The day started early for me, as I left my home already at half past 8 in the morning. At 10 o'clock I arrived in Utrecht, where I stopped to drive further with Angela Bruurmijn. She had also plans to visit the meeting, so we decided to go together. Near Heerhugowaard we passed a scrap-yard where I saw some interesting cars, so Angela and I decided to take a look there. We found two Visas and one was still in a good condition. We took the tail lights for Angela's Visa, and the original instruction manual for my Visa collection. We drove further and arrived at half past 1 in Heerhugowaard, too late for lunch unfortunately.

We noticed that there were less visitors than last year: our international friends stayed home and also some Dutch members of the Visa club didn't make their way to Heerhugowaard. But that didn't mean that there were no interesting cars. Among the exposed Visa's were 5 GTi's (one of them was in full restauration, but was taken on a trailar at the back of an XM to the meeting), a Spirit 330, and even Visa Trophée. The organisation of the meeting had the intention to take the participants for a ride in this car, but Jeroen, the owner, had picked the wrong gear a few days earlier, while driving at 8000 rpm. One of the pistons broke down and the car could not be driven anymore. But even without its engine this car was absolutely worth looking at, because it was right-hand driven! Originally every Trophée was produced with the steering wheel at the left. This car however was bought by Citroën UK, and they decided to switch the position of the driver and the navigator. But also the exhaustion pipe moved to the right side. Now, about 20 years later, the car is in a bad condition and needs to be restored. Jeroen has plans to do that, but it will be a heavy job because he has to make much of the fibreglass parts (doors, wings, bonnet…) by himself.

At half past 2 there was a small speech by the organisation, followed by the election of the most beautiful Visa. The red Visa GTI owned by the Scholten family who use it regularly for rallying and racing, won the first price.

As the weather was bad, there was plenty of space where we could go to stay dry. In one of the sheds Jeroen showed us a GTi he was restoring. In another shed was a Visa Spirit he was working on. In yet another barn there were some other Citroëns, like 2 Visas Décapotable, an 11RE and even a pre-war Citroën Rosalie Boulangère.

Late in the afternoon the meeting ended. Altough the number of participants was disappointing, and the weather not always that fine, I think it the people who did show up, have had a nice day with interesting cars. My compliments for the organisation.

Thijs van der Zanden.