Mothers? Day dawned damp and cool with the roads still wet from overnight rain. Thick fog filled the hollows and rolled its way along the valleys making the drive into Warragul rather hazardous. The battery in your correspondent?s Fiat 124 Coupe was charged up and ready to roll, but the combination of lumpy cams and big chokes on a cold morning extended the engine?s cantankerous warm-up period to include the whole trip into town. Several other participants had also noted the abrupt seasonal change, the number of roofless sports cars was certainly down on previous months and the lack of motorcycles was noted.
Doug Armour and Des Dillon defied the elements, rugged up and drove their very open vintage sports cars to our gathering. Des?s 1927 Type 35b Bugatti is always a crowd-puller with its supercharged straight eight engine and Grand Prix heritage, but it is always interesting to see the reactions to Doug?s home-made Fiat special with its Maserati-inspired coachwork, flat-head Ford V8, Fiat 509 chassis and other components sourced from a range of donor vehicles.
There may not have been many open sports cars this month, but the weather was perfect to coax out four classic MGBGT coupes. The GT often takes second billing to its more popular roadster sibling, but with the choice of 4-cylinder and V8 engines, a useful opening hatch at the back and weather tight bodywork they?re hard to ignore when looking for a practical classic sports car. The MX5 contingent were strongly represented again this month, their easily erected soft top or optional hardtop make them as weather tight as a coupe ? a far cry from many classic UK sporties.
Several vehicles made debut appearances this month. It?s not every day that you see a powder blue two-tone Bentley and a T-model Ford in the same carpark, there was also a green classic convertible Mustang on NSW plates and a relatively rare 2002 Mustang in red. Trevor Batt brought along his recently acquired Mercedes SLK 280 convertible and Richard Rowley has traded his late model silver Jag in on a new red XE ? S model that had only just arrived from a dealership in Tasmania.
Despite it being Mothers? Day, there were somewhere in the vicinity of 70 vehicles on display, which doesn?t count the work utes and Landcruisers that some members elected to drive to this month?s event. The fog eventually lifted and the sun did pop out briefly from between the clouds to tempt our sports car owners into removing their hoods. The drive home was certainly more enjoyable than the drive in, so the Fiat and I grabbed the opportunity and took the long way around.
Well done with the change to artistic photos!
Nice photos all close up shots of the front gaurds
Hi Steve just a comment. Polished up my 1960 MK11 to bring to the meeting. Been driving it last couple of days starting first hit. Been testing for the run from Newborough to a Warragul. Left in the driveway last night under the carport on a slight up hill incline. Cleaned the mist off the windows this morning tried to start fired one time then not interested. Checked the spark OK. After market petrol pump was ticking away. Eventually jumped in the Territory to just make an appearance. Caught up with a couple of friends. Richard with his new Jaguar !Returned checked the su carbies which were half full. Eventually put another fuel pump on and that did the trick. So at the end had a reasonable day. I Want to put in the for sale part of the magazine. I tried to insert it but not sure how to post photos. I have it on Carsales.com Regards Stan