Misty mountain hop

July's monthly DLCV Sunday run took us into the Yarra Ranges north-east of Melbourne. It was a cold, foggy, drizzly day... and as we climbed higher into the mountains toward the Upper Yarra Reservoir, it was like driving straight into the clouds. The picture shows Michael's V8-250 and Marilyn's SP250 at the top of the climb.

The reservoir had benefited from the recent rain, but was still well under capacity.

An escape from the cold and damp was promised at the Reefton Hotel, an old pub that was built to serve the lumberjacks who would cut down trees, have some lunch, etc, etc in what must have been incredibly rough and remote country way back when.

Having missed the start of the run, Keith Vaughan raced to the meeting point in his 1948 Special Sports, then promptly raced back down again when the word 'lunch' was mentioned!

A very successful Display Day - even without Dame Zara

So, the Daimler Display Day I'd been doing so much work helping to organise went off pretty much without a hitch on Sunday. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but not too hot (even though I did get a very sunburnt neck!)

We had over 40 Daimler and Lanchester cars, and about a dozen 'visitors' (including a good showing of Rovers, a Triumph Dolomite Sprint, a Wolseley 6/110, V12 E-type, lovely late 60s Mercedes convertible, 1924 Buick, MG TC special ...) . There were also plenty of general public visitors wandering by, so I'd say well over 100 people attended.

Among the very special Daimlers were a 1936 Straight-eight limo with Edward VIII lineage; two DS-420s from the Carwood wedding fleet; the 2nd prototype Special Sports, owned by Keith Vaughan (bottom picture); an Empress; and a Conquest Roadster. There were also about 10 SP-250s, a strong turnout of V8 saloons, plenty of DB18 varieties and a fine smattering of Majestics, Majestic Majors and Regencies (well, at least one of each, and two Majors - that's a big showing for these big and now rare cars!)

Richard Bowen's Conquest Roadster (driven on the day by Tony Porter as Richard couldn't make it) won the People's Choice award (top picture); a recently restored pre-war Lanchester was Ladies' Choice and the DB18 register took out the Best Registry Display prize (abve, showing Peter Towns' Empress and Russ Monger's Consort).

Just a few photos here - but I've put the full album up on my Flickr account and Steven Rowlandson has posted his pictures here.

Daimler (and Lanchester!) Display Day, 18 March

Come one, come all!

RACV Rally

Each January, the RACV holds a rally from Melbourne to Mornington (the Mornington Penninsula makes up the eastern side of Port Philip Bay, south of Melbourne). There are four starting points around the city, and hundreds of diverse classics travel together to all meet at the marina at Hastings (on the western side of the penninsula) before traversing the narrow and winding roads to the eastern side. They then travel along the beach road to Mornington, gathering for a display at the racecourse.

There were suprisingly few other Daimlers on the rally this year, but we did see this gorgeous 1930s Light Twenty.

Dressing to match your car is the order of the day, so Kathy and I and our friends Alison and Steve did our best to look late 60s. Kathy and Alison (who had very big hair - must have been industrial-strength hairspray!) did a lot of Twiggy-and-Shrimp-style lunging and posing. And while it's not a Daimler, Kathy does coordinate nicely with the blue 60s Fairlaine.

The weather was a bit wild, so our picnic ended up being eaten in the car - who needs picnic tables when you have the glovebox lid to balance your bubbly on?

We parked next to a close cousin - a Jaguar 240 which had evidently had no expense spared in its restoration. Plenty of people were walking past playing 'spot the difference'.

A fine day out was had by all, and Dame Zara enjoyed the run - despite carrying four passengers and a boot full of chicken and champagne, stop-start traffic as we headed from Melbourne to Frankston, and then some quite hilly going in the drive from Hastings to Mornington, we used just on half a tank on the 120 miles or so: close to 20mpg.

Jag display day

Five DLCV members accepted the kind invitation of the Victorian Jaguar Club to attend their annual Display Day, held in the grounds of Wesley College just off St Kilda Road.

Long-time DLCV member Keith Ashworth has an amazing collection - today he chose to come in his Regency Sportsman: the only example of this rare model in Australia, as far as he's aware.


There were a number of Daimlers among the Jags - this 420 Sovereign caught my eye.


Dame Zara had had a good wash and polish, and sparkled in the sunlight.