November, not exactly the month most vintage car lovers have in mind when it comes to enjoying their passion in Western-Europe. Frog, wet and icy roads for some, not really the time of the year you get your car out on a curvy road to enjoy some hours of vintage car fun.
Lots of cars are stored for winter now, but do need some maintenance. Other cars are eagerly worked on, being prepared for a new life on the road, that hopefully starts next spring. But as all of you know, it not only takes hours of dedicated work to achieve this. You need parts too, both for maintenance as for the restoration of a car.
11 years ago, Paul-Ernst Strahle Jr. (son of late Paul-Ernst Strahle, the race driver) and Marco Marinello, a renowned Porsche specialist with its roots in Switzerland, joined forces and started a Porsche only swap meet. The first few editions were at the Strahle premises, but very soon, these became too small to host the growing number of exhibitors and visitors. So they moved to the Galerie der Kunst und Technic in Schorndorf centre, a city about 20 miles from Stuttgart. Last year it became clear that these venues no longer matched the needs of the organization and forced them to switch to another location again : the Barbara-Künkelin-Halle was the new place to be.
Doors would open at 9:30am Saturday morning, and the square in front of the doors were crowded with enthusiasts from all over Europe, chatting and talking cars. The 85 exhibitors displayed their stuff in the venue, and did great business. No matter what you were looking for, great chance you could find it. Old greasy parts, brandnew reproduction parts made by other passionates just because they needed them for their cars and couldn’t find it elsewhere, miniatures, books, literature and among the literature some extremely rare stuff like Porsche RSK or 550 Spyder manuals or spare parts lists. And next to that, nothing but happy faces.
A swap meet like this one, truly one of a kind, is so much fun you can hardly believe it. This is not only about finding that single part or a piece of literature that you miss in your library. It’s all about comradry, and meeting people from all over Europe the sharing the same passion. So we’re keen to be at next year’s edition too. Keep an eye on our event-calendar and subscribe to the newsletter to make sure you won’t miss it.
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