Warren-Blackwood Heritage Rally - April 2026

Last year, in May 2025, Shelly and I attended the second Warren-Blackwood Heritage Rally in Bridgetown. It was a great experience so we decided to attend in 2026. This time I opted to take the Tatra down so in the month prior I had her serviced to make sure she was in a fit state for the journey.
https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2025/05/warren-blackwood-heritage-rally-may-2025.html

One of the things I was keen to resolve was to sort a problem with the clutch. When I was filming the segment for the RAC "In my Garage" there was a moment when the clutch pedal dropped to the floor and did not spring back. It was captured on the video and appears in the last five minutes of the segment. Anyway, I fixed the clutch pedal with a jury-rigged spring that kept tension on the pedal but I knew that was only a temporary repair. When the guys had the car on a hoist, they looked at the pedal box and found nothing wrong, so then checked the connection at the clutch end. There they found evidence of many old repairs and noted the clutch rod was badly bent. They straightened the rod and set it back in its correct position. I subsequently test drove the Tatra several times and noted the clutch was working properly and gears were shifting well.

And then..... one hour out of Fremantle - PING! The clutch pedal dropped to the floor and would not return to position. Fortunately we were in the process of changing gears through a round-about and were slipping into neutral. I could not change into any gear. We did manage to get a push from other drivers to get the car onto the road verge. RAC once again came to the rescue and had the car towed home. Don't leave home without it - https://rac.com.au/car-motoring/roadside-assistance

Fortunately we have other cars. We quickly transferred to Shelly's 1962 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and set off three hours later than planned.

Back on the road!!

We had originally planned to arrive in Bridgetown about 1pm, but with all the rigmarole, we arrived at 5pm. Just enough time to go for a drink and have some dinner with other club members.

Next morning we were up at the rendezvous by the Blackwood River at 8am. 

1926 Bentley Speed Six. Pretty impressive stuff

The Bentley was certainly the best car of the day - and fast. It quickly overtook the lead car and set a blistering pace.

Morris' and Mini's

Citroen DS

Holden Kingswood and Volvo 1800

Gavin and his Volvo

Jaguar E-Type

The countryside. We're trailing the Volvo 1800 at this point.



Bridgetown is surrounded by winding tree-lined roads. Excellent classic driving landscape


After a tour through the hills around Bridgetown and Nannup we gathered at Greystones, on the scarp overlooking Bridgetown for coffee and photos.

My friend Wayne's Volvo 1800 wagon.

It is a little nerve wracking to park in the back row as the hill slips away rather precipitously. Shelly let me park the car on my own.

A few Holdens

Holden 48-215 and EK

I didn't manage to identify this pre-war motorcycle.

The Bentley - rightly - had pride of place at the front

Bentley draws a lot of attention



The iconic Holden FJ

Greystones

Massey-Ferguson tractor

View from the porch at Greystones

The last two standing - a VW Type 3 ute and our Karmann Ghia.

A fun day out in the country

Sunrise from Greystones

We headed homeward about 12pm and visited Dardanup Heritage Park on the way. It is absolutely worth a visit, see here: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2026/04/dardanup-heritage-park-2026.html

Warren-Blackwood Heritage Rally - May 2025

A friend of mine has a family farm in Bridgetown and suggested that we should venture down there for the second annual Warren-Blackwood Heritage Rally. The rally is organized by a southern chapter of the Veteran Car Club. This sounded like a great opportunity so we prepped up the DKW and headed south.

The drive was excellent and the DKW performed wonderfully - up to Donnybrook. From Perth to Donnybrook is flat with good quality roads the DKW was able to hit 85 miles per hour and a good run. The engine never missed a beat. But after Donnybrook the landscape becomes one of low hills and here the DKW does not perform as well. Going uphill the revs begin to drop, the car begins to slow and you need to drop down a gear to get back up into the power band. There were times when we even needed to drop into second gear! Chasing the power band in a DKW is not relaxing driving.

But we did make it there safely - if later than we anticipated. We did stop for lunch at the famous Dardanup Bakery. It's well worth a detour for their award winning bakery products.

The DKW in Bridgetown

Bridgetown is blessed with lovely heritage architecture and is busy enough to not feel like a ghost town.

The Fremantle Hotel

We stayed in the Big 4 Caravan Park. It lies just across the bridge and a short walk to the centre of town. https://www.big4.com.au/caravan-parks/wa/south-west/big4-bridgetown

The Heritage Rally started from the carpark next to the bridge (next to the caravan park). A lovely Citroen DS wagen

We weren't sure how many people would be attending, but it turned out there were 79 registered entries. That's an excellent turnout.

Bjorn's magnificent 1952 Saab 92B. A rarity even in Sweden

Renault, Austin and Renault

Volvo 1800 coupe

And a Volvo 1800 wagon

The rally was organized through the local chapter of the Veteran Car Club. They even created rally plaques for attendees. We were car 51.

And then it was away, driving through the pleasant local scenery

As I mentioned at the start, the countryside around Bridgetown is rolling hills so whenever we were going uphill, we fell further back in the pack.

This was our usual view - tail gun charlie.

It also didn't help that we (and two other vehicles) missed a turn. We were right at the back of the pack, then we missed a turn and had to go back, but we did catch up eventually. When on flat ground, the DKW is very fast!

Renault Gordine, Volvo Amazon, Citroen DS and the DKW.

Trailing Jim's beautiful Citroen DS.

The oldest cars in the rally were two Ford Model As.

The scenery was quite beautiful, even when it rained.



FJ Holden

Bedford truck

After a loop around the area, we rendezvous at Greystones estate.

Greystones house

We parked on the escarpment overlooking Bridgetown

Bedford truck

There were intermittent showers when we were driving and it looked as though the heavens would open when we arrived but fortunately the rain held off.

Lined up for the BIG photo


Hello! After coffee, photos and a chat, we all headed back towards town.

1940 Buick

1952 Saab 92B

Back into town

One of the Ford Model As

While most attendees went on to the Fremantle Hotel for lunch, we opted to head home. Given our experience on the drive down, we knew that the drive would take us at least an hour longer than driving in a modern car, which would mean we'd be looking at getting home around 5pm. We were also a little worried about the weather. Due to an electrical fault, the DKW's wipers failed on the Sunday. We were lucky enough to dodge the rain on the rally, but serious weather was rolling in and we wanted to outrun it. The drive to Donnybrook was all up and down, fast and slow. It began to seriously rain outside Balingup, so we stopped there for lunch and waited it out, before setting off again.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we made it home around 5.30pm.

All it all it was a terrific trip and a lot of fun. There are lots of little towns in the south-west which host classic cars and rally throughout the year so we'll be keeping an eye open for interesting country journeys in the future.