MBCNSW March 2023 Night drive – Appin Road

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 both times.   At night, there are almost no cars at all on these roads, and there is a nice mix of twisty corners at the start as well as longer cruising sections – especially along Appin road.

The Chubby buns burger truck is also a nice alternative to McDonalds.   They taste like real hamburgers like you used to get at a milkbar, not so processed.   It was quite crowded last night, presumably due to Ramadan.

While earlier in the week it had been quite wet and rainy, but the day of the drive, the weather was good.    We had a pretty decent turn out.   At the start there were three W126s (a 380SEC, 300SEL and my 560SEL), a W116 (450SE), two W124s (230E and 300E) and a R107 SLK.   At the end were were also joined by another W126, this time a 300SE and a C215 CL500.    Around 9 cars is a good number for this sort of drive as it allows us to keep the group together at night.

At chubby buns,  we did a bit of light maintenance, as the owner of the 300SE asked me to check if his electric fans were working.   There is a very simple test you can run to jump the terminals on the temperature sensor.   If everything is working, the fans should roar into life.   They didn’t, so he’s going to have to troubleshoot if its the fan, resistor, wiring, relays or something else.

I also picked up a C107 boot lid that a friend had picked up for me.   I had been on the hunt for one for a while.  When my 450SLC was painted, the shop suggested I get a new boot lid.  The structure has some quite bad rust traps and there was only so much he could do with mine without spending lots of money.  Its not a very good design, and one reason why 107s rust.  The replacement is not perfect, but it looks half decent.

The drive was a lot of fun, and I think most enjoyed it.  It was somewhat soured by the speeding ticket I incurred on the way home.  Of course it was in the 60 section between a 70 and a 90 where the cop was waiting.   Not another car on the road.   Meanwhile, five kilometers back, some guys in hot hatches were street racing on a public road.   But this is the state of traffic enforcement in NSW.  Rake in the dollars with speed traps that catch people going only slightly over an artificially low limit, while ignoring other dangerous activity.