15th April 2012. Pakenham Picnic in the Park.

Well it seems like only a few months since the last "Picnic in the Park" instead of 12 months ago.

The venue was again  the Pakenham Racecourse, and we could not have asked for a better day. The club hosting the event was the Dandenong Historical Car Club http://www.dvhcc.com.au

This was the first longish run in the Red Chev since the head was changed, and no problems. About a 60 mile round trip sitting on 45 MPH, everything OK.

This is only the second Picnic in the Park I have been to, but it seemed like the numbers were way up on last year. Let me say to people if you have not been to a Pakenham Picnic in the Park, do yourself a favour and make sure you come next year.

My congratulations to the DVHCC for the excellent job they did organising the event, and managing the car parking.

I have to claim to doing it hard this year photo wise. Stepped out of the Red Chev, camera blazing, 4 shots later, camera stops, dies, and shuts down. I fitted new batteries, another 5 shots, and another fatality. Last time I buy a pack of cheap batteries. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to capture the scene and all the beautiful cars, there was only one thing to do. Out comes the mobile phone to use the camera.

Now this seemed OK at first, but soon proved to be very clumsy, slow, and the glare on the screen did not make it any easier. In the end I persevered and captured all the photos below. At one stage later that night I thought the photos were jinxed as the mobile phone did not recognise the memory card when I went to down load the photos onto my PC.

A trip around to my son in law and the problem was soon fixed by inserting the memory card into a card reader, transferring to a memory stick, which I then put onto my PC.

Anyway that's enough words for the moment. Below is some photos which I hope will give you an  appreciation of the wide variety of vehicles that made the day a very enjoyable outing. I have roughly sorted them into Veteran, Vintage, Classic and post Classic.

So is this is where the original back seat driver came from?

I love the curve on those front axles

Must have been easy to tell the driver from the passenger when they stopped. The driver was the one without the bugs in his teeth.

I thought only Chev 4's leaked oil

A good turn out of 28 Chevs

For those that like the natural well worn look.

This guy never moved all day, must have been working on his tan.

Love the six wheel equipment

The first woody I have ever seen up close

 

 

 

Must be 20 years since I last saw a GT Cortina. Can you believe these were Bathurst winning cars in the early 60's

The humble LJ and LC Toranas are now becoming popular collector cars, and this one is a fine example.

 

 

A very nice 1968 HK GTS Monaro 327. The generals first true muscle car, which a year later equipped with a Chev 350, had Bathurst success with a an unknown co driver by the name of Peter Brock.

A fine looking replica of a Brock 05 HDT LX Torana

 

A vey well presented HZ GTS Monaro.

Excellent idea to have a Massey Ferguson tractor display. Was very popular.

 

 

 

Stationary and traction engines were well represented.

A bit of nostalgia. My first car was a Mini Moke. A fun car for a crazy 18 year old with shoulder length hair.

Mini Mokes are now worth up to $15,000 as a very desirable collectors car, and this one was very well presented.