2012 Mercedes-Clubs National Rally - Adelaide This Weekend

[pastelgrey300D]

The 2012 National Rally of Mercedes-Benz clubs is just about to start. This year SA is the host state.

There will be approx 210 participants with 100 vehicles taking part and enjoying South Australia’s great touring roads and sightseeing spots.

But even if you're not a club member (or if you are but aren't offically coming) there are several displays we will be putting on if you want to come along, see the cars and have a chat. I'll be there with the blue 230S (unfortunately due to moving house I haven't had time to get 'Little Red' the 190c ready).

We will be at Leconfield Winery McLaren Vale on Saturday 7th April from 10-11am.

On Sunday 8th April when we will have all the cars on the lawns of The National Motor Museum at Birdwood from 10.30am till 2pm.

The only cost involved in either place is the entry to the Museum grounds at Birdwood (we also have 4 cars on display inside the museum, including a 220SEb belonging to one of our ozbenz members!).

We have a wonderful variety of Mercedes-Benz vehicles registered for the rally from lovingly restored older models right up to recent releases. Something for everyone!!

For further details of when and where we will be motoring through the region please visit the club website:
http://msa.mercedes-benz-clubs.com
and click on or mouse over the ‘2012 National Rally’ link at the top left of the homepage for more details.

[John Green]

Where are the pictures Dave??

[pastelgrey300D]

Here:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=14704

Another member had already started a pic thread so I've added mine on. Will probably be a few more to follow from Greg in Oz and others.

[Greg in Oz]

We had a great time at the National Rally (as members of the ACT and Victorian MB Clubs) and only returned home to Sydney on Sunday night after extending our holiday. We would have liked to have done the pre-rally tour along the Great Ocean Road with the Victorian MB club however the NSW school holidays did not fit in with that for us. Instead, we did the shortest route to Adelaide across the Hay plains (with a single overnight stop at Balranald) and did a similar trip to that organised by the Victorian MB club in reverse after leaving Adelaide.

The event was superbly hosted by the MB Club in South Australia and it was nice to meet David and put another face to a name on OZBENZ. The accommodation, meals and organisation were superb as were the various venues visited and drives over the Easter long weekend. To top it all off, we spent a couple of days in Melbourne with our friends who also attended the rally. This worked out perfectly as on Saturday the property Como Gardens (at the base of Mount Dandenong) was opened to the public. For those who don't know, Como Gardens is owned by George Hetrel who, in additional to having a magnificent property and gardens, has a stunning car collection which includes such gems as an 1896 Benz, a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K cabriolet, and a 1927 Bugatti type 35c. We were even treated to hearing George fire up the supercharged Bugatti, a car which he still races and holds the lap record for its class at Eastern Creek. If there is sufficient interest, I can post some photos of George's cars when I post photos from the National rally. I have lots of photos but need to sort and resize them before I can post them in the other topic.

What I have done since returning home is work out that our 1990 300TE covered 4,030km in the 11 days we were away. To our last fuel stop before arriving home we had covered 3,784km and used 399 litres (at a cost of $624) to achieve an overall fuel consumption of 10.5 litres per 100km. I'm pretty happy with that considering the wagon was well loaded (4 passengers and luggage almost to the roof in the load area), some of the driving was in Adelaide and Melbourne, the air-con was used for much of the journey, most of the highway speed limits were 110km/h, and for the 10 hour drive home from Melbourne to Sydney the engine wasn't switched off at all, including leaving it idling during our lunch and fuel stops. You are probably wondering why. The wagon performed faultlessly for the entire journey (including using less than half a litre of engine oil) except that on our final day in Melbourne the ignition lock became troublesome. Not wanting to have it fail half way home, I decided that once we headed off from Melbourne I would not switch it off until we arrived home.