SUMMER-GATHERING IN SOUTHERN JUTLAND 2024
This year’s Summer-gathering took place Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th of August. And it grew bigger than ever, more cars and more international. 25 Bugattis plus two Riley Nines. From abroad we welcomed teams from Norway, France, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
BCD held its AGM Thursday afternoon. And late afternoon most participated in the local old-car-club’s meeting on the harbour af Sønderborg, next to the castle. Our base was Hotel Sønderborg Strand. And it was a well-chosen base.
Friday took us past the old brickworks of Cathrineminde -now a museum- to Petersen Tegl for aperitif and a tour of the modern brickworks. From there we drove along the east coast of Sønderjylland. The most fascinating stop was the organbuilders Marcussen of Aabenraa, where we met the very passionate people that build organs and export them to most of the world.
Saturday’s route was the longest and it took us all the way to the West coast and the Wadden sea. The evenings dinner was concluded with a very intense thunderstorm. And on Sunday we discovered that it had contained a typhoon.
The routes were designed by Peter Zinck and they were varied: Long straights to the West coast and lots of scenic, winding and undulating minor roads. Especially Sunday on the island of Als. The typhoon had taken down a tree blocking our road. But luck was with us in the shape of Per Hörlen’s modern Volvo. Unlucky Per’s 37 had developed a malady. The Volvo easily pulled the tree away.
Among the participating cars there were several we hadn’t seen before. For the Danes the most exciting was Terkel Lund Ovesen’s Type 30 which hadn’t been on the road for seven decades. The car has Danish history for 98 or 99 years.
Longest drive under ‘Bugatti-steam’ was performed by father-son-team Jacques and Irian Paul – all the way from the Netherlands.
I had the privilege of having three different navigators. Charming ladies, who had given their Bugatti seats to sons, daughter or sister. We had nice conversations, once I got the Riley out of second and the noise became tolerable. All-in-all a most enjoyable gathering.
/Peter Bering