The "Friends of Nostalgic Cars" meeting has one of the longest histories of all classic (and modern) car meetings in Switzerland.
As early as November 23, 1975, Kaspar Gut, Walter Odermatt-Unternäher, Hans Bohrer and Hans-Rudolf Rutishauser, together with Thomas Hess, first founded an interest group and then the Friends of Nostalgic Cars Association with the aim of "promoting the preservation, ownership and care of nostalgic vehicles as true to the original as possible". The first meetings took place in Obwalden and were open to all older cars; there was not yet a distinction between vintage and classic cars. The youngest vehicles were less than 15 years old, but pre-war classics were also welcome. At that time, however, the majority were cars from the fifties and sixties and these are still the "hard core" of the FNA meetings today.
The 49th FNA annual meeting will now take place on September 24, 2023 and, as before, it is free for participants and visitors. The cars have aged with the club members, the young newcomers are received rather skeptically. For example, a minimum year of construction of 1993 can be read in the calendar entry, so if you want to come with a younger car, you should contact the FNA managers in advance.
As in the previous year and also in 2017, 2018 and 2020, the venue for the 2023 meeting will be Triengen airfield.
There will be more than enough space for both the classic cars and the visitors' cars, while the airfield restaurant will provide refreshments. Various vintage airplanes are also expected again, including the Rusalka, the red Antonov biplane. There will also be the opportunity to book trial flights. However, you should book in advance.
And maybe the steam train will be passing by again. Hopefully the weather in September 2023 will be better than last year.
More information about the meeting and the program can be found on the FNA website.
The history of the FNA was documented a few years ago in an issue of SwissClassics Revue.
