MACHINERY lovers can take a step back in time this weekend when Yesterday’s Power Rally roars into Milang.
The rally will feature old engines and machinery, tractors, fire engines, commercial vehicles and vintage and veteran cars, from as early as 1910.
A horse buggy from the 1890s, being restored by the Milang Lakeside Men’s Shed committee, will also be on display, along with a model boat and railway for the younger visitors.
Milang Vintage Machinery Club president Roger Miller said the buggy was “quite unusual”.
“We (the committee) haven’t been able to find any similar to assist with the restoration,” he said.
Highlights this year will be John Deere tractors, Fairbanks engines, Bedfords trucks, Holden cars, and Indian motorcycles.
Mr Miller said the event was one of the biggest in the state and they expected plenty of interstate visitors, with 5000 people through the gates last year.
The annual Milang to Goolwa yacht race is also being held on Sunday.
Among the 130 exhibitors, Mr Miller said there would be demonstrations across both days and one of the bigger draw cards was an original “two men” chainsaw from the 1940s.
“They take two people to lift them and are a couple of metres long,” he said.
There will also be a ‘tractor pull’ where the strength of tractors, built before 1973, will be tested.
Mr Miller said the pull had been the highlight of all events for the past 21 years.
A passionate enthusiast himself, Mr Miller has been president for three years and will have his 1964 British smalls arms motorbike on display.
“There’s no comparison with this machinery to today’s machinery. Back then it was simply made, and you could leave it for a few years then start it up straight away,” he said.
“It has got to the stage where if you want to be involved in old machinery and showing it, you have to be part of a club.”
Gates open at 10am at the Milang Oval.
- Details: Roger Miller 0413 616 834.