Techno Classica Essen - April 2003
Being a bit of a car show enthusiast, I find it interesting to note the influence the location has on the makes of cars appearing in the show. I have been to shows in the UK where Caterham, Lotus, TVR and even unusual marques like Noble have a significant show presence. After visiting one particularly famous show in London and seeing one (yes, one) classic 911 I decided the Porsche enthusiast would be better off looking elsewhere. Not surprisingly, Germany is a very good place to find Porsches and the Essen classic car show is in my opinion one of the best. Porsches? lots! Total number of Caterham, Lotus or TVR? Erm, maybe one Esprit and that's about it. Then again with more than a dozen large halls filled with cars, car parts, books, tools, and thousands of people, one could be excused for missing the odd car here and there. Quite simply there isn't enough time.
Two Porsche displays at the show really stood out from the rest. The first had a display of cars through the years. Cars such as the 912 and short wheelbase 911, fastidiously restored. Not to forget a lovely example of a 944, and later water-pumpers. Lurking further back in the display, a very well used Paris-Dakar 959! My favourite display included a wide range of brightly coloured early 911s, some racing machinery (935 etc.), as well as an array of 356 models including Carrera. Mouthwatering!
While wandering one of the great halls I happened upon a stand offering a complete car restoration service. With offices in The Netherlands and in Christchurch, New Zealand, they offer an alternative to having ones car restored in Europe (and the associated high labour cost). Ship it off to New Zealand! This particular company was promoting the high level of skill and low cost of the Kiwi restorer.
Anyone looking for Porsche manuals, radios, or practically any accessory has a good chance of finding it at Essen. Price of course is another matter. My early 911 has always been missing its door pockets. I found some nice new ones at the show. I even held them. Not such a complex construction of cardboard with a little plastic and chrome. At 400 Euro a piece they got to stay at the show.
Such a popular car show is of course a great place to sell a car. One thing I enjoy is converting the asking price into NZ Dollars, and the resulting shock. Converting Belgian Franks into NZD (divide by 17 or thereabouts), or Italian Lira (divide by 160) was always fun to work out in ones head. All those zeros in the asking price. More often than not the conversion would have to be carried out twice as the initial result seemed just too large. Invariably I had it right the first time. Since the introduction of the Euro, (now a simple multiply by two procedure) a lot of the fun has been taken out of this practice. Still, the prices have continued to increase, and the really really shiny cars are still no less affordable than a nice dwelling in London.
Techno Classica Essen is a very impressive show. Around 80,000 square meters of floor space spread over 17 halls. More than 750 exhibitors, and more than 100,000 visitors. It's on every year in April for just one weekend. Allow a whole day if possible to have a good look. Frankfurt is the closest major international airport, with the train journey taking around 2.5 hours. Highly recommended! See www.messe-essen.de for more information.
Photos were taken with an Olympus OM-1N camera with a 50mm lens. The film was mainly Kodak 800 ASA with just a couple of shots using 200 ASA. The film was subsequently developed and the images placed on a CD (note JPEG format, not Photo-CD format). Panoramic images were created using a Sony VAIO PCG-C1F laptop digital camera and the Sony image merge software. All subsequent image manipulation was performed using IrfanView image manipulation software.