Once participants have finished the Bay to Birdwood route, the event is not over. Next there is the finish festival. All the cars participating line up in the expansive grounds of the National Motoring Museum in Birdwood. Not all cars participating in the Bay to Birdwood participate, but most seem to. it is also possible to buy separate tickets for this event. As you...
Today was the actual Bay to Birdwood event, the core thing we based our trip around. And what an event! It really surpassed my expectations. I don’t think I have ever been to a more community oriented automotive event. Perhaps the closest is the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, but I rate the Bay to Birdwood above that. The event is in three main...
Today was the fourth day of our big road trip to the Bay to Birdwood. However this day is unlike any other in that we didn’t do much driving. Today was meant as a slower today to rest a bit in the middle of the trip. It was also an opportunity to see some other automotive related things and immerse ourselves in the car...
Today we got to sleep in. Going west, the sunrise was later, and so we didn’t leave until 0645. We departed Mildura bound for Renmark, our breakfast stop. Instead of taking the main highway, we took some back roads via Werrimull and Meringur. This was much more pleasant than the main roads with the road trains. We had to pass through Quarantine on the...
Today was the second day of our big road trip to Adelaide for the Bay to Birdwood. As is usual, started just after sunrise at 0630. However, today was going to be different. While most of us were going to stay on the planned route, the owners of the Corvette and Petrol Blue 280CE would go direct to Mildura via Hay to try and...
This Chrysler Museum is a small car museum in the centre of the town of Grenfell. It is run by the owner, and most of the cars on display are cars he has bought over the years. I attended as a stop on my big road trip to Adelaide for the Bay to Birdwood Event. One of our group called ahead to make sure...
Today was the first full day of our big road trip to the Bay to Birdwood in Adelaide. We met at 0615 for an 0630 departure to maximize daylight hours. Events later in the day would make that worthwhile. All the cars started right up and were ready to go. After the rain and fog of the drive up from Sydney it was a...
Our trip to Adelaide for the Bay to Birdwood starts tomorrow morning in Bathurst. We learned very quickly the first year that starting out from Sydney is a bad idea. The goal of day zero is for everyone to make their own way to the start point the evening before. The last few years I’ve had to work on the day, so have arrived...
Over the past four years, a group of friends and I have done annual road trips in our classic cars. Most of them have been constructed around an event, taking back roads there and back. This year the event is the Bay to Birdwood. The Bay to Birdwood is probably the largest event for older cars in Australia. Given that insurance and regulations are...
Yesterday was the October St Ives cars and coffee event. I was free on the day and went along in my Citroen DS. After rain and showers for the last few days, the weather was really nice and the ground wasn’t wet or muddy. The previous weather may have kept people away as numbers were a bit down compared to last time I went. ...
Last night was the September 2026 Night Drive. We revisited a route we last tried in July of 2024. The drive focused on the roads north of Wisemans Ferry. We met up at Hawkins Lookout, as with last time. Unusually, it was quite busy, being used a staging point for a roadworks crew. We left before they started. The route took us north from...
Today was the annual French car show. The event was traditionally held around bastille day in July at Silverwater Park. However, like the issues with the German Car show at Gough Whitlam park, the council would cancel the event at the first sign of moisture. Last year they moved it to September. I didn’t attend as it was on the same day as the...
I attended the National Holden Museum in Coffs Harbour earlier this month. It is quite a new museum, established after the previous Holden Museum in Echuca closed down in 2024. While a lot of the cars in that museum were on loan, the permanent collection was sold off by Burns and Co. Apparently the owner of this museum purchased a decent number of the...
Last week was the annual British Car Show in Sydney. Its always my favorite car show of the year. There are a few reasons for that. It has a size and scale that few other shows can match. It has such variety, and many extremely rare and interesting cars. Rare doesn’t need to mean expensive either. These days you’re more likely to see an...
Last night was supposed to be the August 2026 MBCNSW night drive. It was the first at our new time of 8:30PM, and revisited a good route we used a couple of years ago in Southwest Sydney. I decided to take my Daimler on the drive. While not a Mercedes-Benz, these drives are informal and its pretty common for people to bring other cars...
A practical guide for the 1972 W108 280SE 3.5 — with fewer rabbits to chase By John Tawadros There is nothing quite like driving a smooth-running, high-compression 3.5-litre M116 V8 with a properly functioning Bosch D-Jetronic system. Conversely, driving one that isn’t running properly can be an exercise in frustration, despair and other distinctly first-world problems. This is the story of how I diagnosed...
Previously I had removed the door cards on my Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas to fit new door mirrors and speakers. The material of the door cards was still in good condition, however the backing boards were almost totally disintegrated. Given there were a few edges where it was starting to come apart, I wanted to repair this before the original material was damaged. This...
A week or so ago I was returning from a family event in my 300TE. My son in the middle seat in the rear and my two daughters on either side. Out of nowhere, the dulcet tones from the Becker radio were interrupted by flatulence so powerful it could have been measured on the Richter scale. The source quickly revealed itself when my two...
The big annual car show was on again at Eastern Creek raceway on Sunday. I always try to make a point of going if I can. Not only do you get to see some interesting cars, but my kids enjoy the double decker bus rides around the track as well as the parade lap in the car. Unfortunately this year, while the week leading...
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