Hometown Stuff

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Bay to Birdwood - 24 Sep 2006


This morning, same as every year, my Sunday sleep-in was disturbed by chuggings, rattlings and ah-oogah horns. This year about 1500 vintage vehicles began the 72 km run from the Adelaide coast to Birdwood (home of the Motor Museum) in the hills.
After finding three sets of flat camera batteries I briefly joined the crowd (over 100,000 expected according to the paper) out in the icy cold and blustering wind. I wouldn't know a cabriolet from a char-a-banc but they are great to watch (and I had to go out for the paper anyway).

The turnout was really diverse. As I do every year I got out too late to see my old rescue truck, now in Fire Service livery. Everything was there from Gangbusters to Grease to Grandma Duck's Old Electric, pony cars and military collectibles, motorbikes and even penny-farthings.


There were some beautiful 'fifties fuel-guzzlers like this yellow Chevy - nearly all of which appeared when my camera was unready.

To offset the imports there were a good number of classic Holdens, sedans and utes, back to the FJ.


Among the military buffs was this guy with his Ford gun tractor, limber and 25-pounder gun, which would probably deter anyone breaking into his hobby room and was clearly not covered by our gun ownership legislation.


The rally seemed to be dominated by pre-war vehicles such as the Ford "A", and among them were some remarkable commercial vehicles - grocery vans, articulated trucks, and even something like a bus (a char-a-bancs I suspect...)


Service stations were apparently welcome waypoints and the RAA road service vans were travelling in the rally in ones and twos. And I am sure mechanical failures were the last thing on the minds of the penny-farthing crowd.