Meeting of automobile historians in Belgrade
05/18/2012
On April 21, 2012, at the invitation of Nebojsa Djordjevic, President of the Association of Automotive Historians (UIA) in Belgrade, a group of automotive genealogists met for the sixth annual meeting. The meeting venue was an amphitheater of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering of the University of Belgrade.
As usual, several lectures were given by local and invited historians, this time:
1. The Cadillac of Serbian King George (by Miroslav Milutinovic)
2. NSU cars and motorcycles in Serbia (by Vladimir Veselinovic)
3. Coat of arms/emblems of the Automobile Club of the Yugoslav Kingdom (by Nebojsa Djordjevic)
4. The unique Alfa Romeo of the Jankovits brothers (by Daniel Tomicic, Croatia)
5. Unknown trucks, vans and special vehicles based on the Zastava 615/620 (by Alexander Vidojkovich)
6. Bodywork of "Vatrosprem" (by Alexander Zajc)
7. The Avala car race of 1927 (by Nebojsa Djordjevic)
Official guests at the meeting were Pal Negyesi from Hungary, Bogdan Coconoiu from Romania, Dino Milic-Jakovlic from Croatia, Goran Bilan from Bosnia and Ivan Koley from Bulgaria. Some even arrived in vintage cars. After the lectures, discussions continued at a cocktail party. A number of new books on the region's automotive history were also presented, including
"Cars from Hungary" (author Istvan Zsuppan, editor Pal Negyesi, who also announced a new book on the history of Skoda just a few days later), "Motor racing in Romania 1904-2010 (author Martin Dumitrescu, editor Bogdan Coconoiu), "Rennt Leute, the car is coming - automobile history of Croatia 1898 - 1945" (author Valentino Valjak), "The golden years of the automobile in Bosnia and Herzegovina" (author Goran Bilan), and "History of the automobile in the Bulgarian Kingdom from 1896 to 1946" (car and publisher Ivan Kolev).
Classic car magazines were also presented, nota bene "Avto Motor Classic" (published four times a year since 2004) and "Avtoklasika and Motorcycles" (monthly magazine from Bulgaria, published since 2003), presented by Ivan Kolev. Unfortunately, the disappearance of similar magazines also had to be registered, with "Oldtajmerki yjesnik" (Croatia) ceasing publication in 2011 and "Oldtajmer" (Serbia) ending its activities as early as 2005.
In connection with the sixth historians' meeting, there was also a vintage car exhibition with over a hundred historic vehicles, including some particularly rare Yugoslavian examples and twenty motorcycles. The vehicles had traveled from Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bosnia and Italy and were displayed at the University of Belgrade. The oldest automobile was a Dodge Model 30 from 1921 (owned by Miladin Savicic). Also on display were the Alfa Romeo 1900 C Sprint from 1952 (owned by Francesco Bonifanti), the Russian GAZ 13 "Chaika" (driven to the event by owner Valentine Karavulchey from Bulgaria), a Leyland Royal Tiger Worldmaster Bus from 1961 and a Zastava 620 B S-500 fire engine from 1965.
