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Today is National Motoring Heritage Day (NMHD) for 2026.  It is held each year on the 3rd Sunday in May.  The idea behind it is for all the national car clubs to organize an event on the same day so the public see historic vehicles out and about.  This presumably promote the motoring hobby and showcases the depth of interest in it. In prior years I've often attended the big car show in Berry.  That was always quite a good event, but the location means it seems to be cancelled due to weather as much as is actually held.  The last time I was able to attend was 2023. This year I attended the event at the event at the Australian Motorlife Museum.   The Illawarra section of the Jaguar club were also there so I could have gone with them too.   I've been to the museum a few times before and it is always well worth the visit.   The last time was also in 2023. As well as the trip to the museum, the event also included a scenic drive to the Museum.  The meeting point was at Partridge VC rest area.   I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEL.  I chose the 560SEL for two reasons.  Firstly, the forecast was for rain and the W126 is very stable in the wet.   Secondly, I had recently had the intake manifold gaskets replaced and this would be my first decent drive in the car since that job was done. This all sounded good on paper, but there was a small problem.  The club hadn't actually picked a route or nominated anyone to lead the drive from the rest area to the museum.  After waiting about 30 minutes, we realized nobody was coming. We set our GPSs to the museum and just headed there.   At least it wasn't raining at the time. While I have been to the museum 3-4 times, I had never been on event day before.   Going on an event day meant they had a number of the cars running and driving around.   There was a replica of the Benz Patent Motorwagon from 1986, a car from 1901 and another that I think was from the nineteen teens.   We actually passed the latter on the way to the museum on the motorway.   It was getting along rather nicely. One thing I learned was that most of the cars from the 19th century didn't have brakes.  I had assumed they would also have rudimentary rear wheel only brakes.  But apparently they didn't.   I wouldn't want to ride a pushbike without brakes, let alone a car - no matter how slow. The museum even had a steam car on display from 1901 with no brakes that was used until about 25 years ago.   Apparently driven to a church service each week.   I can't fathom driving on the public roads in 2001 with no brakes at all, even if the church was close by to the owners residence As well as the cars that were driving around, they had a nice display of club pre-war cars just outside the entrance. For example a bevvy of Austin 7's parked outside.  Going to the museum on a day like this was worth it and an extra benefit from the normal way of attending the museum. Inside the collection was good as always - focusing mostly on pre-war cars.   The collection does change from time to time, so while many cars were the same as from my last visit, there were a few changes.

Last night was our first night drive since January, the February and March night drives both being rained out.   After a bit of rain the night before, it turned out to be a lovely evening. This was also the first drive we using a new navigation app the club has purchased called 'Tourboss'.   I was quite keen to try it as at night. I can really only see two cars behind me, so its not always clear if the group is still together or not.   The tourboss app shows me the locations of all the cars on the drive.

We had a pretty good turn out, probably a combination of the good weather and not having had one for a couple of months.  I took my 1978 450SE.   As well as my car was a C123 280CE, R107 280SL, C107 450SLC, C126 380SEC, W124 300E x2 & E320 and S124 300TE. We had originally planned to meet on the eastern side of Galston Gorge and include that in the route.  The Gorge had been closed earlier in the year for roadworks. There was a lot of conflicting data about if it was open at night or not.   Since it wasn't that clear, I decided not to include it.   I left a bit early to get to the drive, and found it was in fact open.

Our new starting location was outside Galston shops. From there we headed out to Cattai Ridge Road, before taking Wisemans Ferry Road up to the Old Northern Road and then the Old Northern Road back down to Dural Maccas.   This is a route we've done a few times before and I always really enjoy it.   There is generally not a lot of traffic at night and there is a nice mix of tight corners and faster sections. Overall I thought the tourboss app worked reasonably well.   I used it to Navigate to the start point.  That experience was so-so as the route it took wasn't the one I would have chosen. More importantly it lacks speed camera location information, and Sydney is bristling with them.   So in future I would probably use Waze to get to the location. The experience for the users on our drive was pretty decent.  I set the route up in the admin portal which includes all the waypoints.  Tourboss the generates a six digit code.   That code was in our event booking system, along with details of how to get the app.   Everyone turned up with the app installed and with the code entered, so they were ready to go.

When the event is started, it then shows the location of all the other cars.  It also pre-downloads the maps, which is quite good if going through areas with poor mobile coverage.   As the 'tour leader' I had a few different views I could use. One as a normal navigation system and then one where it was more about showing me the location of the other cars.   Without reading glasses, I couldn't see the actual names of the people, but that probably wasn't important as I could see the spread of the icons.   For example, for a while two cars fell behind for a bit and then later caught up. Something I was able to see in real time. One of the best things was that you don't need to hit 'continue' when you get to a waypoint like with google.  For a pre-planned route it was pretty seamless.  On the downside, the lack of speed camera, roadworks and hazard warnings that waze gives you is a negative, as is the lack of dark mode at night.   We also had one member who has a phone with a square screen and the app couldn't handle that. There was also one situation where it went a bit haywire.  All of a sudden it thought a roundabout that was 7km away was actually 250 meters in front.  Then it got confused and started slowly increasing the distance to where it was.   I knew that section of road pretty well, so it was obviously nonsense, but it would have been confusing if I hadn't.  It wasn't just me that experienced that, and it happened on a bit of the drive where the route crossed over itself, which may have been the cause. Overall my verdict is that the app is pretty useful for running a group driving event. In an ideal situation I would probably want two phones running, one for this and one for waze.   It will be a useful addition to our night drives. The drive itself was great and all the cars performed well.

Back in 2023, I attended the MBCNSW Amazing Rally with my three kids.   They really enjoyed it and had been asking me when it was going to be run again every couple of months.   After a false start due to bad weather, event came back for 2025.  My kids (11, 8 & 8) were keen to go.

This year, the event was held in the southwest of Sydney, in the area between Mulgoa and Lakesland.  As with last year,  each team was given a sheet with a series of clues and directions to follow.   It was an observation rally, so the idea was to spot various things and then answer the questions on the sheet.   We also got a goodie bag at the start. This year I took my 1981 240D.  With a team of four, a four door car is a must.   The 240D did well on the day and I didn't have to worry about fuel at all.   We started the day with about half a tank.  After doing almost 350 kilometers, we still had between half and a quarter of a tank left. As well as each of the clues, there were four to five lolly stops along the way which my kids really enjoyed.  As far as I could tell, we came around middle of the pack which I was pretty happy with - we even won a prize for being the team that had travelled the longest to get to the event.

Compared to the last time we did this event in 2023, my kids were able to do more of the navigation, being that little bit older. The Mercedes Club has always been quite family friendly.  I think events like these are a great way to get children and different type of members involved.  I know my kids are keen to do it again next year if we are able.  To me an event like this represents some of the best aspects of classic car ownership.  Its not about just owning the car but the experiences you have with it.

Our July 2025 night drive was a bit unusual.  Instead of the suburban outskirts where we normally drive, this was an inner city route.  I generally avoid inner city routes, as they are so hard to keep a group together at night.  The advantage they have is they require less travel to get to and from the route from most participants. The Seven bridges route was not a new one, we did it back in January 2023.  It had worked fairly well last time. We started at McDonalds Drummoyne.  Even with a group of 8 cars only, there was not enough parking so if we did the route again, I would change the start point.  The turnout of 8 cars was quite good given the rain.   I had originally planned to take my 450SLC, but with the rain, I chose the 300TE. On the drive we had a good variety of cars.   Oldest was a 1972 280SE 3.5, followed by a 1977 450SLC and a 1983 380SEC.   Then we had the strong W124 contingent with two 300Es, a 300CE and my 300TE.   We also had a modern GLA35 AMG.

The point of the route is to make Sydney harbour the centrepice of the drive.   The drive was a big loop, starting out north and heading clockwise.  We headed North and crossed the Gladesville bridge, followed by the Tarban Creek Bridge.    Even getting out of the Maccas parking not was not easy and our group was already split up by the time we hit Gladesville Bridge. The next part of the route took us up towards Roseville Bridge.   Once we crossed Roseville Bridge, we had planned a stop at the start of Wakehurst Parkway, but I had sent an older version of the directions so we missed it. That didn't matter as the group was largely together by this point.   However, once we passed Spit Bridge, Google Maps had a bit of a panic attack, and decided that the waypoint for Spit Bridge was actually the parking lot underneath the bridge.  It then sent a few of our group off on tangent. It got worse when we arrived at the approach to the Sydney Harbour bridge.   Road works crews were just closing the entrance to the Harbour bridge.   There was a diversion through North Sydney via Berry St.   This was a traffic nightmare, and google had another panic attack and decided it wasn't possible to get onto the Harbour bridge via Berry St. These issues with google and the roadworks completely split up our group.  A few people decided to head home at that point vs continue over the Anzac bridge.  I kept going and eventually headed back to Maccas.  For a while I was the only car there, and I was wondering if this would be a drive when only one car managed to complete!  In the end three more arrived and we completed the route.

Thursday was the March night drive for 2025.  It had been a rainy day in Sydney the day before and in the morning, so at lunchtime, the prognosis for the drive did not look good.   We only had a couple of sign ups and the weather looked iffy.

Luckily for us the weather cleared up and we were set for a good drive.   Our meeting point was Krispy Kreme in Penrith, where people could get a donut (or two) if they wanted.    We had seven cars come for the drive, which is a good number.   I took my 560SEC, fresh from the repair to the crank pully.   We also had another W126 - a 380SE.  The owner of this car was attending his first club event and the car had been in the family for over 30 years. We also had a good showing from the W124 contingent.   The M103 was represented well with a coupe, wagon and a couple of sedans.   We also had a more modern W203 in the group.

Our route took us up the steep and winding old Bathurst Road through Blaxland, before joining the great western highway for a while.   At Springwood, we turned off and headed along Hawkesbury road.   We stopped at the lookout to admire the view.   This time there were no other shenannigans from the locals.   We encountered a few slow P platers but otherwise the roads were pretty empty. After trying to identify all the sights from the lookout, we continued along Hawkesbury road until finally arriving at Windsor McDonalds.     It turned out to be quite a good drive and the weather held off.

I had no issues with my 560SC other than a flat battery when I set off.  This is not surprising, as I hadn't taken the car on a longer drive since December.  A consequence of the crank pully being damaged meant that even when started briefly, there was no charging from the alternator.