SMALL HISTORY OF A GREAT MEETING:
TOSSA DE MAR

The Tossa de Mar meeting was born out of a love story, which started in 1994 when Juan Giménez, former owner of the now disappeared restaurants Sant Antoni and Sa Palma in Tossa, gave his wife Carmen Rico a VW Beetle as a present. With the VW, he promised her that he would gather in Tossa de Mar more beetles that she could imagine. He made a call in the press and radio to all beetle owners; 85 VW fans went to Tossa with their cars.

Seeing the success, he decided to make it an annual event, so the meeting grew up progressively untill it became one of the main VW meetings in Spain. To get on with the project, Juan created the Käfer Club Tossa - Costa Brava, which took care of the organisation of the meeting with the help in the first editions of the now disappeared Scarwallès Club and later of the Amics del Volkswagen de Catalunya.


Later, Juan could not continue organising the meeting, but the Tossa de Mar council didn't want the event to die, then the Tossa Moto Club suggested to contact Amics del Volkswagen de Catalunya, remembering the past collaboration, and the fact that they hadn't missed a single edition of the meeting. The proposal was accepted, but with the challenge of converting that Sunday meeting in a two-day meeting like the big european events, and this was made possible thanks to the implication of the Club Aire Libre and Càmping Cala Llevadó from Tossa de Mar, that offered their magnificient facilities.









Since 2001 the general organisation of the meeting relies totally in Amics del Volkswagen de Catalunya, who have given the meeting the unmistakable flavour that has now: the philosophy of the meeting is to leave at home the everyday problems and to submerge in a restless activity weekend for all tastes..























Given the large participant afluence, which is bigger every year, the meeting begins on Friday with the reception and inscription of participants, some of who travel long distance and this way exploit the weekend to the maximum. In fact, for a lot of people the meeting begins even before getting on the car, with the preparation of the famous "Suitcase", this means bringing an old suitccase, which you need to fill with the most bizarre objects imaginable, following the list which appears in the programme. From the very moment the participants arrive to the inscription point, the fun begins, there the verification of the vehicle and the "Suitcase" is made, and usually the participants blow all the expectations fulfilling the most strange requests made by the "evil" minds of the organisators.







The bulk of the activities concentrates in the two following days: on Saturday morning, in addition to continue the inscriptions of the arriving participants, there is an adventure raid that delights young and old alike. After lunch, the touristic rallye in the countryside of La Selva, where in addition to a good navigator to follow the roadbook and a good sense of orientation, the participants need to have hability to pass the different trials and also a good sense of humor, as show most participants, who go disguised according to the theme chosen for every edition.













After a good dinner, the activity moves to the disco, where the winners of the rallye, the verifications and the adventure raid get their awards. Those who wish so can continue the party till late and, they can even participate in the famous "Picada bath"….







Sunday is the most crowded day of the meeting, to the weekend participants those who arrive on Sunday must be added; cars are exposed in the center of Tossa, where they can be admired by everybody, including the implacable jury, that decides who are the vehicles that will take home the trophies (every year there is more competition). In addition to the cars, we find different VW shops selling parts and gadgets for all tastes and pockets. One of the most spectacular activities are the different drag races, slowness and skill tests. After all this emotions, all the cars cruise down the streets of Tossa de Mar, to get to the place where the lunch is given. Afterwards, the meeting ends with the trophy awards and the rafle of differetn presents and gifts of the sponsors.

















See the pictures of previous editions 1994 - 2000 / See the pictures of previous editions since 2001