Dear fellow ACI Delegates and Citroën friends!
Last weekend the Norwegian clubs and enthusiasts celebrated 90 years of Citroën together with Citroën of Norway. We had a great time together, and I would like to share some of the moments with you.
Photos are available on the 2CV Club’s discussion board: http://www.2cvforum.no/index.php?action=gallery;cat=2
The board itself is mainly in Norwegian, but I think these pics speak for themselves.
Hopefully this report can be used when it is time to start planning for the 100 years anniversary in 2019, so I will point out the good and bad experiences we got from planning and carrying out this project.
First of all: Collaborating with Citroën on such an event was a new and positive experience for us. The relationship between Citroën and the clubs did really get a boost from this, and hopefully we will be able to build on this for the years to come. Citroën of Norway took care of advertising, booking the venue for our classic car exhibition and organised music and entertainment, and of course birthday cake for everyone.
During the weekend we had a parade on Saturday, visiting a French cheese shop and bakery. The purpose of this was our cars being present in the city centre of Oslo, and of course we turned a lot of heads. We ended up at Citroën headquarters enjoying a wonderful lunch based on the goods we had collected on our way there. A lovely day in the autumn sun. On Sunday we organised a classic car exhibition, inviting the public to come and see Citroën’s history. The oldest car present was an early ’34 Traction Avant, and in total there were 33 cars present. The clubs did a good job gathering examples of different models from each decade from the 30ies and up to present day. In addition to this, local collectors showed up with their Citroëns too. Sadly, the weather was not at all as nice as the day before, with heavy rains making it a cold and wet experience.
What we feel could be done different next time:
Time of the year: October in Norway means winter is right around the corner. Again, this means a lot of collectors have put their cars away for the season. It would have been much easier to gather cars for the exhibition and parade if we could have done this in August or even September.
Time for planning: From what we understand, the guidelines for this event was published from Citroën Paris to Citroën Norway late May or even June. The effect of this was that nothing really happened until after summer holidays in August/September. We did our best given the circumstances, but I think this could have been even bigger and better if there had been more time for planning and organizing.
That said, the Norwegian clubs and collectors are really enthusiastic about the improved relationship with Citroën and hope this will continue to improve over the years to come.
I hope the rest of you also have been able to take part in celebrating Citroën, and hope to meet you all on the next AGM in January (?) 2010.
All the Best,
Morten P Ruud
ACI Delegate
President, 2CV Club of Norway
