The Oldtimer Club Mostar is the only one in Europe that has an Oldtimer Museum and within it a museum of antiques and objects from history, it is a member of the world organization FIVA for oldtimer vehicles and a member and partner of UNESCO. They have no sponsors, nor any financial support, and are visited by many international television companies.
“The Oldtimer Club Mostar brought FIVA to a country that was torn apart by war and problems, and we passed all the world’s laws in BiH. Our Oldtimer Club is the only one in Europe to have an Oldtimer Museum, and we went a step further and are part of the Museum of Oldtimers and technical culture opened another museum of antiquities, history, objects that show how the generations before us lived,” the club’s president, Zdravko Vidović, told Fena news agency.
The Oldtimer Museum has very valuable exhibits and many interesting cars.
“The oldest is a Ford T from 1929, and we think it is one of the oldest in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We have a lot of interesting cars from 1962, 1950, 1952. We will introduce another collection until May 25, when in Mostar to be held one of the largest gatherings of old-timers in Europe,” said Vidović.
He notes that the Club was formed in 2010 and that it has aroused great public interest, and it receives support from people from all over the world.
“Traveling around the world, I saw what culture is and what makes a city and a country special, something that adds a dose to the quality of life. In the world, it is also this culture about old-timers, about history, socializing, affirmation of young people. We here not only to work with young people, we already work a lot with children with special needs. We are trying to get as many of them as possible to come to the Museum and to provide them with some kind of education,” stressed Vidović.
Recently, he says, they received a very unique piano from Brussels, made in Yugoslavia, and they received a collection of instruments that is more than a hundred years old from a famous musician.
“People felt that it was honest and fair. No one can sell it tomorrow, writes so-and-so who donated it to this museum. We can boast that there was a Discovery, Deutsche Welle, French state television, Croatian television, all televisions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, we recently had a guest appearance by the State Television of Iceland. I think it’s not a small story that someone would throw in the trash, and that a little more attention should be paid to the people who work in the Museum, who work hard without any sponsors and without any to help build something that is a mirror of this country. It is a story that has become global, it is no longer from Mostar, nor from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it has crossed the borders of all borders,” he emphasized.
“People would be surprised if they knew how many big collectors there are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there are also people who are self-absorbed, who somehow keep these cars in the garage. they come a lot, they see that we are not some country ‘around the corner’, but that we are a country with traditions and everything else,” says Vidović.
He adds that there are a lot of high-quality old-timers in BiH and that he does not consider old-timers to be cars older than thirty years.
“That’s how it is in the world, and here, unfortunately, every other car that is driven is over thirty years old, so that qualification is not right for me. However, a car must have some uniqueness, originality and everything else. I think that in Bosnia and Herzegovina has at least 500-600 very high-quality old-timers, which you can hardly see anywhere else in the world. If there were no war events, Bosnia-Herzegovina would have a collection of old-timers like no one else. In the 1950s, people here went to work in Germany and Switzerland and brought these cars, however, the war did all sorts of bad things, and that’s why those cars disappeared and were crushed somewhere. But here we are somehow tearing up, looking to collect to leave something for the generations that will come after us, so that tomorrow anyone’s child from this country can come and to say “look, my grandfather drove this, my mom drove this”. My heart is huge when I hear something like that,” emphasizes Vidović.
130 new members joined the Mostar Oldtimer Club, not only from Herzegovina and Mostar, but also from Lithuania, France, Spain, Austria and other countries, and the club will now have more than 240 members.
Vidović points out that this is very big for a club in this industry and that it shows how special they are and how far they have jumped from all the others.
He adds that they visit gatherings all over Europe, and as far as BiH is concerned, he believes that the Mostar Club has recently taken precedence.
“This year, 12 countries of the world will come to the meeting in Mostar. Last year we had ten countries of the world and we were declared the biggest cultural event in Europe, even on the official website of UNESCO. So I think we are going down a good path where there is no interest and where there is a great love that turns into a disease. We are trying to connect as many people as possible, we have broken stereotypes from these ugly things, wars and now people are coming freely from Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and other countries,” he said.
He notes that the owners of oldtimers in Bosnia and Herzegovina still cannot register their cars under more favorable conditions, although they mostly use them only for visiting gatherings or similar events.
“The law was passed, but everywhere there are problems with that registration, the coordination of the Ministry, the Ministry of Interior, insurance, because somehow everyone is afraid that they will lose something there. They will not lose anything, the little people who like this will gain, that they don’t have to register the car for the whole for a year, but to register it for half a year, only when going to meetings. However, everyone watches with a certain amount of interest and that, unfortunately, is very ugly,” Vidović points out.
The president of the Oldtimer Club Mostar adds that they are ready to give the premises of the Oldtimer Museum free of charge to any young artist who wants to assert his works.
“We will be happy to help every young artist get a space for free to show what they do or what they are doing. It will be a great honor for us if young artists who want to collaborate with us contact us, and we are here to help them as much as we can” , he said.
In May, they host one of the largest gatherings in Europe.
“Last year, there were more than 120 cars at the rally of oldtimers in Mostar, and this year I think there will be even more. This story has outgrown us, who started it,” concluded Vidović, Fena writes.
