Last night was the April 2022 MBCNSW night drive. Due to the terrible weather we’ve had in Sydney over the last couple of months, it was the first one since January. The last two were both rained out. We generally try to go if its raining, but the amount of rain and flooding made it impossible. The route was one I was looking forward...
I recently attended the Mercedes Clubs National Rally 2022 in Glenelg, SA. Not only did I attend the actual event, but I joined a group of friends in the MBCNSW to create a Classic Mercedes rally within a rally. We all have young children and its not easy to get a lot of time off work, so our goal was to pack as much...
We started the day in White Cliffs, after staying at the Underground Motel. I wasn’t looking forward to the shower in the shared bathroom, but they were actually a lot better than I thought they would be. Overall, it was a cool experience staying in the Underground Motel – I’m glad we did it. Our drive today was to take us all the...
With the rally now over, it was time to start our drive home to Sydney. Like our journey to Adelaide, we had planned a scenic route back. Our route takes us home via Broken Hill, Wilcannia, Cobar and the Barrier highway. Most of our group had not seen this part out Outback Australia before, so were keen to experience it as part of this...
Today was the second and final day of the actual Rally. The two official events were a scenic drive down the coast to Lady Bay, and a dinner and farewell event. Start time for the drive was 10AM, so today was the only chance to a sleep in on our entire trip. The drive was really good. Not only did we see some...
Day four was a bit of a change of pace for our group. We didn’t have many KM to cover as were are now part of the rally proper. The agenda for today was the Show and Shine and then an evening event, held at “The Cube”. Obviously, our cars were not in any state to display in a show and shine, so we...
The National Rally included a Show and Shine in the morning to display the participating cars. The show and shine was held at Wigley park, a very nice spot near the Marina in Glenelg. The cars all had to be in place for 10AM as the show was open to the public from 10-12PM. After a wash first thing in the morning, we assembled...
One of the attractions of this trip was to be able to tick off a few bucket list items. A big part of this was doing the Great Ocean Road in our own cars. Part of the design of our route was to ensure we did the Great Ocean Road in daylight – hence its position as the first item on our third day. ...
Day two dawned on our trip to the Mercedes Clubs national rally with the situation that while the 280CE now had a full battery thanks to the trickle charger, it had no way of charging it while driving. Unless we did something, the car was going to run out of electricity. There has been a recent trend to electrify classic cars, particular in Europe. ...
Today was the first day of our epic drive to the Mercedes-Benz clubs national rally in Glenelg, South Australia. I am going with a group of friends on a road trip to and from the rally which I have detailed in a previous post. Our route took us from the meeting point at McDonalds Heathcote to Orbost, Vic and covered around 620km....
In Australia, each state (and territory) has their own Mercedes-Benz Club. Most countries have a central club with regional chapters. This isn’t really all that surprising given the states could not even agree on basic stuff like a common railway gauge. Every two years one of the clubs hold a “National Rally” event on a rotating basis. The idea is members from all the...
The first night drive of the year was held a bit earlier than usual to avoid the Australia Day Holiday. This was actually a drive we planned for the second half of last year, but it was postponed due to the COVID lockdowns. This month, while we are no longer in lockdown, COVID cases are up in Sydney and tests are not available...
Last night was the final night drive (and last official drive overall) for the Mercedes Club in 2021. Since the lockdown was lifted, we’ve really struggled with the weather for these night drives. Finally, the weather held up and we had a great turn out of 17 cars on the night. It started out hot and humid but cooled off and proved to...
2021 was fifty years since the introduction of the R107 and C107 models. The R107 would go on to be particularly long lived model, finally getting the axe in 1989. Despite being obviously old by then, it was still selling well right through the 80s. As part of the celebrations for the model, the Mercedes Benz Club decided to attempt driving 107 107’s across...
Today was the MBCNSW Youngtimer Sacco Day 2021 – The second annual event. The day is to commemorate the cars of Bruno Sacco, head of design at Mercedes-Benz from 1975-1999. As with last year, the event was held at the HARS aviation museum. This event has become one of the biggest on the MBCNSW calendar. Unfortunately we had heavy rain most of the day. ...
After a three and a half month lockdown, official MBCNSW night drives were back last night. The route was Clovelly to Kurnell. The night drives were supposed to be back two weeks ago, but freak hail again prevented the Berowra ferry drive. It was a lovely spring Sydney evening of about 20c, perfect for an open top Night Drive, so I took my...
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