Eroded by the internet: memories of Automarkt Beverwijk

“Tuesday morning, still halfway through the night, a cold wind cuts relentlessly through my winter coat. I’m bummed that I forgot my hat. And my thick winter boots. A group of men is standing blue-mouthed in front of a sturdy gate, impatiently waiting for the moment to come. The wide gate opens at the stroke of 6 o’clock, and then sprints to a colorful collection of second-hand cars that were delivered there an hour earlier by an equally colorful collection of car dealers. last his gates, and then shut them for good.”

That’s how I wanted to start this article, but the umpteenth lockdown throws a spanner in the works and so the most famous car market in the Netherlands disappears silently from the scene. But not without a look back with the man who has been the face of the car market for almost thirty years, Michel Corveleijn. “Instead of a last round with AutoWeek between trades, I am now in a Teams meeting with you, which is a shame.” Michel would have liked to see the last day of the Automarkt Beverwijk differently, because an institution that has been inextricably linked to motoring in the Netherlands for ninety years certainly deserves a better farewell. It’s also a bit ironic. In this case the internet helps us out with an excellent connection, but the same internet has also slowly but surely killed the physical car market. What remains are the stories, because although Michel is content with the fact that the car market has been overtaken by time and technology, he likes to look back on many years of history.

Michel Corveleijn

End of Cold War

“When I started working at the Automarkt straight from school some thirty years ago, it was still organized every Tuesday at the cattle market complex in Utrecht. That city had been the cradle of the car market since the early twentieth century, until we had to make way for housing on the site and in 2012 we were able to move to the parking lot of the Beverwijkse Bazaar. In the first few years that I started working at the Automarkt, there was a shift from Dutch dealers and Dutch customers to an enormous increase of international customers from the former Eastern Bloc and Africa. The wall between the two Germanys was not long past and the end of the Cold War meant that the borders between Europe and the East opened further and further. Used cars from the Netherlands turned out to be extremely popular and the market grew rapidly in the early 1990s. We went from 1,200 parking spaces to 1,600 units, and on those Tuesdays a thousand cars just changed hands. But then, how do you organize that, arrange all those transfers and customs papers with people who don’t speak a word of Dutch, German or English?”

Trade got off to a good start, but that paperwork proved difficult, for which there were not just standard solutions. At the time, the parent company of the Automarkt, VWE Automotive, took care of the paperwork for the traders on the market. Before that, it didn’t even have its own office space, so that required a lot of creativity from the employees. “Every Tuesday we took over the local restaurant and we installed our own computer system there,” says Corveleijn. “In addition, the internet was just starting to mature, so we were able to deregister cars ourselves and arrange customs documents in consultation with the RDW and customs. That did not always go smoothly, because those systems sometimes collapsed. Imagine solving that when there are a thousand car dealers at your table who want to get things sorted… Yet we managed it every time. Getting a network ready at six in the morning, packing again at eight o’clock in the evening. Ready for next week.”

Beverwijk car market (Photo: ANP)

misunderstandings

The actions of various types who do not understand each other’s language regularly lead to misunderstandings. It’s up to Michel and his team to get things back on the right track like a good lubricating oil. “It could sometimes get violent, but I’ve never actually experienced left-wing situations. At the end of the day, there are still two people for whom the deal is paramount, so they really don’t just punch each other in the brains. Naturally, we also had to pioneer in communication and administration. Consider completing such a Dutch export form validly if you only master the Cyrillic script! Behind the tables we already had interpreters and employees who spoke different languages ​​at our disposal, then you can work it out together.”

Customers from home and abroad found the Beverwijk car market mainly through word of mouth. “We were sometimes really surprised how customers even managed to report to our gate at five o’clock in the morning. In the early days, these were mostly private individuals. They would come all the way from Russia and even Africa to the Netherlands on their own or with a shabby coach. Sleeping in a hotel was out of the question, they slept in parking lots and cooked their own meals along the way. And with a bag full of cash in your pocket, often saving the proceeds of half a life. They came here to buy a ‘European’ car, for the price they could buy a house for at home. Then in the evening the whole string went across the border by car again, following the coach with which they had arrived or just completely on their own again.”

There are countless anecdotes to tell about all those international customers. “A nice story is a customer who traveled by bus from Mongolia to the Automarkt and then bought a Lada here. You would say you have a better chance in Russia, but apparently it was worth it. Anyway, he travels to Mongolia again, but then a week or two later we see him again at the counter for a Lada. Turns out he sold the other one halfway for a profit, and then bought another Lada with those pennies here. Incredible isn’t it?”

beautiful characters

Dutch used cars were therefore in demand, especially because of the MOT obligation and the many good roads in the Netherlands. But the different customers had their own preferences. “The people from the Eastern Bloc were especially fond of German cars. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, such brands mainly went in that direction. Africans searched in a completely different corner; without the Toyota logo on the hood, nothing went south with it. Also nice, the African buyers often came with the whole family, that was a pleasant experience. But our dealers also had a few beautiful portraits as usual. One came who invariably forgot to put in his teeth or another with a cigar in the corner of his mouth all day long. I think that the Automarkt was one of the few places where trade was really done on location, with a handshake. And satisfied customers often returned with a tasty treat from their own country. Biscuits, home baked goods and of course a bottle of vodka every now and then. We also bought our own cars on the market, didn’t we? Then you knew for sure that you had something good, those traders couldn’t sell us junk of course!”

It is now abandoned…

Online platform

In those thirty years Michel has seen the market change and that it would eventually come to an end became clear with the increase in trade via the internet. “You can’t stop progress. Our work was mainly administrative and many cases can now be easily handled online. Then it really doesn’t matter to a trader whether he is physically present on the market or not. It has become a lot easier to find the right cars, which is why we started an online platform ourselves years ago. In this way we still bring the trading parties together and we take the paperwork off your hands, as we used to do on the market on the spot. That whole physical world in our trade is disappearing; You don’t buy rolls of film for your camera anymore, do you? However, the romance of live business is also lost. All day long among people, that atmosphere, the hectic pace, I’m going to miss that, just like the smell of frikandellen and fries and opening everything in the morning, customers running in search of the best cars and everything again in the evening can close. I look back on that with great pleasure.”