You never forget your first love. That’s why we’re looking back with proud first-time car owners to the time they started driving… Well, what exactly? Bert Doldersum from Almelo talks about his 30 hp (!) NSU Prinz, which he sent to the former Yugoslavia with good courage.
The NSU Prinz 4 as a first car. Take us back for the younger reader. What was it exactly?
“That was a compact German car with an air-cooled 600-cc two-cylinder engine in the back. Thirty horsepower, but nicely light built so it could handle that power just fine. The designers were inspired by the Chevrolet Corvair from that time. The car was equipped with a nice chrome strip all around and there was a chrome horn ring in the middle of the steering wheel. I thought that was very cool. A typical American design, but in a small European package.”
So your automotive career started with such a small NSU. How did you end up with that car?
“After a lot of mopeds, it was time for a car. A dealer in Hengelo had this blue NSU Prinz 4 for sale for 2,400 guilders with about 80,000 kilometers on the clock. The NSU was five years old then and had a crack in the body at the rear left. Otherwise it was in great condition, so this had to be it. We’re talking about 1968. I was 22 years old then. The slogan of the Prinz 4 was ‘Fahre Prinz und du bist König’ and that exactly expresses what I felt at the time. With your first car you are on top of the world and that feeling is never matched later, with any car.”
Packed and loaded, you headed for Yugoslavia with the NSU. That was certainly not an obvious holiday destination.
“You could say that, but we didn’t shy away from a little adventure. The first vacation with my then sweetheart Letty we cheerfully went to Switzerland on the Zündapp. Two years later, with the NSU, we drove via Lake Garda, Split and Mostar to Sarajevo, 4,249 kilometers in eighteen days. You just do that when you’re young. We took three days for the return trip. Along the way we visited the Grossglockner Pass. The NSU didn’t like that at all. Drive a bit and then let it cool down for a while.”
You have an extensive travel report with beautiful photos from that vacation. What do you remember the most?
“My father once got hold of an old American army tent and we took that with us for our trip. In retrospect, it might not have been so smart to take that thing to Yugoslavia. It said ‘USA Army’ in big letters. Luckily no one said anything about it. In Makarska we accidentally ended up at a youth campsite. We were rudely awakened at seven o’clock in the morning by Wooly Bully from Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs that echoed from the speakers on the campsite. In those days, facilities were sometimes completely absent. No toilets, no restaurant and no manager. A place for your tent and that was it. You got nothing, but it cost almost nothing. That was the advantage. In Mostar, the NSU failed once. It wouldn’t start after a heavy rain shower. A camper gave us the tip to leave the hood open for a while. And lo and behold, after an hour of sunbathing, the two-pitter started again without a murmur. It turned out to be a very reliable companion.”
What eventually happened to the car?
“In a year and a half I put more than 20,000 kilometers on it. It was time for something new. I was very charmed by a second-hand red NSU 1000 that was on display at the dealer. My colleague took over the Prinz 4 and I bought the larger 1000. With that strong four-pitter you could easily drive 130 kilometers per hour. That was nice and smooth, but at that speed the noise on board was unbearable. Those were different times.”