28th December: A day in Melbourne... err more like 2 days!We stayed with a friend of ours who happens to own a Velocity Red SE. The morning started with going to pick up this Jag, and then go for a bit of a drive.
I was very keen to experience the SE, never having dríven an NB before let alone a boosted car, and the SE's owner had not dríven an NA before, so for this we swapped.

As it was just a run around the city I didn't do anything maniacal with the turbo factor, but it was nice to feel how a turbo behaves. The SE felt very different to drive, my car squeaks and rattles and is really stiff and noisy... this was quiet and made next to no noise. Suspension seemed verrry comfortable unlike the stiffarsed Slug

Seats were great I think I could go those in my car over the NA seats. I could certainly go an SE after now having dríven one, but I still love the character of the NA more.

I was glad that my friend liked my car as well... Like a gokart and the suspension is tight for going hard in turns he says.
And the mission objective:


Very very well kept looking car and it certainly looks like the V12 gives it plenty of go!
Later that afternoon I eagerly headed to South Melbourne to catch up with some of the Melbourne forumites; Cheyne, Bensale, Lee and mxfive95. Was great to meet these excellent guys and gal, and being able to check out these cars I've only seen in pictures is always a blast for me.
We secured a very nice lineup of cars right in front of the restaurant


After dinner we headed down to Docklands to a really nice spot for pics... I took many more and am probably posting too many here but this was a lot of fun.






Definitely a highlight of the trip for me
29th December: Let the excitements begin!The plan was to start the journey home. After procuring supplies we plotted a route and the Doc was following me in the Jag.
After only a short way I suddenly notice he's not in the rear view mirror anymore, and by the time I had pulled over myself, the phone was ringing and the news was: major issues! So back up the road I fang to a service station whereupon I see the jag covered in fire extinguisher residue!
Now the Doc, crazy as he may be for buying a V12 Jag, is not without some sense and had done a lot of research on the car before buying one, so when he suddenly started losing power along the road behind me he was cluey enough to have an idea what was happening, and thankfully was right at a servo to pull into when the car conked out a few seconds later.
Smoke was coming from under the car and looking under it he did see a lick of flame, so he was onto a fire extinguisher quicksmart and just doused the thing.
Awesomely entertaining but also incredibly frustrating

It did put an abrupt end to the mission as planned. The car was towed back to the dealer and it will be another week before it can be worked on as all the shops are out for the holidays, and will end up coming to Queensland on a truck or train.
The problem is very likely the rotor and cap. The V12 has two ignition coils and two separate rotors inside the cap, and the assembly is quite prone to failing due to shorting and other fun issues, particularly in the aftermarket piece. So if one side fails the other side keeps the engine going but the dead side just fills with fuel, fuel pools in the cat converter, heat sets it on fire. So it was lucky to have it happen while still in Melbourne and not somewhere on the way home, and it was extinguished quickly so no other parts of the car were fire damaged.
Its a really well documented issue with the V12, and there's ways and means of preventing it from happening again, even if you do have to put up with rotors and caps that are likely to die, so its not all bad

So the return journey was to be in the MX5 only. With all the excitement we didn't leave Melbourne til later in the afternoon, but made it to Albury via Reefton and Marysville, a really very nice drive.

Somewhere around Reefton:
