that easy to have done.

Cars from this era were painted with a brush. I found out that the way to get a good finish is to heat the paint as it means the brush stroke are not all that visible when it cools.  I had just assumed it was done with lots of wet sanding.

For this event, I took my 11 year old daughter who enjoyed seeing some of the really old cars, as well as seeing some of the memorabilia they had on display.   This included automotive stuff as well as other things like typewriters and sewing machines.

it was a good day overall, the car went well and we enjoyed visiting the museum.

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The treasurer of the MBCNSW is a board member of the Museum, so he organized a guided tour of the museum.   That was a huge bonus from my previous visit.   Not only did we get  more background on some of the displays, but we also got to tour the behind the scenes workshop and the library.  The museum believe their library to be the largest automotive library in the southern hemisphere.   I could believe it, as it is quite large.

We also got to sit in the back of a very impressive Lanchester and hear the story about the pair of Minervas.   This is a high end car, based in Belgium.  Apparently these cars were the properly of Prince Leopold of Belgium.   The more ornate car being the official car, and the other being for daily use.

The other thing you notice is just how much automotive memorabilia they have on display.   There must be literally thousands of great pieces.

I took my 250SE on the drive.  I was keen to take it on a longer drive with its newly fitted alternator.     The car did really well.    It was a 35C day, and the A/C kept up with the heat pretty well.   The cooling system on that car is really good – it hardly moved off normal operating temperature.    I had by far the oldest car that wasn’t in the museum.  The next oldest was one of the three W126 models – always popular in the club.   Compared to the museum cars, my car was a spring chicken.   Last time I visited, I drove down in the 1954 Citroen Traction Avant I used to own.   It was still quite a bit too new for the museum.

After our tour around the Motorlife Museum, we took in a pub lunch at Kembla Grange before the drive home to Sydney.

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The meeting point for the drive was an oval near the start of the Royal National Park.  While the fastest way to get to the Motorlife Musem is down the M1 freeway, the best way is via the Grand Pacific Drive.   This takes you through the Royal National park and across the sea cliff bridge.

The Royal National park drive is picturesque and features winding roads and no traffic lights.   On nice days it can get very crowded, but on an overcast day like Sunday it was pretty good.   Speed limits are very low (mostly 60kph) and heavily enforced.   This meant the best car for the drive was my Traction Avant.   The Traction thrives at 60-90km/h and is fun on twisty roads at these speeds.   Driving a more powerful car like the 450SLC or E-Type on this road is far less interesting.    I had not taken the Traction on a long drive for a while, it it always responds well, seeming to perform better once really warmed up.

The Motorlife Museum is well worth the drive down and very different from the Gosford Museum.   It contains mostly pre-war cars and also has a large collection of memorabilia.   It is also nice to see that many of the cars are registered and are used from time to time.   In addition to the cars, there is also a large collection of motorcycles.   Being focused on Australian Motorlife, the museum catalogs some of the cars that were on the road in Australia 80-100 years ago.

Probably the highlights for me were the two Minveras and the Vincent Black Shadow.   The museum also had used automotive books for sale at very good prices and a few people in our group grabbed some nice titles.

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