When I had the idea up of a spontaneous trip to Queensland my husband was quick to agree. A little prompting and I discovered that the North Coast Street Machines Ballina, Show and Shine just happened to be on in Ballina – one of the towns we would drive through on our way North. We had to stop! It was added to our itinerary without any discussion.
You see, my husband is a Torana junkie. He has his own project car that he is constantly tinkering with in the garage. He trawls ebay, gumtree and the Torana forums for rare original parts and enjoys the chase of sourcing tiny little parts that many of us wouldn’t think are significant, like original ashtrays, window tuners and even the tops of the door locks (I obviously don’t have the same obsession – I don’t even know what the technical name of these things are). This show was right up his alley and our family doesn’t really mind looking at cars. It can be fun – especially in Ballina.
The show takes place at the Ballina Rugby League Grounds, Ballina in mid January. It is family friendly with lots of opportunity for kids to run around, – they can even touch the cars if they are with a parents and gentle. There’s a small charge: Adults $5 – Children $1 which I assume goes to towards promotion and insurance of the event, so we had no problem paying.
We each found a favourite: Miss N went for the pink Torana; Master R the green. Whilst hot, I have heard that the organising committee have moved the event to later in the day to avoid the midday sun which caused a lot of perspiration!