It sounded like a great idea, so I tested the route in my 450SLC a few weeks ago.  I’ve found its important to test these routes at night, as things that work during the day don’t always work at night.  In addition, the state parks service closes a lot of roads that go through the national parks.

On the day of the drive, we had quite a good turn out, even with a few people having to pull out.   I find it odd that the club would schedule an executive meeting over the top of a registered club event, as we lost a few people to that.

As well as many of our usual suspects, we also had a new member in a very nice CL500, plus our normal W124 crew in a couple of 300Es and a 300TE, a 380SEC and another modern Benz.  I took my 450SE.    To everyone’s great interest we also had a C4 Corvette on the drive.  Its a 1986 model with a 5.7 SBC.  Its great when members bring non Mercedes cars to these drives as it adds variety.   The C4 had been imported to Australia in 2011, but stored until earlier this year.  The owner has dealt with a few fuel delivery related issues, changed the tyres and so on.   This is its first major drive.

We met up at Camden McDonalds, which was closed even at this early hour.   More and more of this McDonalds advertise opening hours based on the drive through, but close the actual restaurant.  Since I’m not a savage and don’t eat in my car, this is particularly useless.

After everyone admired the Corvette, we set off.   We started down the old Hume highway.   The roads were quite good and had fairly limited traffic.   After having to slow down for a truck and a roundabout, I noticed the Corvette have to abruptly pull over.  Its lucky I was able to see.  Normally I can really only see what is happening with one or maybe two cars behind me at night.   But we were going down a hill and the corvette has very distinctive headlights.

The Corvette had conked out.   It was able to restart and idled well, but died with any revs.   After looking for a while, turns out the brand new mass airflow sensor had died.  Disconnecting it had the engine running well again.

We continued on our way and the drive was really good.   It was a nice fast route with little traffic and pretty good roads.   My 450SE did well on its first night drive, and so did the Corvette once the MAF was disconnected.     The only downside was a 15 minute roadwork delay.   The roadwork wasn’t there two weeks ago.

We finished our drive at Chubby Buns Hoxton Park.   The Campbelltown location is temporarily closed.   It was quite busy and had expanded since our list visit.

The post MBCNSW September 2025 Night Drive – Picton and Appin Roads appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

It had been very rainy earlier in the week, so I wasn’t sure what attendance would be like.   January night drives can be a bit unpredictable due to people being away, but as long as the weather is good, summer is a great time to drive at night.

Even though it was an official MBCNSW event, I decided to take my Jaguar E-Type.  It was the perfect evening to drive the car, and I didn’t get to drive it as much as I had hoped last year due to the weather.   In the Australian summer, it is best to drive convertibles at night.

We had seven cars start the drive, which I thought was pretty good.  There were a pair of 380SECs, a 450SL, a 300E, a 320CE Cab, a W203 and of course my Jaguar.

The route took us down the old Princes Highway to Picton Road, where we drove over to Menangle road and then up to Chubby Buns Campbelltown.   These roads are great at night, for most of the route, traffic is minimal and they are great rods to cruise along.  This drive was a variation of one we did back in 2023.  That drive was on a cold evening in the middle of winter, so it only had a few attendees.  Based on that, it seemed to make sense to do the route again.

About half way along the drive, I noticed I could only see two sets of headlights behind me, so I stopped to regroup.   It seemed like we lost half the group along the old Princes highway somewhere.  We send out the google maps directions to avoid these things, but that night it didn’t work out so well.   After waiting a while, it wasn’t clear that the others were going to be able to catch up.   We decided to continue to our destination.

When we got to Chubby Buns burgers, it was just the Jaguar, the 450SL and the W203.   About half an hour later the 320CE Cab rolled in.  We later heard from the others that unfortunately they got lost and headed home in the end.

Despite losing almost half the group, it was a good drive.   I enjoyed getting the Jaguar out for the first time of the year, and I think a few of the others felt the same way about their cars.  I enjoy Picton road and Chubby Buns is always a good finishing point.

The post MBCNSW January 2025 night drive – Heathcote to Campbelltown via Picton Road appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

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 was the Picton Road section.    We also included the section down the Princes Highway in our Appin Road drive a few months back.    However, the section between getting off Picton Road until we started to get close to our destination – Chubby Buns in Campbelltown, was new.

Finishing up at Chubby buns was also an advantage, the burgers are much better than at McDonalds.   As is normal in the middle of winter, we had a smaller group this time.   I had my 450SLC, there was a C123 280CE, a 380SEC and a very nice W124.    Somewhere on the drive, I reached the milestone of putting 50,000km on my 450SLC over a 20 year period.

The small group made it easier to stop when one of our group made a wrong turn, and the turn off lane to Sublime point lookout became a good impromptu stopping point.   The roads were really good and practically deserted.

Our four cars meandered our way towards Campbelltown and the Chubby buns burger truck.   Once we had done Appin Road, we took a combination of some tight twisty roads and more option sections as we worked out way north for the final destination.   The actual drive was just over 100km, but I put almost 250km on the car as I don’t live very close to either the start or the end.

It was great to get out for another night drive.  Especially after skipping the June drive and being away for work for a few weeks.    I think this drive worked better going west than east.

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