Today I joined the Mercedes Club on a drive to Wollombi, which is a small town on the way to the Hunter Valley. The town was used in the 1840’s for convicts to stay while they built a road from Sydney to the Hunter and ultimately beyond. The Mercedes club has been organizing some rather interesting sounding drives recently so it was...
There are three main ways of getting Mercedes-Benz workshop manuals. The most common these days is via CD-ROM. However the quality of the scans are woeful, and the pictures are generally next to useless (the diagrams are ok if not too detailed). You can also find the old printed manuals on Ebay. Many sellers want silly money for the manuals, but...
The W123 Mercedes has developed a reputation as workhorse the world over, with dilapidated examples still plying their trade as taxis 30-40 years after they rolled off the production line. But finally a transition is occurring. The W123 is rightfully being considered more than just a workhorse – cars are being restored, books written about the model and images of war torn countries...
When I purchased my Citroen DS21, what attracted me to it was that it was the model I wanted and virtually rust free. It provided a solid foundation, but needed a bit of attention on some cosmetic items to get it where I wanted to be. This post is meant as a summary of some of the improvements that I have done since I...
I helped out a friend today for a wedding with the Traction Avant. Tractions are not often seen as wedding cars, but they are rather striking and work pretty well. For this wedding two Light 15s were used. The big bodied cars would probably work better, but the light 15 was roomy enough for five people. You do notice the...
Mercedes had rather elegant steering wheels in the 1960s. Later, safety concerns led to a change to the padded, plastic type. These were thin style, and from an era where driving gloves were the norm rather than the exception. As was the trend at the time, there was a separate horn ring. There was also an early nod to safety with a padded center. These...
My 450SLC was starting to slip a little in reverse, especially under load (e.g. up a hill). The transmission was shifting gears very well other than this one area, and the fluid looked clean and at the right level. The 450SLC uses the 722.0 transmission, which unlike the later models has an adjustable B3 band (which is used for engaging reverse). This...
I was recently introduced to the Rover P5 at a car event, and while it was always a car I was aware of, I had never really examined it in any great detail. The Rover P5 was the higher end car offered by Rover at the time, competing with the likes of the larger Jaguars. As far as I know, it was the...
The 2016 CARNivale was moved from the City (Sydney CBD) to Parramatta Park, due to the light rail construction. CARNivale is a car show, held every Australia day since 1986, previously held on Macquarie street and around Hyde Park. It has always been quite limited in terms of the number of cars allowed to be displayed (around 500 this year), which given the...
I was recently in Munich and was able to spend some time at the BMW Museum. It is a nice museum and well worth a look, and you can see most of it in about an hour and a half. They have some nice exhibits, covering the history of their motorbikes, the first car which was actually an Austin 7 under licence, and then a...
October 18, 1953 The Citroen is as stable as it appears possible to make a car under our present design technique. Un-doubtedly the out-standing characteristic of the car is the way it holds on to the road surface, particularly on corners and bends. Although the Citroen was designed in France about 19 years ago, it has persisted essentially in its original form, with the...
I recently came across an old price list for Mercedes-Benz in Australia in the mid 60s. They were very expensive cars back then, probably more so than they are today, and even a base model was around double a holden, let alone the range topping (for the saloons) 300SE. These prices are for the standard car, so most buyers would have selected at...
The front indicator lenses on the DS were badly cracked and discoloured, so it seemed like a good idea to replace them. They are available aftermarket and are quite easy to change over. I had started what I assumed would be a quick job a while ago, but the new lenses used spade connectors instead of bullet connectors and I did not have...
I’ve now moved two cars onto the new 60 day logbook trial with the RMS, and the cost savings are well worth it! The cost of full registration is just a bit above $1,000 if you assume a green slip of over $500 and the Rego of a little under $500. The cost of the new rego is around $150 including...
The world has officially gone mad, with prices for Kombi vans (aka the VW Bus) reaching the stratosphere. This to me is a clear bubble market and anyone who has a split window Kombi should sell it now while you can. You’ll probably be able to buy it back for a third of the money in 5 years. Offered for auction was...
I have always admired Rolls Royce and Bentley automobiles, and was impressed with the display at the British Car Show, so decided to go down and see the 2015 Rolls Royce Owners Club concours. The event was held at Linnwood House, which is a historic house located in Sydney’s western suburbs. The House has some very nice grounds that are perfect for...
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