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Hotel California
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May i first ask any posts regarding the comming factory visit organised by the forum NOT to post here please?
If so use this topic please?
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/vw-california-factory-tour-hannover-april-18th-2017.15758/
Thank you for this .
It was on my to do list for a while and we are planning a simular trip with the members of club/forum , but i got invited by my dealer Camper Centrum Nederland to vistit the "VW nutzfarzeuge" factory at Hannover Stocken and the "VW Californiafertigung" at Hannover Limmer.
I just heard we could join a week ago so glad we (me and my wife) could take a few days vacation of work.
CCN does this visits for thiere clients , this time they had three days planned , three diffrent groups , the owner of CCN has very good connections with the VW factory in Hannover as they only sell California's and are very knowlegable in everything regarding VW campers doing the California bussines for 15y .
Leaving home near Antwerp on monday noon for a 425km drive we took a campsite 20km from the Hannover Factory
Driving in Germany can be tricky , "stau" , traffic jams are frequent and can be long.
We where lucky not have those but saw a massive stau on the other direction , road closed due a accident , 10 km standing still was the result!
This was our destination:
http://www.camping-hannover.de/en/contact
Nice place but i had the feeling they are a "bungalow" type camping and spreading campers in the open spots witch for me i don't like.
We prefer using ACSI campsites as you get discount specialy low seson , as we now payed 27euro two persons,dog and hook-up.
It would be around 12 to 18 euro at a ACSI campsite this time a year.
But overall good facilyties and just one night will do perfect , we arrived at 16.00h did a small walk arround the Lake and hit the Cali as it began to get dark.
We where expected the 15/11 at 8.30am at the "VW Nutzfarzeuge Kundencenter" , the place where you can pick up your verhicle handing over the key direct form the factory . It has a VW shop and a restaurant . Open for public and worth the visit.
Headed off early as we noticed the traffic to Hannover city was heavy the day before , took us 45min to do the 20km to the factory !
Arriving at kundecenter just in time a member of CCN was waiting at the parking showed us the way en we enterd the center where there was coffee waiting.
We ended up beeing a group of about 25 pers. leaving the kundecenter walking in the factory guided by a former (retired)worker who gives guided tours .
We got a headset in witch we heared him speak(german) and just walkt thru the working factory , a rare thing .
The factory in Hannover builds the T6 person carriers on one line and buildersvans (Cali's included) on a second line.
Also the Amarok double cabin is made here.
Also the bodyparts from diffrent models like VW caddy and Porche Panamera are made here.
We where given info on mumbers of workers,verhicle build a year, tonnes of steel ,....
All to much to write down , if i could only remember.
It was realy nice seeing some metal parts come together to a painted chassis , and all things build on to it allong the way.
Very strange seeing panel vans,single cab, double cab,california beeing built in the same line.
The arrival of all the diffrent parts "just in time" is a big challenge.
We saw sevral Cali's including some RHD ....beeing assembled.
The factory walk was sevral km long and took us about 2h , no pictures taken !
By noon we left the factory driving to the lunch meeting point .
The Oldtimer Volkswagen nutzfahrzeuge museum , sort of place where VW has every model VW van build....t1 up to T5 in very diffrent set ups....
The place is usual not open for public ony for special events.
We got a lunch (braddwurst ) and dessert offerd there and could look arround , again no picture taken allowed. But everybody did so when nobody was watching.
The rusty one is a 1951 , not the nice lady to the left she's a few years younger ...
By 13.30 we walkt up to the Californiafertigung where they build the california after the naked cali's been transported from the factory to this other plant about 20km appart.
They put a "transit roof" on top and the Cali's go on a trailer bringing them to here , take a good look at the cali's in the background in the next picture!
Inside they work 24h 5d /week mo-fri , assambling the 3000 ! parts witch end up in a full fat Cali.
No pictures taken!
Entering in the warehouse , metal crates stacked to the ceeling holding all the special Cali-parts beeing exclusive build by external suplliers .
Most parts only sit in the warehouse about 2days before assembled , so again all just in time delivery.
In the workshop itself all the naked roofless cali's and piles of folding chairs,tables,matrasses,kitchen units in diffrent colors, roof parts,....
Racks with small containers holding every smalllest screw,clip,switch ,rubber ....all those things we all have broken once...very tempted to fill my pockets!
All manual work , no robots here difrrent from the factory this morning , each individual worker does his own job on the Cali most in teams , as building a roof is not easy .
They told the Beach covers 50% of the Calimarket , very popular .
Most cali's going to Germany,Swiss and Austria.( the German speaking market)
Then France and the UK follow up.
Average of 5 Cali's a year to Thailand.....
It is great seeing the build of our precious Cali in real life . When seeing all this makes you wonder why a Cali not cost the double....all manlabour , handwork , every of the 3000parts manipulated by hand .
We had a afther party with a cup of coffee and given a goodiebag from CCN (as usual) and headed home afther a superb day in Hannover.
Realy a shame one can take no pictures as is has to do with beeing the fact you can not capture workers on foto or film due to privacy rules.
Back home in Belgium afther 425km drive , in the dark and rain , was pretty tired .
Took me almost 900km drive , a full dieseltank , 2day vacation of work .....worth every minute!
If so use this topic please?
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/vw-california-factory-tour-hannover-april-18th-2017.15758/
Thank you for this .
It was on my to do list for a while and we are planning a simular trip with the members of club/forum , but i got invited by my dealer Camper Centrum Nederland to vistit the "VW nutzfarzeuge" factory at Hannover Stocken and the "VW Californiafertigung" at Hannover Limmer.
I just heard we could join a week ago so glad we (me and my wife) could take a few days vacation of work.
CCN does this visits for thiere clients , this time they had three days planned , three diffrent groups , the owner of CCN has very good connections with the VW factory in Hannover as they only sell California's and are very knowlegable in everything regarding VW campers doing the California bussines for 15y .
Leaving home near Antwerp on monday noon for a 425km drive we took a campsite 20km from the Hannover Factory
Driving in Germany can be tricky , "stau" , traffic jams are frequent and can be long.
We where lucky not have those but saw a massive stau on the other direction , road closed due a accident , 10 km standing still was the result!
This was our destination:
http://www.camping-hannover.de/en/contact
Nice place but i had the feeling they are a "bungalow" type camping and spreading campers in the open spots witch for me i don't like.
We prefer using ACSI campsites as you get discount specialy low seson , as we now payed 27euro two persons,dog and hook-up.
It would be around 12 to 18 euro at a ACSI campsite this time a year.
But overall good facilyties and just one night will do perfect , we arrived at 16.00h did a small walk arround the Lake and hit the Cali as it began to get dark.
We where expected the 15/11 at 8.30am at the "VW Nutzfarzeuge Kundencenter" , the place where you can pick up your verhicle handing over the key direct form the factory . It has a VW shop and a restaurant . Open for public and worth the visit.
Headed off early as we noticed the traffic to Hannover city was heavy the day before , took us 45min to do the 20km to the factory !
Arriving at kundecenter just in time a member of CCN was waiting at the parking showed us the way en we enterd the center where there was coffee waiting.
We ended up beeing a group of about 25 pers. leaving the kundecenter walking in the factory guided by a former (retired)worker who gives guided tours .
We got a headset in witch we heared him speak(german) and just walkt thru the working factory , a rare thing .
The factory in Hannover builds the T6 person carriers on one line and buildersvans (Cali's included) on a second line.
Also the Amarok double cabin is made here.
Also the bodyparts from diffrent models like VW caddy and Porche Panamera are made here.
We where given info on mumbers of workers,verhicle build a year, tonnes of steel ,....
All to much to write down , if i could only remember.
It was realy nice seeing some metal parts come together to a painted chassis , and all things build on to it allong the way.
Very strange seeing panel vans,single cab, double cab,california beeing built in the same line.
The arrival of all the diffrent parts "just in time" is a big challenge.
We saw sevral Cali's including some RHD ....beeing assembled.
The factory walk was sevral km long and took us about 2h , no pictures taken !
By noon we left the factory driving to the lunch meeting point .
The Oldtimer Volkswagen nutzfahrzeuge museum , sort of place where VW has every model VW van build....t1 up to T5 in very diffrent set ups....
The place is usual not open for public ony for special events.
We got a lunch (braddwurst ) and dessert offerd there and could look arround , again no picture taken allowed. But everybody did so when nobody was watching.
The rusty one is a 1951 , not the nice lady to the left she's a few years younger ...
By 13.30 we walkt up to the Californiafertigung where they build the california after the naked cali's been transported from the factory to this other plant about 20km appart.
They put a "transit roof" on top and the Cali's go on a trailer bringing them to here , take a good look at the cali's in the background in the next picture!
Inside they work 24h 5d /week mo-fri , assambling the 3000 ! parts witch end up in a full fat Cali.
No pictures taken!
Entering in the warehouse , metal crates stacked to the ceeling holding all the special Cali-parts beeing exclusive build by external suplliers .
Most parts only sit in the warehouse about 2days before assembled , so again all just in time delivery.
In the workshop itself all the naked roofless cali's and piles of folding chairs,tables,matrasses,kitchen units in diffrent colors, roof parts,....
Racks with small containers holding every smalllest screw,clip,switch ,rubber ....all those things we all have broken once...very tempted to fill my pockets!
All manual work , no robots here difrrent from the factory this morning , each individual worker does his own job on the Cali most in teams , as building a roof is not easy .
They told the Beach covers 50% of the Calimarket , very popular .
Most cali's going to Germany,Swiss and Austria.( the German speaking market)
Then France and the UK follow up.
Average of 5 Cali's a year to Thailand.....
It is great seeing the build of our precious Cali in real life . When seeing all this makes you wonder why a Cali not cost the double....all manlabour , handwork , every of the 3000parts manipulated by hand .
We had a afther party with a cup of coffee and given a goodiebag from CCN (as usual) and headed home afther a superb day in Hannover.
Realy a shame one can take no pictures as is has to do with beeing the fact you can not capture workers on foto or film due to privacy rules.
Back home in Belgium afther 425km drive , in the dark and rain , was pretty tired .
Took me almost 900km drive , a full dieseltank , 2day vacation of work .....worth every minute!
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