Blowing out ninety candles is not easy, but with a mask on it is quite a job. Yet that happens today in Bunnik in Utrecht, in honor of the fact that the Bovag was founded on May 6, 1920. A good reason to look back on an eventful past.
With Mother’s Day approaching, it could just be that you walk in at these perfumery at an appropriate distance at Douglas perfumery on the Vredenburg in Utrecht for the obligatory nice smell. Then know that you enter a piece of automotive history, because this beautiful building was once Hotel Noord Brabant. At five o’clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, May 6, 1930, a group of car dealers gathered there to split off from the RAI by setting up their own interest group. Until then, the retailers in the car industry were part of that RAI, with a board seat, but without voting rights. That increasingly led to dissatisfaction and now that the department has also collided with the tire branch, the measure is full for chairman Gerard Boon, Ford dealer in Leiden.
The meeting in Utrecht is progressing smoothly and that is how the Bond van Automobielhanders en Garagehouders, or Bovag for short, was born. Boon is elected chairman of the brand new association with about forty members. That same year, the Bovag obtained royal approval.
It means an earthquake in the fledgling automotive world of our country. Until now, the importers and dealers of the RAI have had exclusivity towards each other, but because RAI does not recognize the Bovag, the RAI board prohibits its members from doing business with what they call the ‘non-members’. The magazine De Autohandel of the dealer branch of the RAI is also boycotted, again reason for the Bovag to set up their own title: Het Automobielbedrijf, edited by Geerlig Riemer, who has been quite busy training a select a group of young people for the car industry, which will eventually become the IVA in Driebergen.
That same year, the number of Bovag members grew to 745. In the mid-1930s, Bovag and RAI came closer together and a joint arbitration committee was established. In 1940 the Bovag launched an action to help the members who had been duped by the first war violence to recover. The Motorcycle Dealers Association joins.
Even after the war, the Bovag is again committed to affected companies, including tools and other materials from leftover army supplies. Training body VAM, later Innovam, was established in 1948. Other achievements of the Bovag in those post-war years include the first collective labor agreement for the car industry, the Institute of Driving Schools Recognition, the first price lists for used cars and – hold on – a real Bovag song. Later the first used car show (1956), a warranty insurance for used cars, a breakdown assistance service, the ‘Happy that I Drive’ campaign, which still evokes memories for the older reader, the much more haunting ‘Beun de Haas’ campaign. The introduction of the MOT, in the mid-eighties, also keeps the Bovag busy.
In 1989, the Bovag moved to the current building, which was completely renovated in 2013, along the A12 near Bunnik, which (did you know?) Looks like a spanner from the air. The official opening by Prince Bernhard, a year later, coincides nicely with the sixtieth anniversary. As the Bovag itself once started as a result of a split-off, a divisive fungus threatens in 1993. This time, it is resolved neater by the creation of three separate departments: TDA for truck companies, ABA for independent garage companies and NDA for brand dealers.
Today, the trade association consists of 9,000 entrepreneurs in mobility, ranging from car dealers to petrol stations, and from caravans to engine overhaul.