International Boxer-meeting in Mechelen (NL) 08. - 11.09.2006

For the 2006 edition of the tradional Boxer-meeting the German Alfaclub e.V. had invited the particpants to the Hoogenboom holiday park near Mechelen in the Netherlands. Bodo Fast, leader of the "Sektion Ruhrgebiet Ost" of the Alfaclub and already well-experienced in the organisation of Boxer-meetings had chosen Mechelen because of its situation near the German border, and because of the nearby holiday park Hogenboom where the meeting took place. The Boxer-meeting 2006, the first international meeting, was actually intended to be a cooperation between the German Alfaclub e.V. and the Dutch SCARB in order to gain more participants. But finally all the work had to be done by the German Alfaclub members and the meeting became less international than planned.

Mechelen, situated near the town Gulpen in a region with little hills (so high that the Dutch have parking lots with a view there...) is situated about 15 km away from the German town Aachen and can be reached easily on the motorway.
While the first participants reached the holiday park on Friday afternoon, the majority of the unexpected problems Bodo and his team had only a few days before were already solved. After half a year of planning, organisation and the booking of the holiday park's own restaurant, Bodo believed everything to be well in order when the owner of the holiday park called him two days before the Boxer-meeting should take place and told him that the owner of the park's restaurant had just gone bankrupt. This meant that all the meals and the breakfast Bodo had ordered were cancelled without replacement. So Bodo urgently had to find a new locality for 90 hungry participants. Luckily the local restaurant and a bar offered their help and solved the problem.

After the nearly all the participants had arrived on Friday evening, one met in the local bar to enjoy an Italian buffet. It became a long night.

On Saturday - the main day of the meeting, the participants started with their Alfas to make an 85 km long drive through the countryside of the Dutch province Limburg. The "Mergelland Route" led them through nice little villages and beautiful landscapes. Even the sun shone brightly - after two weeks of rain and cold weather. Of course the tour-book included a little quiz and some tasks the participants had to solve. One of the tasks was to bring bottle of "ALFA" bear. Then Carsten Heilig had worked out a little quiz about the history of the Alfasud, Sprint, 33 and ARNA. E.g. Carsten wanted to know how many ARNAs were built Pratola Serra and wanted to have a list of the bores and strokes of each version of Alfa Romeo's Boxer engine. During the tour which started at 11 o'clock the participants had enough time to answer all the questions and to have lunch in one of the little restaurants and bistros along the way. In the evening the participants went to the local little restaurant "Bei die Tantes" (which means as much as "At the Aunties") to have dinner. Afterwards one moved to the nearby bar where Italian buffet had served the evening before to award the winners of the day.
Gaudi Fischer's 1976 Alfasud L was awarded the most beautiful Alfa of the meeting. Gaudi had taken the long way from Switzerland to Mechelen to join the meeting. But it was not him who had to drive the longest way from his home the Mechelen. Spiros Agathagelidis and his Alfasud 5m came the long way of more than 1000 km from Sweden to the Netherlands. This brought him the award for the longest journey. The team Dyrelund / Petersen / Rauen on Alfa 33 1.5 IE (907) were awarded first winner of the tour's quiz followed by Markus Fleck and his co-pilot Tobias Milo on Alfasud Ti 1.7 16V. The third best team became Oliver Lachmuth and Michael Hofmann on Alfasud 5m.

On Saturday evening, the parking lot of the holiday park was well filled with all kinds of Boxer-engined Alfa Romeos. Besides some well preserved or freshly restored four-door Alfasud series I, there was the completely restored 378th ever built Alfasud ti and another rare Alfasud ti series II. The series III was presented by a 1.3 4-porte, a 1.5 QO, some 1.5 Ti QV and some interesting cars with 1.7 16V engine. Some Sprints were there, too. E.g. two Sprint 1.7 QV two rare series I Sprint 1.3. Even an Alfa 33 1.5 QV and four 33 1.7 QV could be admired. The series 907 Alfa 33 was represented by a 33 Imola, a Permanent 4, some 1.7 16V and one 1.5 IE. Two Alfa 145 Boxer also joined the meeting.

The organisation team counted 87 persons, which had inscribed themselves with 45 Alfas. Together with the guests which had arrived on Saturday they counted about 70 cars. Besides the already mentioned Mr. Agathagelidis from Sweden, there were ten Danes with five cars. One Alfa each came from France and from Luxemburg, two from Belgium and three from Switzerland.

During the weekend one had the possibility to buy spare parts and new-old-stock body panels at Lothar Sausemuth's spare parts shop. Lothar offered many interesting articles from the headlight to a rear panel for a series III Alfasud..

On Sunday morning the meeting ended after a common breakfast. While the majority of the participants started on their way home, some new guests arrived from Germany and the Netherlands to have a look at the few remaining cars.

Further photos
 

Last Update: September, 9th 2007      Created: November, 5th 2006

© Layout, photos and text by Tim Rauen.