Hebmüller Karosserie Meeting 2019

The last Hebmüller meeting was in 2014, and this year Klaus Hebmüller and his family invited Hebmüller owners to their home at Meerbusch, near Düsseldorf, Germany. There´s been a lot to celebrate this year: not only the 70th birthday of the legendary Type 14a convertible, but Klaus Hebmüller celebrated his 85th birtday too. The Hebmüller Karosseriewerk Company was founded exactly 130 years ago, and it was also the centenary of company founder Joseph Hebmüllers death. The numerous participants came from all over the world, either driving their cars or bringing them by road on trailers, or even transporting them over by plane from Canada. The previous 2009 world record of 29 VW Hebmüller showing up at Hessisch Oldendorf was only surpassed with the help of the Hebüller Register Team, who summond up an incredible 33 examples of the Type 14a Convertible for the meeting, which also represented the largest group of participating vehicles. The remaining 56 Hebmüller-bodied cars present were converion carried out of other makers including Tornax, Hanomag, Opel, Ford, Borgward, Hansa, Tempo and DKW. In fact, the oldest Hebmüller vehicle was a Buick Standard Six Series 115 dating from 1928. In the manner of the garden party, the meeting took place in the beatiful grounds of the Gartencenter Selders, and was organised to perfection. Thus, a splendidly restored Neoplan SH6 from 1955 with 24 comfortable seats chauffeured participants between the hotel and the event venue. On both days, visitors were treated to demonstrations of all kinds of Hebmüller bodies in parades, compered by Ingo Eiberg, a former editor of VW Clasic magazine. On Sunday morning, the participant set off for an excursion through the Rhein-Kreis-Neuss ditrict, including a welcome lunchtime stopover for refreshments at "Gut Mankartzhof" hosted by Axel Hebmüller in Kaarst, 5 km west of Neuss. Despite poor weather conditons, there were still plenty of good photo opportunities. Later on, at the parade back in the Garden Centre, Yanto Widodo from Indonesia and Aurelio Belussi from Italy were both thrilled to be presented with their car´s mising original vehicle badges by Klaus Hebmüller, an omission rectified by the Hebmüller Register team after years of research. Unfortunately, the anticipateddrive to the old Hebmüller factory in Wülfrath could not be undertaken, as it had been in 2014, because a Chinese investor had acquired the site a few weeks before the 2019 event. Naturally, everybody is curious about what might happen to the old factory buildings in the future; maybe something can be worked out of the next Hebmüller meeting.