HISTORY
In the early 1950’s, a small group of Cape Town old car enthusiasts used to meet at the Kinnes Service Station in Gabriel Road in the suburb of Plumstead. The garage housed a collection of old cars and a substantial library of motoring books. After taking part in the first old car rally in South Africa, nineteen enthusiasts met at Prince’s Hotel in Newlands on the 14th of July 1955 and established the Crankhandle Club. Within six months, membership had more than doubled and has continued to grow ever since. Today the Club has more than 500 members, who between them, own some 1000 older vehicles, covering a full range of saloons, sports cars, racing cars, commercial vehicles and motor cycles.
The Club is housed in a converted fire station in the historic village of Wynberg in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town. Our clubhouse is open every Wednesday evening at 20h00 and visitors are welcome. Members and guests bring their cars on the last Sunday of the month to the historic manor house, Timour Hall in Plumstead, for tea / coffee at 10h30, followed by a lunchtime “braai”. Numerous other activities, breakfast runs and rallies are organised throughout the year.
The Club displays two of the oldest cars in South Africa, a 1901 Benz and a 1902 Wolseley in it’s clubhouse, which also houses an extensive motoring library with publications going back to the dawn of motoring in Cape Town, 1898. If you are a fellow enthusiast, we’d be delighted to show you around.
CLUB OBJECTIVES
The Club’s objectives are to preserve, maintain and encourage the interest in, and ownership of, motor vehicles as defined by the South African Veteran and Vintage Association (S.A.V.V.A.), and also to foster the preservation of records, literature and memorabilia pertaining to motor vehicles.
CLUB CONSTITUTION
Download the Crankhandle Club’s constitution here.