VEB mobil

We at VEB Ungelsheim recognized early on that, in addition to the pleasure of drinking, the joy of music and literary edification, mobility is also, and especially, one of the needs of our contemporaries*(1).

Mobility and advancement as possible, existential tasks

The question: "how do I get from A to B" has always been a basic task of our existence.
And the answer to it has always been "depending on": before, there was more "on foot". And we rode. On camels, horses, donkeys, goats etc.
We also let ourselves - depending on our social habitus - be carried around on palanquins. Then we used the invention of the wheel to refine the progress in riding the mentioned donkeys, horses, camels or goats by the invention of the team. Finally, now the one who did not want to reach point B on foot (in (würg) Makler*internal-German) no longer has to get on camel, but only into the carriage.

Mobility as vehicle and goal of constant renewal

In the 19th century, Carl Benz and his ilk invented the power taxi and replaced the draught animal with the enormous power and unbridled joy that only an engine is capable of delivering.
This gave human mobility, and indeed humanity as a whole, a breathtakingly innovative boost.
Building on this, other things in our lives have also changed and improved.
We no longer had to go to the Aunt Emma store and carry our daily shopping in bags, trolleys or backpacks to our homes.

No, we could comfortably drive out to the shopping center of our choice to the green field, use economies of scale and cost effects, which the dealers generously passed on to us, to buy cheap goods there.

Without the "trunks" of our Suffs, we would have realized right there and then that we had made a mistake. Let me put it this way: If any of you stood there just once without a car on one of these green meadows, kilometers away from your own home, with stairs and pallets full of bargains made of perishable cheap meat, family packs of ice cream etc., you will understand my argumentation.

And even when, after the outbreak of the digital revolution, the shopping experience could be shifted to the Internet, the goods still had to be physically brought to us in the end. Not all of them, some of them we can download, but whoever has tried this with a trivial liter of milk knows what insurmountable problems arise. Here, too - I am now back at the dispatch of goods - the messengers use their own tired feet for the very last mile, if at all. Otherwise they also use (or put themselves in) proven means of transport and locomotion such as delivery vans and similar trucks.

Statements

However, the importance of the own vehicle remains the same. It has remained a statement** for example for a certain brand awareness or for an attitude to life.

I myself, the author of these modest lines, for example, have always attached importance to chic little flat speedsters with a lot of horsepower.

This, on the one hand, to emphasize my basically sporty touch, which unfortunately is not sufficiently represented in my physique.

On the other hand: I emphasize what I can afford. Just like that. Lotus Europe? I like it. I'll buy it. Alfa 4c? Cool. I'll buy it. Why? Because I can.

Furthermore: Also for the chicks.

So, just a statement.

Mobility, innovation & socialization

In addition, the development of a just society and cooperative models was and is one of those shining suns in the cosmos of my thoughts, in whose orbit, like rocky planets, my business ideas circle.

From here, it was only a stone's throw to my sparkling mind to the thought that we were taking up the mobility of the sunken German Democratic Republic in a benevolent manner. With a Trabant rental it would be possible to give all those people who mourn the alleged charm of this dull dark German terror regime the opportunity, decades after the fall of the wall, to sit in and drive one of these stinking, natural fiber-reinforced plastic-covered vehicles for a small fee (for example in Deutsch-Mark-West/Euro or USD). Just as if the good old Ossi times could be sniffed out in the blue haze of their two-stroke ejection (würg-röchel).

Pitiful failure as a well-understood, necessary detour to achieve our goals

Unfortunately we had to end this in itself sensible business way. Not because the sun of socialism turned out to be a black hole - to stay in this beautiful comparison - no but because we simply couldn't get the chain to bring the plastic carts into a condition in which they could have been lent out.

However, we know that failure and all the walls against which we ran full of verve and plem-plem are not the limit, the end, but rather the real path of further development.

Thus we continue the thought of automobile concepts in other, more future-oriented garments. Perhaps more on this later.

(1) Basically I try to use gender-neutral terms. Alternatively, or if these cannot be found, I try to use the female and male language forms as pair formulas, which are connected with an "and" or "or". The slash for the abbreviation of the pair formula (e.g. employees) slips through here and there, but is avoided in continuous text. Otherwise I use the so-called "generic masculine", which pretends to be allowed to write as follows: "For reasons of better readability, the simultaneous use of feminine and masculine language forms is avoided in the following and the generic masculine is used. All references to persons apply equally to both genders".