Techno Classica - Essen, Germany - 31st March to 3rd April

[Keith Currington]

Three friends and I are visiting the above show for the second year running.

We were astonished at the incredible quality of this little known (in the UK), exhibition last year and I feel sure that it will form part of our annual motor car pilgrimage for many years to come.

It covers 130,000 square metres of covered exhibition space in 20 halls PLUS open-air areas. - It is well organised, and makes any UK classic car show look pretty average by any comparison. Food is good and reasonable value (they make our burger vans / hot spud stands look like an insult to humanity).

Hotels are cheap as are flights to Dortmund from Luton with Easy Jet. - Public transport to Essen from Dortmund is not known as we hire a cheap rental. However, Germany is extremely well organised with public transport and I'm sure you'll find easy to follow details on the interweb.

BMW, Mercedes, Porsche take an entire hall each ..... You will see cars that are amazingly rare, exclusive and mind-blowingly expensive. Best of all, you walk right up close and there is always space and time to enjoy any vehicle without any hassle.
The Auto-jumbles (which don't usually get much of my attention), are simply astonishing. As are some of the club halls. - They love the English motor enthusiast and all Germans (in my experience), will go out of their way to be friendly, helpful and communicative.

We will be staying for a couple of days/nights and we tend to go to a Bavarian style sausage and "Beer Keller" style restaurant one evening. If anybody decides to go and fancies hooking up, all are welcome at our table(s). - IE: Not sure of the level of response to this posting.

The event is organised by SIHA and the web site is http://www.siha.de

Advice: Do not try to drive to the show each day, take public transport. Parking is plentiful but by the time you've parked and hiked to the show entrance, you would be better off taking the tram, bus or taxi.

If anybody else here has been and wish to add their comments / advice, .... All is welcomed.

Keith