Club Events

If you have any queries about any of the events below, please contact the the person listed beside the event, the Club President or any committee member. All enthusiasts welcome.

COMING EVENTS:

19 September 2010 - Mystery Run. Ken Williams will be organising a Mystery Run so keep this date free on your calendar. 10.30 am start from The Reserve at the end of Walker Road, Point Chevaliar. Route will be provided at the start and members can have lunch at the destination.

17 October 2010 – Scenic Run to Kariotahi Beach, with lunch at Castaways Restaurant. Details to follow.

21 November 2010 – Grass Gymkhana. At David Winn's paddocks. Details to follow.

12 December 2010 (provisional date) - XMAS Party - Details to follow

6 February 2011 - Galaxy of Cars, MOTAT, Western Springs

13 February 2011 - Concourse de Elegance, Ellerslie Race Course

Past Events:

Annual Prize Giving Dinner
It all started as a cold and wet winter's evening on Friday the13th of August, as the Mercedes Club members drove to the Portside Bar at Auckland's viaduct harbour to meet and be greeted for their annual Prize Giving Dinner. It was warm around the fire-place where the attendees mingled and chatted with friends, familiar faces nodded their greetings across a elegently crowded room and soon it was a relaxing evening.
Guests later moved into the dining area where seating was comfortable and conversations continued over wine and dinner as the annual awards were announced by Ken Williams, while the trophies were handed out by Garry Boyce to rounds of applause from the appreciative audience.
The complimentary wine went down well with the chef's cuisine and over-all it was a very dignified and enjoyable event which progressed into a very pleasent evening.
For a list of the trophy winners, click here.

The Annual General Meeting
Of the Mercedes Benz Club Auckland was held on 22 June 2010 and was well attended. To read the President’s Report, please click here.

The Mid Winter Garage Raid held on Sunday 20 June 2010
Lifestyle blocks, big barns and old cars. It does not get any better than this. A few lucky cars do not get terminated but live on in Franklin County. 31 adventurous members sallied forth to investigate. Starting point [after coffee] was the Rex Benn's emporium. Rex bought a 1929 Austin 7 for 50 pounds in 1962 and still has it 2200 miles latter. And he has all sorts of other stuff, including MGs, a very cute Model T Ford [twist his arm and he will sell it], bicycles, outboard motors, toys, a pair [brace? Set?] of whale bone corsets, a 1952 English Heala Ray, that treats pimples, nerves, constipation, asthma, varicous veins, perfidity etc scientifically, and much more. A scenic drive on and we were at the Barry Philips [mini racer of the 60s and 70s and trucker] collection. Saw only one mini, a moke, many trucks, utes, Jags, a very impressive lineup of bowsers and signage. Be very careful you don't get the museum bug Barry, Franklin is not big enough for two Heala Rays! Next stop was at Gary Langstones, whose wife bakes a very nice muffin. An eclectic collection of cars. A1936 Climax powered 4 wheeler Morgan raced at Nürnberg and Monte Carlo, a 1930 aluminium bodied Rolls Royce by Hooper [a barn find] a 3773cc 1913 Overland, holder of the NZ speed record at 73 mph, a very sweet little Rover 9 1925 [Gary found the original numbered oil can and horn on trade me after buying the car!] a 1949 Mk 6 4 ¼L Bentley, [another barn find]. An Alvis Grey Lady, a 1930 straight 8 Studebaker and is currently working on a Model A Ford Phaethon [possibly his favourite, you can buy everything for it] and a 105 year old Unic with original paint and leather upholstery! We then popped next door to Wim LeRoys. Wim has a thing about Lancias. He cornered the Fulvia market in Western Europe and now he and his son is doing the same here. He is doing Zagartos too and has a very rare aluminium bodied 2 ½ L coupe stripped down in his shed. Just for fun he has a 4 wheel farm bike renovation underway. Every year I have thought we must have exhausted the supply of fascinating garages, but now I realise we never will, as long as we have garaging we will have interesting stuff in it. Long live the motorcar! Graeme Collie.
To see pictures click here.

18th April 2010 Grass Gymkhana
Take a glorious autumn day, a large flat pasture and a good representation of beautiful Mercedes from across the decades, throw in a handful of enthusiastic Club members, stir well together with plenty of dust and you have the quintessential Grass Gymkhana. Thirteen Mercedes Benz rolled into David Winn’s neat and tidy paddock and twenty enthusiastic members tumbled out keen to get their instructions and run the gauntlet of orange cones and marker sticks. Our treasurer Brian Hood and his lovely Lyn had planned some interesting courses for us, assisted by Graeme Collie, David Wynn and Andrew Campbell . The courses tested both man and machine and rewarded those who put their faith in ABS and power-steering. Thirteen Mercedes Benz, 20 attendees, 16 competitors, put their faith in their Mercs, pedals to the metal and spun the wheel. And the winners were:
- 1st Brian Hood
- 2nd Andrew Campbell
- 3rd Ian Fletcher
- 4th David Wynn
- 5th Rod Klarwill
- 6th Lyn Hood
To see pictures of this fun filled day, click here.

Club night - 16 March 2010
A Club Night was held at Garry Boyce's garage on 16 March 2010. Two exceptional classic cars were displayed and presented. See pictures here.

14th February 2010 - the Intermarque Concours D Elegance at Ellerslie
This year’s date of the annual Concourse d’Elegance happened to be Valentine’s Day, the dream date for any flower merchant or flower retailer but possibly a compromise to any car enthusiast struggling with his priorities – “should I stay (home) or should I go….”

The weather was very uncooperative with high humidity, low clouds and several bursts of rain, so not in favour of cars which were honed and buffed to perfection for this day! However this did improve as the day went on.

Our club’s display was simple yet stylish – 5 classic 190SLs in a semi-circular display decorated with a red bow and roses matching the theme “A Valentines Gift”, which is so appropriate for the day.

We are proud of having achieved a record first for presenting 5 classic 190SLs in one place at once, out of a total of 9 190SLs in the club, and the club would like to thank the owners for making the effort to achieve this result!!

The display would have looked even more astonishing with the hard- and soft-tops down had the weather been more cooperative. The Marque tent was a welcome shelter to socialize with lots of visitors whether they were proud Mercedes-Benz cars owners or potential owners of classic cars and interested in our club’s activities.

I think it is awesome that our club manages to present every year to the public a different display with a different variety of Mercedes-Benz’s motor cars.

To see the wonderful little cars all dressed up and looking very pretty indeed, click here.

More past events »