A journey that turned out differently than planned
This article was actually supposed to be a report on the third meeting of historic commercial vehicles at the Technik Museum Sinsheim. Around 150 vintage trucks from past decades were announced to be there. I had planned to take lots of photos during the announced trip, as this is the only way to photograph the vehicles individually in action. But then everything changed and the content of this article took on a different form. Nevertheless, the photos still show many interesting vintage commercial vehicles.
On a beautiful Thursday in mid-September, I set off with my partner Berta from Berlin. We drove south in our car to prepare a report on the historic commercial vehicle meeting at the Technik Museum Sinsheim, which was held in cooperation with the South German Truck Veterans Association. But during the trip, the theme changed. It started when our Peugeot broke down after 600 kilometers on the highway. Fortunately, it managed to limp to a hotel we had booked shortly before. The next morning, our streak of bad luck really began. Instead of photographing the arriving vintage trucks at the Technik Museum Sinsheim, interviewing the organizer, and talking to the participants, we spent Friday with the helpless “yellow angels” from the ADAC, the German automobile club.. We finally had the car towed to the nearest Peugeot repair shop in Mannheim and ended up getting a rental car from the ADAC. All of this involved hours of waiting. We didn't arrive at the Sinsheim venue until the evening, shortly before dark.
An interesting comparison: the Hanomag-Henschel F 161 S, built between 1969 and 1974, and its predecessor, the Henschel HS 16 TS, manufactured between 1961 and 1965. The aircraft belonging to the Sinsheim Technology Museum, which are installed throughout the event grounds, provided an impressive backdrop for the historic commercial vehicle meet.Photographed on arrival: a Scania Streamline Series 3 truck (built from 1994 to 1996) in the colors of the Brandenburg-based Gerloff transport company from Schwanebeck. A Soviet Tupolev TU-134 belonging to the Hungarian airline Malev can be seen in the background.Well positioned: trucks from the 1980s and 1990s at the Sinsheim historic commercial vehicle meet. The Volvo F 88, however, is a little older.The heavy MAN 32.281 DH was built between 1980 and 1981. The well-maintained all-wheel-drive dump truck came to Sinsheim from the Heidelberg area and therefore only had a short journey.
After taking a few photos of closely parked trucks, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s, we drove to a long-time friend who lives in a nearby town. He had offered us a room to stay in.
This L 4500, repurchased in 2007 for the Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic collection, comes from Onitsha in Nigeria. It is an export model from 1955, which was already being marketed in Germany at that time under the type designation L 312.Wilhelm Holzwarth from Gebenweiler brought along a type S 901 tipper truck in addition to the famous but extremely rare “Drache” (dragon) model from his Krupp collection. This cabover was built from 1960 to 1963.Among the few fire trucks presented in Sinsheim was this “new generation” equipment truck (built between 1974 and 1988) from Mercedes with a Bachert body. The vehicle comes from the Schönenberg-Kübelberg volunteer fire department near Saarbrücken.A small presentation of vehicles from the “Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic” collection, consisting of a short-hood truck, a cabover, and a conventional truck. All three belong to the Mercedes portfolio of the 1960s.“The dance around the golden calf” does not quite apply to this scene at the event site, as the calf was more rusty than golden and no one was dancing. Nevertheless, the huge submarine is one of the most spectacular museum pieces in Sinsheim. You can access the interior via a bridge or via this link to a report that describes and illustrates the difficult transport of the submarine from the Neckar River to the museum.The transport company Schüle & Sohn from Sinsheim-Rohrbach did not have far to go to present the faithfully restored Mercedes L 312 at the meeting. Almost 65,000 units of the 4.5-ton L 312 were sold between 1953 and 1961. In addition, there were around 8,000 units of the all-wheel-drive version LA 312 and the military vehicle variant LG 312. The almost identical-looking 3.5-ton L 311 and LA 311, which had been available since 1949, reached total production figures of almost 55,000 units.This stylish L 3000 S conventional truck also comes from the Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic collection. It was produced from 1938 to 1944.Against the backdrop of the Concorde and Tupolev TU-144 (which are similar in design), the vehicles participating in the veteran truck meeting were shown to their best advantage.
On Saturday morning, we drove to the event. Once again, I took photos of some of the participating vehicles. However, the planned excursion to Speyer, where I had actually wanted to take photos, was canceled. It is almost impossible to take good photos in the square with lots of spectators and vehicles parked close together. Instead, we decided to visit the Technik Museum Sinsheim. For an admission fee of €20 per person, there is a lot to see there. Vehicles of all types and eras are carefully arranged in the spacious halls, aircraft hang from the ceiling, and accessories that match the actual exhibits are displayed throughout. Military vehicles, from tracked motorcycles to tanks, take up a lot of space. I had the impression that the German Tank Museum in Munster, which I recently visited, does not have as many tanks on display as the halls in Sinsheim and the adjacent outdoor area. Many military vehicles are adorned with life-size dolls in matching uniforms, and the surroundings are designed like model dioramas.
Three-wheeled transporters were still a common sight on German roads in the 1950s and 1960s. A Goliath GD 750 is on display in the restaurant of the Sinsheim Museum. The vehicle has been carefully restored and loaded with typical goods for the period. The vehicle, which seems curious today, was manufactured from 1949 to 1955 at the Goliath Works in Bremen.The Sinsheim Technology Museum has a wide range of military equipment on display, including several half-track vehicles from the German Wehrmacht dating from the Second World War. The photo shows an Sd.Kfz. 7 (Sonderkraftfahrzeug 7) from 1937, although the side panels of the hood appear to be from a post-war Mercedes truck.The Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO) was a fully tracked tractor developed during World War II to facilitate transport under the difficult road and ground conditions on the Eastern Front. It was mainly used as a towing vehicle for artillery and for transporting equipment, luggage, and ammunition. Its payload was one and a half tons. The vehicle was produced from 1942 onwards by Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz and Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Austria.A rare collector's item: the Italian Breda artillery tractor from 1943 was used in Africa and the Balkans during World War II. It remained part of the Italian Army's vehicle fleet until the early 1970s.The GMC CCKW 352 was one of the most widely produced trucks in the world: around 700,000 units were manufactured between 1941 and 1945. The 2.5-ton truck with 6x6 all-wheel drive was also frequently used in the private sector in the period after World War II and helped with reconstruction in many countries in Western Europe.This photo shows another Sd.Kfz. 7/1 half-track vehicle equipped with an anti-aircraft gun (Flak). A landmine has been sensibly placed in front of the right front wheel. So please proceed with caution, as it could explode. :(The year of manufacture of this Vomag truck with a draft beer truck body is given as 1928. From January 1, 1930, only motor vehicles with pneumatic tires were allowed to be registered, with a transition period until 1935. Only trailers were allowed to continue rolling on solid rubber tires for a little longer. The Vomag in the photo spent many years with a classic car collector in Great Britain before it was able to return to its old German home on loan. It still has solid rubber tires ...The Opel Blitz three-ton truck was also produced by Mercedes in the final years of World War II. The manufacturer of the museum specimen is not clearly identifiable. The lettering on the door suggests that the flatbed truck was first used in the private sector and then presumably for military service. The standard cab and the wood gas plant are evidence of times of hardship – the old truck deserves a peaceful retirement in the museum.The Bremen-based automobile brand Hansa-Lloyd, now almost forgotten, was one of the most important German manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles at the beginning of the past century. The brand name was still used for trucks until 1937, after Borgward took over production in 1931. The year of manufacture of the CL 5 electric tractor shown in the photo is given as 1923.The oldest surviving truck from Bavarian production is the Maurer V II b, built in Nuremberg in 1907. The truck has solid rubber-tired wooden spoked wheels and is powered by a water-cooled two-cylinder engine with twelve horsepower, enabling a top speed of 25 kilometers per hour. The vehicle was discovered in a barn in 1984 and restored after having been stored there since 1917.
I photographed all the interesting trucks in the museum, both military and civilian. Some of the photos can be seen in this report. The visit to the museum finally convinced me not to devote this article solely to the truck meet, but to include the museum's exhibits as well.
The rest is quickly told. On Sunday, we visited the museum grounds once again. But already in the morning, the place emptied rapidly and the participants set off for home. I managed to take a few more photos on the grounds and on the short stretch of road between the museum entrance and the freeway.
Loaded: SK to NG. The two Mercedes truck generations differ only in minor details, primarily in the shape of the side windows. The “New Generation” 1632 semi-trailer truck with a V-10 engine gives the impression that the “heavy-duty” 2635 dump truck should not leave the event on its own wheels. The photo was taken shortly before the end of the Sinsheim meeting for historic commercial vehicles.Unloaded: Shortly afterwards, the “heavy class (SK)” tipper truck was seen driving confidently towards the highway. Perhaps it didn't want to be taken along by its older counterpart, but wanted to decide for itself where to go.This MAN F 90 was also already on its way to the highway when the photo was taken. This Mercedes L 5000 is also part of the Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic collection. It was built from 1949 to 1952 as the successor to the pre-war model L 4500 (1939 to 1948). In the photo, it has just left the event grounds in Sinsheim.This one was also present at the veteran truck meeting in Sinsheim. Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic not only brought a whole range of vintage trucks to Sinsheim, but also several new models with the ProCabin, whose appearance has been met with widely differing opinions. Holders of a truck driver's license had the opportunity to test drive diesel and electric versions of the new series. There was considerable enthusiasm among the testers after they had completed the test track.MAN-VW of the second series with headlights in the bumper, shown here as an out-of-service all-wheel-drive fire truck. From 1981 to 1987, the MAN-VW had round headlights on either side of the radiator grille. In 1987, the G 90 model was launched with square headlights as standard. However, the headlights on the vehicle pictured are round.The Mercedes LP 1519 was one of the many variants of the cubic generation from the 1960s, which was replaced by the “New Generation” in 1973 and 1974. The flatbed truck in the photo was part of the Mercedes-Benz Trucks Classic fleet.For vintage truck enthusiasts who have been around for a while, it was an old acquaintance: the Mercedes LP 322 with a Staufen box body from the Auracher trucking company in Stuttgart, founded in 1921. The vehicle has been owned by the Auracher family since it was purchased new in 1959 and was still in daily use as a furniture transporter at the end of the 1990s. Hats off to such care and attention, and thank you for the reunion!
We didn't leave until Wednesday, as our hopes that our Peugeot would be repaired in a timely manner were fading. We headed back to Berlin, where I had to return the ADAC rental car on Friday. At the beginning of the following week, I still hadn't received a pick-up date for our car. While writing this report, I was waiting for a response from Mannheim so that I could set off again in a rental car to pick up our car.
