MBCACT always puts on a special display for this show and Wheels 2024 was no different.   The goal was to show the different generations of the S class (and predecessors) and the E class (and predecessors).   I wasn’t able to go last year, but the theme was AMG cars.   In 2022, I took my 450SLC and the theme was a car from each year from the 50s to today.

In order to show the different generations of the S-Class, I was asked to bring my W111 Cabriolet.  This was a great opportunity to take the car on a longer trip now its running properly.  Of course, less than a week after I agreed to show the car, the power steering pully disintegrated, but I managed to get a used pully and have it installed in time.

On the drive there, the engine ran perfectly, but the ride wasn’t all that good.  I think it may be related to the tyres, perhaps they have flat spots.    They are 8 years old now, so its time for a change.

As in 2022, the show was good.  MBCACT was allocated a much smaller area this year, although there was actually plenty of room at the showground.   Probably something that can be addressed for next year.

There are some nice cars in the MBCACT and this year was no different.   I had a very original 230S W111 on one side of my car and an immaculate 280S W108 on the other.    The 230S is still with the original family.    Having all the S-classes lined up allowed for the different design features to be observed from one generation to the next.   It was intresting to see that the W116 still had tiny vestigial fins.  Kind of like the vestigial legs of a whale.

The rest of Wheels 2024 was also very good.  There was a lot of variety.  For example, it was quite cool to see a Stanley Steamer puffing around the showground.    A bit smaller than in 2022, but that probably had to do with the weather.  While the morning of the show was hot and sunny, the day before had been stormy and storms were forecast for the afternoon.

On the way back, the rain was torrential.   All the modern SUVs were pulling over onto the shoulder, and few seemed to understand how to operate their rear fog light.    The W111 Cabriolet just kept going, albeit at about 50km for long stretches.

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The night before the ACT club normally organize a dinner.   This year was a fun informal event, where we all had to guess some rare Mercedes parts, including a C107 glove box torch, fuse pliers, a wooden tool for pre-war radiator caps and more.   The one we couldn’t work out was why some compact (W114/W115) lug wrenches have a tab that means you can’t use it on alloy wheels.     And the same part number as lug wrenches that don’t have that tab.

This year I took my 560SEC and entered it the ‘Silver’ road class.    I figure it would be a good trial run for the road trip to Melbourne I am planning for November, especially after the recent transmission rebuild.    The car went very well and I didn’t notice anything I wasn’t already aware of.    The wheel wobble that I already knew about was quite annoying though.    I didn’t win anything, but I didn’t expect to.  My SEC is very much a driver, and would be lucky to even win Silver class.   As I have covered before, I think the Silver class is great and I wish the NSW event would do something similar.

This year one of the judges had to pull out, so I was asked to help.   I’ve never judged before and it was a good experience to do it for the first time.  I learned quite a lot and it also helped me really look carefully at the Gold class cars I was judging.  My allocation was exterior judging.   I think there were about 15 cars to judge.

The thing that became apparent was the need to separate the cars to make sure the excellent cars are separated from the really nice ones and the really nice ones from the good ones.    It meant that cars that looked quite nice on the surface in a particular category might get a score of 5 or 6, because there were a few grades of nicer cars in that category.     If I ever do again, my experience this year will be very helpful to do it better.

Having been involved in the judging,   I was keen to see the results, and the overall winner and runner up were very well deserved.   The winner was a 250SE coupe in amazing condition, and the runner up a 420SEL.     While these two were the clear winners my personal favourite was a green 220Sb fintail.   The owner had driven it up from Melbourne and it had an interesting and colour combination of a green exterior with a red interior.   It worked really well.    The paint wasn’t perfect, but it had a great patina to it.

The ACT show is always so well organized.   The event team had pre-painted lines on the grass for where all the cars should park.    The gold class cars were arranged in a circle around a circular flower bed.   Different models were parked together with signs explaining some details about the cars.    There were less cars from NSW than normal, as MBCNSW had a different event today.

Being focused on the judging, I didn’t spend as much time looking at the other marques as I usually would.   The BMW and Porsche clubs are more modern focused, but the BMW display had some nice older models.   The VW display is also quite varied, with plenty of beetles, Kombis and also more modern cars.

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As with the 2019 event, I chose to drive down on Saturday so I could show a car and attend the dinner.   This year I chose to bring my 560SEL on the trip.   The running issues on my 250SE are not quite fully sorted out for a long drive, and given the weather all year, I expected decent rain.   I also didn’t have undercover parking this year.

I entered my 560SEL in the silver division, which is basically for road going cars.   Its a great idea and one that I wish the club in NSW would adopt.   It really opens up the event for everyone vs people who have nut and bolt restorations or spend weeks with white gloves on finding that last spec of dust.

They have quite a good system where if you win silver class, you must compete in gold next time (full concours).  And if you win gold you must compete in champions class.   Next time I bring my 250SE, I’ll be in gold, as I won silver in 2019.   Assuming I don’t win in Gold that year I can compete in Silver the year after.    That promotion/relegation system means that everyone gets an opportunity.  Its a great system.     And a huge contrast with NSW that collapsed the categories putting it out of reach except for the super wealthy.

The highlight of the show was the 1938 230 Cabriolet B, owned by John and Sandra Green.    It’s an amazing restoration when you look at the before and after pictures.   pre-war Mercedes-Benz models are very rare in Australia and it was great to see one of this quality on display.

The ACT event always does well with the roundies too, there was a great display of them parked nearby the 230 Cabriolet.   I also noticed how many nice W114/115 saloons there were on display at the show.   That model seems far better represented in the ACT than in NSW.  I also admired a W109 six cylinder in very nice condition.  I love all the small luxury touches on the W109 you only spot if you look closely.     On the other side there are generally more SLs at the NSW event.  Maybe it’s the weather.

Overall there were about 80 Mercedes-Benz on display with a good selection of the various models.   Probably the only real exception were the ‘presidential’ class of cars such as the 300 Adenauer and the 600.   For various reasons, we only had about 4-5 cars on display from NSW this year.   In other years we have had up to 20, so hopefully next time we will be able to bring a big contingent.

The BMW display was very large this year.   You can see the different focuses of the clubs – the BMW club is far more focused on the new M models vs the classics that were in quite small numbers.   The same went for the Porsche and Audi displays.   The VW display on the other hand is a bit more diverse, with the Beetle and the Kombi favorites.

The 2022 ACT German car show was held at Queanbeyan park.   I thought it was a good location – better than the greyhound track used last year.   There was plenty of room for more cars if they choose this venue again next year.

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Not only was it fun to go down and be part of the Wheels 2022 display, it turned out to be a great shakedown run for my 450SLC.   I’m planning to taking the car on a 4,000km road trip for the Mercedes-Benz clubs national rally next month.  COVID restrictions have meant few opportunities for longer drives, to make sure there is nothing I need to attend to before the rally.

In addition, the Wheels 2022 event, the Rolls Royce Owners club was holding their federal rally close by.   It was only a 10 minute walk to go and check out the display.

As I was in my 450SLC, I was representing 1977.    I was also joined by a friend from the NSW club who happened to be representing the next year, 1978.  I drove down to Canberra Friday evening to visit family before the event.  In the last couple of weeks, the east coast of Australia has been hit pretty hard with storms.   This weekend was no exception the the only two nights out of the year I had to park the car outside it bucketed down with rain.   I ended up with some minor leakage, presumably from the windscreen, but nothing too serious.    We were very lucky with the show itself – the rain held off all morning.

While the Mercedes-Benz display was really strong, numbers were down in the areas for the other clubs.   I suspect the rain kept them away.   A pity, it would have been good to see more of those cars.    I really liked the idea from the MBCACT for Wheels 2022.   I’ve been to a few of their events now, and I always find them well organized.    Just parking the cars together in their ‘eras’ is a great idea.

The 50’s.

The 50’s display was really strong.   There are not so many of these cars still on the road, so to get so many out was a big achievement.    As you would expect the Roundie (Ponton) models dominated this display, however there was a really nice 170Da, a 300b Adenauer and a couple of the four cylinder models.   The later one even having a full length Webasto sunroof.

• 1951: 170Da (136)
• 1952: – (1:18 scale model)
• 1953: 300b (186)
• 1954: 180D (120)
• 1955: 220a (180)
• 1956: 220S (180)
• 1957: 220S (180)
• 1958: 220S (180)
• 1959: 220S (180)
• 1960: 190b or 190Db (121)

If I had been able to pick one to take home, I think it would have been the blue 220S representing 1956.  1952 was missing, so it was a nice touch that the club provided a 1:18 scale model of a 300SL.

The 60’s.

The 1960’s display was a very nice mix of models available in that era.   1962 was missing, but was represented by a model of a W112.   The display was also a nice mix of survivors to best in show concours winners.   The W110 190 was a real barn find, delivered to its new owner on the day and still with many interesting early W110 touches.   My favorite is obviously the 220SE Cabriolet, produced earlier the same year as my car.   Excluding that, I liked the 300SEL representing 1968.

• 1961: 220S or 220b (111)
• 1962: – (1:18 scale model)
• 1963: 230SL (113)
• 1964: 220SE Cabriolet (111)
• 1965: 190 (110)
• 1966: 250SE Coupe (111)
• 1967: 200 (110)
• 1968: 300SEL 2.8 (109)
• 1969: 280SL (113)
• 1970: 300SEL 3.5 (109)

The 70’s.

The 70’s display was another really good mix of cars.  It also showed clearly how quickly the styling modernized from the earlier cars to the late.   I was part of this display representing 1977.   Given how popular they are in club circles, I was surprised there were no R107s in the lineup, but it was nice to see some of the other cars from this era.   Had I been given the opportunity to swap my car for something else in the line, was much as there were some very nice cars, I think I would have still been driving home in my SLC.      The 280SE representing 1971 was an interesting car as it appeared to be equipped with leather upholstery.   Very unusual for W108 in Australia.

• 1971: 280SE (108)
• 1972: 280SE 3.5 (108)
• 1973: 230 (114)
• 1974: 450SEL (116)
• 1975: 280E (114)
• 1976: 280CE (114)
• 1977: 450SLC (107)
• 1978: 280CE (123)
• 1979: 280SEL (116)
• 1980: 300D (123)

The 80’s.

The 1980’s display highlighted that while the top of the line models were rarest when sold new, these days they outnumber the standard models.   Especially in the early 80s, the exclusive coupe models dominated the display.    It was quite interesting to compare the two late 280CE’s with the 70’s 280CE models.   While some things had changed, quite a lot had not.

I think I would have taken the 500SL home had I the chance.

• 1981: 380SEC (126)
• 1982: 280SL (107)
• 1983: 380SEC (126)
• 1984: 280CE (123)
• 1985: 280CE (123)
• 1986: 300SE (126)
• 1987: 190E 2.6 (201)
• 1988: 500SL (107)
• 1989: 420SEL (126)
• 1990: 300CE-24 (124)

The 90’s.

The 90’s display was dominated my the high end W124 models, particular the cabriolet.   The star of this line up was the original AMG coupe, but the convertibles are pretty impressive too.   I didn’t quite catch the model numbers of some of the later cars. I would have taken the AMG coupe from this era.

After all the COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021 it was great to go to a real car show again.   The MBCACT outdid themselves with the Wheels 2022 event.   I hope to be back again, and if they do the yearly display again, maybe representing another year.

The displays from the other marques added a lot of variety to the show, and hopefully next year numbers will be back up, if the weather holds.

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