When passion for the Unimog leads to true love.
Online dating? Supermarket? Friends of friends? No way. It was the love of the Unimog that brought Amelie and Jan Schneider together. And when wedding bells ring for two Unimog fans, the Special Truck just has to be there on the special day.
Their lucky star.
"We met at a vintage vehicle event in Sievershausen," Jan Schneider reminisces about the day in September 2011 which began as a fun day out and ended with butterflies in his stomach. "My wife-to-be was there with her 411 cabriolet and I was in my 424 U1000," the Unimog fan continues. It was a common passion that brought the young couple together, and the rest is history: nine years later, with their two Unimog favourites parked in front of the church, they made their marriage vows.
Horsepower: yes. Wedding coach: no.
After their civil wedding in April 2020, which the young couple was not allowed to celebrate properly due to corona restrictions, Amelie and Jan Schneider were looking forward all the more to their church wedding due to be held the following autumn. "We wanted our Unimog trucks to be waiting for us in front of the registry office. Unfortunately that didn't work out in the end. The decorated vehicles might have attracted too much attention and crowds had to be avoided, for safety's sake," Jan Schneider explains.
But in autumn too, the pandemic still dominated life and a large party was impossible. "We had a church wedding on 5 September. And this time the Unimog trucks that brought us together just had to be there," says the couple.
Love at first sight.
The couple restored the gravel grey Unimog 411, built in 1960, especially for the wedding – always with the advice and support of the experts at the Unimog Museum Gaggenau. "It took two years and 1500 hours of work to get it into top condition," says Amelie Schneider.
All this trouble was necessary because the hobby DIYers had found the Special Truck at a scrap yard under a tarpaulin. The neglected find became a major project that kept the couple, then unmarried, busy in their leisure time. "In the summer we were out there every evening after work, working on it as long as it was light," says Amelie Schneider, who learned to drive on her father's Unimog.
