The love of the people of Hamburg for the old cars

When the white sports car rolls into the yard and in front of the entrance to the GTÜ inspection station at the Brandshof gas station, Alexander Piatscheck looks up and says briefly: "Ah, the Scimitar is here." While Piatscheck still has to do something, the parking lot fills up in front of the inspection station - and by the time he finally opens the driveway to the lifting platform, a Beetle from the 1970s, a Ford pick-up from the 1990s and a Puma GTE, also from the 1970s, have lined up there.

Piatscheck and his business partner Jann de Boer have specialized in classic cars. Every little detail of the filling station built in 1953, which today houses a café next to the test station, tells the story of old love for cars true to the original. And so classic car fans from all over northern Germany come here to Rothenburgsort, not far from the Elbe bridges, when the general inspection for one of their cars is due, or when the change from standard to H license plates is to take place: H as in historical.

The main inspection is pending for the Scimitar. But because the English make is quite exotic even for connoisseurs of the scene, several classic car owners quickly rallied around the "scimitar", as the car was nicknamed. In 1972 it was built in England. As one of just over 10,000 Scimitars from the English manufacturer Reliant, which actually manufactured three-wheeled vans and only occasionally built sports cars.

One of the special features: the cars are made of plastic. Another: Princess Anne, who was the sister of Britain's King Charles III, loved Scimitar. She is said to have owned eight cars, including the same GTE in white as it is now on the lifting platform in Rothenburgsort.

While Alexander Piatscheck examines the Scimitar, those waiting moved on to the Puma GTE with interest. The brand comes from Brazil, the first sports car with the Puma emblem appeared in 1967, a year later Volkswagen continued to build the brand's cars, and later they were made from General Motors components. The last Puma rolled off the assembly line in São Paolo in 1985. General Motors later used the brand name for the Ford Puma.

Hamburg is one of the strongholds of classic car fans. At the beginning of 2022, almost 15,100 cars that were at least 30 years old were registered in the Hanseatic city. In Germany, this is the limit from which vehicles are considered classic cars and can receive an H license plate. More than 1.7 percent of the cars in the Hanseatic city are vintage, the density is higher than in any other federal state.

Hamburg is also far ahead of the big cities. Berlin, which was ahead of the Hanseatic city just a few years ago, is now well behind Hamburg with 1.4 percent of cars. In Munich, however, there should be more vintage cars.

But where does the love of the people of Hamburg for old cars come from? Wilhelm Steffen should know, he is a classic car dealer. A job that is a calling, but one that he only found through detours. He actually ran a grocery store, he says while leaning against a 1986 Mercedes 420 SEC in his sales garage in Lokstedt.

"Back then, at the age of 27, I did some things right professionally and bought a Porsche with the money," he recalls. But it was not well received by many Hanseatic citizens. Again and again he would have had to listen to stupid sayings at the traffic light. "It was actually a nice car, but the reactions of the people got on my nerves," says Steffen.

So he, now 30, looked for another car, unusual but more classic. The choice fell on a Mercedes Pagoda, today a car for which enthusiasts pay up to 150,000 euros. Steffen drove the car for 17 years. Meanwhile, other classic cars kept coming. "That's how it started."

For a number of years now, the 55-year-old has only been selling old cars with his company HExclusive, and he has a wide variety of customers. There is the family who is interested in the Beetle because of good childhood memories, the thirty-something who would like to drive the Mercedes coupe that his grandfather loved - or the collector who enjoys a Triumph 250 from 1968 because he - like Steffen - loves the unique details of the older classic cars.

Steffen is in his element when he talks about the different mirror shapes of the cars in his sales garage and jumps from car to car in his memory. There is a story to each. One is set in Spain, the other, like the green Corvette (C3 Stingray Targa), in the United States. He can still remember almost all buyers and sellers of “his” cars.

Classic car fans are predominantly "down-to-earth people," says Steffen. Rarely does he experience someone as aloof. Not even when particularly rare and well-preserved specimens change hands for several hundred thousand euros. "That's what has fascinated me about the oldtimer since I owned my first car myself."

In Rothenburgsort, Alexander Piatscheck and Jann de Boer tell similar stories. He bought his first car when he was 17, says de Boer. A VW 1600, built in 1973, "as a notchback, in beige, the engine in the rear and air-cooled". He screwed and welded to it. That's how he met his current business partner. "We came from the same background - in terms of the kind of cars we liked."

Even today, the two of them work together on their private vintage cars from time to time. But they still have a small hobby workshop. That's one of the things that fascinates him about classic cars, says de Boer, "the simple technology that can be screwed on". Another point is that you can really do something with your collectibles. "You get in, drive and have fun with it."

His vintage cars currently include a VW 181, also known as a Kübelwagen, built in 1978, and two BMW E30s, one as a sedan and a station wagon as an everyday car. Among other things, Alexander Piatscheck privately drives a Fiat Uno Turbo, built in 1987. “I have already driven one of these as my second car. But there are practically no longer any on the market.”

Speaking of fiats. In the line of cars from the Italian manufacturer, one is just trying to become a cult classic car, the Panda 4x4. "Suddenly everyone must have it in their collection," says Piatscheck with a smile. Well-preserved copies already cost around 12,000 euros.