The Cranksters have a little tradition – usually around mid-winter when the weather gets real cold and thoughts turn to baked goods, and plenty of ‘em – of meeting early on a Sunday morning and heading up Greenmount Hill, past Mundaring, and up to a wee spot known as Bakers Hill. There’s a small but renowned bake shop where they really know how to make a darn good pie…

If the thought of leaving behind 42 varieties of untasted pies hurts too much, you can always unhitch the caravan and stay the weekend. There’s a Tavern next door for a dram or two of Scottish fluid to warm your heart.

A sunny day, perfect for a run up to Mundaring in the Hills for the Annual Cranksters Pipeline Picnic.

Over 200 cars joined in this year and the Crankster lads organised a great gig with event Tshirt (cool design by Sparky), goody bags and a raffle with varied and useful prizes (air compressor/adultshop toys/screwdriver set anyone?).

Thrilled to see Rob’s 57 black Baby Bird and Crawford & Susan’s 60 Big Bird burning the carbon from the sparkplugs scaling Greenmount Hill.

Pics in the gallery.

Yesterday was a scorcher, the type of day your shorts are reeaally gonna stick to the vinyl seats!

So a freeway cruise for the roundtrip to Mandurah (about 160kms for us) was a bit of a gamble, when the vintage cooling system tends to be a little hot-tempered. But the clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped somewhat, and it turned out to be a lovely evening (with a welcome breeze in Mandurah).

Turns out the biggest hazard was not overheating, but dodging atomised effluent spraying from a cattle truck en-route. The driver seemed intent on a Duel-type pursuit of the 57 Chev.

Numbers were down this year due to the hot conditions (we saw just 2 Tbirds), but it was a relaxed mid-week cruise. Stalwart Bill wasn’t going to pike out – here’s him running alongside in his beautiful Big Bird.

See a few more pics in the gallery here.

Ian’s gorgeous flamin’ red ’57 Thunderbird. With back-up truck.

Now kid, don’t let anyone touch the paintjob!

Each year, the larger-than-life Al organises the car event that is sure to turn out the masses. Raising funds for charity, it’s also a proven incentive for the back-shed tinkering to be finalised, ready for ‘ignition-on’ by February. Apparently, sales of Carnauba wax reach peak around now!

As regular readers know, last year’s talking point was the Cranksters-manned checkpoint at Bridgestone Tyres (for those who came in late, read about it here). But due to certain er, differences of opinion, that was the curtain call for themed checkpoints. And Paul had his heart set on squeezing into Errol Flynn’s tights and puffy shirt this year!!

So, here are some pics from the show-and-shine departure point at the Burswood shore – see the full gallery in our Events page here.

Travel back a little in time to when the beautiful Californian town of Paso Robles hosted the famed West Coast Kustoms car event over the Memorial Day weekend in May. Just before the earthquake a year or two later, and then the show moved South.

We travelled there in 2002 (little did Tracy realise that the entire 6-week round-the-world trip was choreographed to this one weekend).

These video snippets (amateur warning alert!) capture some famed show T-Birds (including the electric green 1963, which now resides in the U.K.; the renowned ‘Time Machine’ which has won more than its own weight in shiny trophies; plus a couple of 50s Birds) and a taste of West Coast car culture.

Plus to recreate the atmosphere, some very high-pitched American accents, extremely loud car noises, and a couple of em-Barrised moments (“is that a 61 or 62?”).

And the $10,000 question: why-oh-why didn’t Paul ask Barris for his autograph? or Von Franco? or Shige?