Island project is a bridge too far - Meilenwerk AG broke

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With Artcurial proudly announcing several new price records last weekend – click here in case you missed it - and with another 2.939 classics sold in Scottsdale for a whopping total of 300 million dollars a week earlier, the classic car horizon seems endless. But a different sound is heard from Germany this week. Meilenwerk AG, famous for its classic car compounds in historic tram and locomotive depots in Berlin and Dusseldorf, just announced its bankruptcy.

What went wrong? Thirteen years after the first milestone centre opened its doors to classic cars, the market has only grown. So this liquidation seems hard to explain. The sting is in a new project, announced in 2013 (artist impression). Meilenwerk was to invest another 100 million euros into a new Berlin location: a 3000 square metres classic car event hall with 120-room hotel and apartment complex, all to be built in old artillery warehouses on a small isle in the Havel river, some 10 kilometres from the existing tram depot location in Berlin. Project developer and Meilenwerk founder Martin Halder announced the insolvement himself yesterday. It is unknown whether the bankruptcy will have any effects on the Classic Remises, as they are known now, in Berlin and Dusseldorf. Meilenwerk AG had been planning projects in Hamburg and Zurich as well. A Stuttgart version was renamed Motorworld Stuttgart in 2014.

(Words Jeroen Booij, pictures courtesy Meilenwerk AG)

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