Wörthersee auto vw

Hem / Mobilitet (Bil, Cykel, Kollektivtrafik) / Wörthersee auto vw

The event will be held next year, and VW plans to call the theme "Coming Home." There will be special highlights, and Volkswagen has promised a few surprises for loyal GTI fans.

Really, it's the best possible outcome for the Treffen. Further down is a track-prepped Lupo GTI and an especially sweet Mk2. Down from those are a few stretched cars, including one Pennsylvania-plated ‘Gooooolf TDI’, with a completely open rear deck adorned by a pair of parasols.

I sat on the boardwalk, listening to the lake, trying to remember how special coming here once was for modified car enthusiasts.

To that end, throughout this story I’ve included photos from my visits to GTI-Treffen in the summers of 2017 and 2018 – the event’s peak years for me.

Now, the last vestige of Wörthersee automotive glory is the luxury vehicle dealership on the main route and the stone ‘Granit Golf’ statue.

And that’s just a small sample of the metal out here.

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There’s a pleasant buzz inside the show itself – pretty busy, but not overly crowded. But that’s not the feeling you immediately get when walking up to the turnstiles.

Dozens of strategically placed cars litter the entrance to the event, but not the ones you’d necessarily expect.

It’s real shame.

I’ll keep coming to remember the good times. That was built especially for the Treffen.

As with many things, the Treffen was brought to a halt by Covid-19 in 2020. A few years ago, the area would have been absolutelybrimming with cars and people from all over Europe and even further afield.

He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.

Town Shuts Down Long-Running VW GTI Worthersee Show Over Crowds, Climate Change

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Since 1982, Volkswagen enthusiasts have gathered at the picturesque Lake Wörthersee in Austria, for the annual GTI-Treffen (GTI meeting).

However, more than that, the locals became more and more concerned with the climate impact on local ecosystems.

VW Steps In and Saves Europe's Legendary Worthersee Car Gathering

Held since 1982, the annual Wörthersee GTI Treffen saw crowds as large as 200,000 at its peak.
The local Wörth municipality in Austria, where the event had been held, announced the permanent end of the gathering earlier this year.
VW has officially sponsored the Treffen since 2000 and has now promised to continue the tradition at its headquarters in Wolfsburg.

If you are a fan of the Volkswagen GTI in any of its generations, then heaven is a place in Germany.

However, it will be interesting to see how many people show up and if enthusiasts still unofficially gather by Lake Wörthersee. An R-specific display has the usual suspects as well as some pretty rare items, including a unicorn-status Touareg W12 alongside a one-off Mk6 Golf with a VR6, built as a proof-of-concept for a six-cylinder, 456bhp R that would never come to be.

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A short walk away and past several vendors (making sure to stop for currywurst, naturally) will take you to a stage, with some sort of interview with passionate owners constantly happening alongside their car placed front-and-centre.

So the mayor of Maria Wörth, Markus Perdacher, decided to shut it down for 2023 but not without leaving the door open for some sort of smaller event in the future. Citing the effects of climate change and a need to consider sustainability, an official statement concluded, "The municipality of Maria Wörth will no longer host any conventional major automotive events in the next few years."

Obviously, this was a blow for many a VeeDub enthusiast, and for Volkswagen itself.

It’s understandable that the small towns near Lake Wörthersee would want the massive event to end, or at least reduce in size, but it’s still a sad moment for so many VW enthusiasts, for whom the GTI-Treffen was so important. That one requires a Google, leading to the discovery that VW once built a Toyota Hilux under licence.

If you've been putting off your own trek to the Treffen, 2024's the year. After years of growing crowds and increasingly rowdy parties, the police and locals also became overwhelmed and decided to shut it down. Bringing the festival directly to Wolfsburg feels more fitting, and the year's break allows Volkswagen more time to plan.

The Golf R and GTI still both garner near-perfect scores for their blend of practicality and performance, and their fan base remains huge.

It debuted

Wörthersee-specific concept cars like the GTI Roadster Vision Gran Turismo, a sleek roofless two-seater built to celebrate 15 years of the Gran Turismo racing games. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV.

Feel free to post them in the comments section below.

Jakub Vít
Instagram: somal1sh

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Who else has fond memories of Wörthersee around GTI-Treffen?