2023 Shannons Eastern Creek Car Show

The Shannons Eastern Creek car show is always one of the biggest events in the calendar for the Sydney car scene.    I’ve been going for years, but this is only my second time displaying a car.   This year I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEC and brought my three children along with me.  Last year I took my 250SE.   When you display a car, you get to take it on a parade lap of the track.

This year the show changed quite a lot after many years of using the same formula.   I don’t think these changes were for the better.   For some reason, they decided to discontinue using the display fields on the other side of the track.   It made the show feel smaller.   One of the main things that makes this show good is the size – so making it smaller doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.   I was surprised how few tickets the Mercedes-Benz club had this year.  I don’t know if that is because the show restricted tickets or the club didn’t request them, but such a large part of the display was closed, my assumption is that show restricted them.

Presumably because multiple display areas were now closed, all the clubs moved around for the first time in many years.   For the most part, the larger clubs have not moved out of their regular spots for years.    This year on the other hand they were all over the place.   I think its actually good to move the locations around a bit, to give all the clubs the opportunity to have a ‘good’ spot.    Having said that many of the club displays seemed quite small and underwhelming this year.

This year the also heavily policed the parade lap.   I can only assume this was a requirement from their insurance company.   For a lot of lap we were driving at about 30-40km per hour, and even on the mains straight max speed was 80km/h.   Even my children said we drove to the track faster than we drove around it.

It wasn’t all bad though.   This is still a very good even and well worth the time.   The double decker bus rides around the track are a lot of fun for the family, and there is still a huge selection of interesting cars on display.   Even better, you get to see them driving around the track, not just on display.

The Mercedes club display was off at the second pit area on the other side of the tunnel.    It was quite a good spot, although a bit out of the way.   There would have been room for more cars than the twenty tickets we had.   I was parked next to a very original W116 280SE.  It was an early car, complete with the thin door cards, no rear speakers and front antenna.   These early W116s are now very rare.

One of my favourite cars that I see year after year, the 1930 Cadillac V16 I saw is for sale.  I hope the new owner still brings the car to the show every year.   High end cars like this are not often seen at these big shows with a lot of the general public.     I’m still looking forward to going again next year.