Is it not the dream of toy car nerds everywhere to be able to shop in a new place – to travel, to see new things? In 1996, fresh out of New Jersey and never having seen a Wal-Mart, I thought I discovered the Promised Land as I made my way across I-40. A decade later, I was lucky enough to visit some shops in Hong Kong that overwhelmed both my senses and my bank account. All of my dreams of travel have started to coincide with shopping for toys.
And now Germany has provided me with one more reason to play the lottery so I can buy a plane ticket to Europe: The Ingolstadt Model Car Club’s 17th annual scale model car fair at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt. This annual event will be held Sunday, November 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, something that the 3,000-plus attendees gleefully take advantage of. Roughly 100 exhibitors fill 200 tables with die-cast cars, pins, literature and other ephemera. And it’s not just Audi stuff, either.
That said, the Audi Collection Shop will be open with special offers, and a stand by Audi Tradition will include miniatures, pins, DVDs, newly released books including The Audi Motorsport Story and Wanderer – Luxury and Tradition as well as the 2011 Audi Tradition Calendar featuring Auto Union silver arrows on historic race tracks.