Narrandera has taken a step back in time this week as the town hosts about 80 vehicles featuring iconic names as Renault, De Dion Bouton, Maxwell, Triumph, Humber and more for the Veteran Car Club of NSW rally.

With Narrandera as their base they are undertaking runs to Leeton, Morundah, Ganmain and Yanco until their final day tomorrow.

The Veteran Car Club NSW Rally for one and two cylinder cars in and around Narrandera and has attracted about 80 cars from all over Australia and they date back to the early 1900s.

To be classed as a veteran car, the vehicle has to be built before the end of 1918.

One of the rally organisers Laurie Garrod said most of the cars participating in the rally would have been built around 1910.

Mr Garrod said the rally had sparked great interest in town.

“We had a welcome civic reception on Sunday with the Narrandera mayor and we had a few speeches,” Mr Garrod said.

“It was a very nice night. We had a helluva lot of interest at Marie Bashir Park on Monday morning. All the people were very impressed and in fact very excited seeing the cars.

“Most of the cars arrived on Saturday and most are based at the Lake Talbot Tourist Park,” Mr Garrod said.

“The rest are spread all over town. We met at Marie Bashir Park and left from there each morning.”

It has not been all plain sailing for some of the cars in the rally, but Mr Garrod believes the positives have outweighed the drawbacks that some drivers had experienced.

“One of the cars broke down on Monday,” Mr Garrod said.

“But it’s been beautiful weather; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky on Monday morning when we were leaving the park.

“And the flat roads are great – the old cars don’t like hills as it takes a while to get up them – although they do get up them!

“We’re very lucky as we don’t like holding traffic up so it’s a great location because it’s not very busy out on the roads. We’re not interrupting much traffic.”

The Veteran Car Club of Australia (NSW) was formed in 1954 to encourage the preservation and restoration of veteran motor vehicles.

It caters for cars, motorcycles or commercial vehicles manufactured before January 1, 1919.

Members regularly attend a range of motoring events such as picnic days, charity events, weekends away at selected locations and participate in various national rallies throughout Australia.

Narrandera Mayor Neville Kschenka said the civic reception was held at the CRC Plaza Theatre and hosted by the Council with catering by Narrandera Lions Club and he rated it a great success as did the rally participants.

“The visitors were very impressed with the venue, the reception in general and the Lions Club catering,” he said.

“This is another fine example of how appealing Narrandera is for special events such as this.

More than 100 people attended and the visitors stayed at Lake Talbot Tourist Park.

“Narrandera is perfectly located for these types of tours and events and I pointed this out to the visitors. Council promotes this through the Murrumbidgee Trails program,” Mayor Kschenka said.

The National Club was presented with a donation from Council by Mayor Kschenka to assist with event costs over the full week of activities.

Director of the Veteran Car Club Robert Fordham thanked the Mayor and Council for the generous donation.

This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 12 May 2022.