Flashback: in bright summer weather, dealers and visitors enjoyed a wholly successful weekend at the spring Veterama on the Hockenheimring.

With vital replacement parts, new workshop tools or pretty metal signage to decorate the garage, the old-timer summer season has truly begun. And looking at the organisers’ calendar, the coming season once more promises a colourful round of events.

Here in our Veterama office, “after one Veterama” has always meant “before the next”...

Our regulations regarding regulars are still in place until 6 May, but our postbag and mailbox are already packed full of queries about stands for the autumn Veterama (11–13 October) with more coming in every day.

Despite all the negative reports about the future of cars with internal combustion engines, interest in and enjoyment of the “rustiest hobby” in the world remains unabated. Even among new vehicle buyers, a trend back towards diesel or petrol is clearly detectable. It's actually a good feeling for us custodians, restorers and maintainers of old-timers and young-timers – not always being stigmatised as the “people of yesteryear”.

Those who maintain and care for the historical cultural artefacts of the automotive industry make an important contribution to German mobility history. It was here in our country that the bicycle was invented in 1817, while the first automobile with a combustion engine was patented in Germany in 1886. Mannheim was where this car first took to the road.

So you can look forward to our autumn Veterama again on the second weekend of October, in the “Benz city” itself – Mannheim.

Winfried Seidel

and the team at Veterama