Unimog Club Gaggenau
The Unimog Club Gaggenau e. V. is a registered non-profit association with over 6,600 members (as of 3/2018), which was founded in Gaggenau in 1993 . The aim of the association is to provide a platform for fans of the Unimog . The association has members in over 34 countries and is a recognized Mercedes-Benz brand club.
history
Decisive for the establishment was that Michael Wessel bought a Unimog 2010, built in 52 years, from Alfred Menke at the annual meeting of the "Unimog Veteran Club" in Bad Laer. He went there to present his book Stories about the Unimog . With 120 books fewer and a restored Unimog, he set out on the journey home, where he came up with the idea of the regional group. On arrival at home, Michael Wessel initiates the regional Unimog Club in Gaggenau. The Unimog Veterans Club already existed at that time, and they didn't want to compete with it. He kept addressing Unimog owners and heard that they “always wanted to meet”. After numerous telephone calls and a subsequent pyramid scheme - everyone knew a few other Unimog owners - around 100 addresses within a 25 km radius were collected. These Unimoglers met at Jahnplatz in Gaggenau in March 1993, 40 of them came with their Unimog. At Westermann-Holzbau in the neighboring Kuppenheim several people met on May 15 to initiate the foundation of the club. Among the founding members of the club was the head of the Unimog division at Daimler-Benz AG, Hans-Jürgen Wischhof, himself the owner of a restored Unimog 411 and a committed collector. Director Wischhof welcomed the initiative to found the club, "because the Unimog is such an inspiring vehicle that you can still enjoy it in your free time after work".
After more and more “foreigners” pushed into the club, the regional limitation in the statutes was deleted and the vision developed “In every country in which Unimog drive, we also want members!”. A special event was the big Unimog rally to Gaggenau on the occasion of “100 Years of Automobile Manufacturing in Gaggenau” and “10 Years of Unimog Veterans Club”. Good personal contacts were maintained with the Unimog Veteranen Club from the start, and so they were happy to take over the organization of this major event on site. And so on the last weekend in July 1995 around 300 Unimog and three times as many fans from all over Germany and neighboring countries came to the Baden city of Gaggenau.
In 1997 the club became a registered association. In 1999 the club was recognized as a Mercedes-Benz brand club by the MBCCCI. The club has been cooperating with the Unimog portal Unimog-Community.de since 2000 - the world's largest Unimogler community with more than 17,500 members. When the last Unimog rolled off the Gaggenau assembly line in 2002, the Unimog Club Gaggenau e. V. presented this silver-gray U 4000 double cabin as a gift for their previous commitment. The UCG was recognized as a non-profit association in 2005.
The Unimog Museum opened in Gaggenau on June 3, 2006 . The UCG has a 25% stake in the operating company. The 20,000th visitor was welcomed at the beginning of September. From June 15 to 18, 2006, the first annual meeting “in the middle of Germany” with over 400 Unimog vehicles took place on the motocross site of Aufenau near Bad Orb. Due to the steadily growing number of members, an office was set up in 2008 to increase the service for the members and to relieve the board. At the general meeting in 2008, Michael Schnepf was elected to succeed Michael Wessel, who headed the club for 15 years.
In June 2011, the next 60th anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz Unimog was celebrated at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Wörth and supported with a Unimog rally and 60 selected vehicles from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gaggenau to the Mercedes-Benz plant in Wörth. On May 5, 2014, the UCG logo was registered as a word / figurative mark by the German Patent and Trademark Office. Rainer Hildebrand was elected as the new chairman at the 24th ordinary general meeting.
The Unimog-Club Gaggenau eV is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a large Unimog meeting from June 15 to 17, 2018 in Gaggenau around the Unimog Museum .
Club life
Unimog experts
Several board members worked for the Unimog at home and abroad for many decades or still are. Manfred Florus and Roland Feix, for example, began their professional careers in 1949 - during the pioneering days of the Unimog - in Göppingen at what was then the Boehringer factory. They know the Unimog well through demonstrations and later through managerial functions in sales. Your colleague on the club board, Heinz Schnepf, has worked in the Unimog sector for over 40 years since he started his apprenticeship. The vehicle accompanied him through Europe, Asia, America and Africa before he took over the management of the Unimog test workshop in Gaggenau. As a retiree, he is now an expert for all questions about Unimog oldies and newer generations.
Unimog booklet
The members ' magazine Unimog-Heft'l appears quarterly . Unimog fans will find reports, technology tips, classifieds, introductions from members, history and much more. In April 2006, the anniversary edition number 50 appeared. With the 75th issue in 2012, Carl-Heinz Vogler handed over the editing to Michael Endres, which was temporarily also taken over by Michael Wessel. From 2015, Axel Otersen headed the editorial department, who announced the end of his activity at the 2016 annual general meeting. Until the extraordinary general meeting in 2017, the magazine was temporarily looked after by the board and the office as editorial management. Axel Otersen has been heading the editorial team again since October 2017.
Range of services
The club offers advice, trips, parts markets, lectures, type customer, member magazine, exchange sites for models and accessories.
Regional presence
There are now 26 regional groups in Germany and neighboring countries. There are also contacts in the USA, Canada, Japan and China.
Regional groups
Schwarzwald-Baar district
The group operates in the postcode area 78xxx. A "screwdriver meeting" takes place every year. A Unimog meeting takes place every two years. The regional group consists of around 160 members who meet regularly for the regulars' table, support the association for children with cancer in Freiburg and continuously provide training and further education in the Unimog area.
Francs
“Unimog Friends Franconia”, founded in 1996, 150 members. The focus is on driving the Unimog in difficult terrain, based on truck trials. Big Unimog meeting on the third weekend in September, every two months there is a regulars' table.
Lower Bavaria
The Unimog and MBtrac Friends Niederbayern eV , based in Straubing, was founded on May 17, 1996 and has 225 members. The club is primarily intended to serve owners of old Unimog and MB trac models in order to create contact opportunities. Owning your own vehicle was not a requirement for membership. The catchment area of the members mainly comprises Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate and is congruent with the regional area "Lower Bavaria" according to the division of the UCG.
Weserbergland
The UnimogFreunde-Weserbergland are not a registered association, but a pure interest group from the Hameln-Pyrmont district in Lower Saxony. Founded in 2001 by Karl-August Müller (Fischbeck), Jens Lutter (Hemeringen) and Dirk Hauptmeyer (Wördeholz). The “planning team” has now grown to 9 members. A fixed number of the other “members” cannot be quantified, but is over 100. The aim is to establish contacts with other interested parties and to organize events related to the Unimog. The Whitsun tour of the UnimogFreunde-Weserbergland, always on Whit Monday, is the largest event of its kind in northern Germany. It took place for the first time in 2001 with 22 participants and reached 75 vehicles at the 5th anniversary in 2006. Since 2003, this festival-like event has also been accompanied by a camera and implemented semi-professionally on a DVD.
Switzerland / Liechtenstein
The Unimog Club Switzerland / Principality of Liechtenstein was founded in 1995. The annual fee is CHF 50, including membership in the UCG. From a core of initiators u. a. Ueli Bicker, Hans Peter Widrig, Claudio Lazzarini with a geographical focus on the St. Gallen and Graubünden Rhine valleys, an association with 135 members throughout Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein has emerged.
Rhine-Main
The Rhine-Main regional group was founded in 2002 by four members (Hermann Frank, Wilhelm and Rudolf Jost, Klaus Lukas) of the Unimog-Club-Gaggenau eV. In 2003 the regional group was confirmed by the board of the UCG. A regulars' table takes place in Dreieich-Götzenhain on the first Monday of every month. The annual meeting takes place on the first weekend in June. The Rhine-Main regional group comprises around 350 members and 600 vehicles. An average of 40 to 50 people take part in the get-togethers, excursions, mechanics' meetings and other events. This regional group of the UCG has held three annual meetings (2006, 2009 and 2014) of the UCG in Aufenau. There are four trips a year. Board of Directors (since 2014): Georg Kunze and Joachim Abt.