Car dealers in firing line as British troops pull out of last German base

Date: 09/05/1996

CHRIS Smith, purveyor of cut-price cars to the military, is about to become a victim of post-Cold War Europe.

As he stands in his prefab office gazing across a rain-swept garage forecourt a stone's throw from the UK's largest and last-remaining air force base in Germany, Chris unwittingly echoes the official British Ministry of Defence line - it is indeed the end of an era.

“Yes,” he says, surveying his current crop of right-hand drive Saabs with their alloy wheels and tax-free, deep-discount come-hither price tags, “things are going to change around here. I'll probably end up going back to England too.”

Rumours that RAF Bruggen was to close have caused concern along this part of the Dutch-German border for months, not least because the base has become the economic backbone of a string of anonymous villages and their restaurants, bars, corner shops and, most of all, cut-price new-car garages, suppliers of shiny motors to the British Forces Overseas.

These makeshift garages, gravelled patches of land plonked down in the midst of trim little communities of red-brick houses, hover around the UK's bases across Germany like seagulls around cross-Channel ferries.

In less peaceful times, the camouflage colours of these bases would have been a waste of time: if enemies of the West wanted to destroy the UK's front-line capability, they need do no more than identify the coloured bunting flying above every one of the bargain centres which line the public highway alongside the RAF Bruggen perimeter fence.

“Tax-free Volvos with air-conditioning and all extras at three o'clock! I repeat tax-free Volvos! Tally-Ho! Tally-Ho!”

According to Eddie Slaney, once a Flight-Sergeant based at RAF Bruggen and now selling tax-free right-hand drive Rovers from his pitch just down the road from Chris, the closure rumour was firmly and officially denied just a short time ago.

But last week it was confirmed that the fourth and final operational British airbase in Germany will close in 2002, and its 2,240 service personnel, their dependants and 52 Tornado aircraft posted back to UK soil.

And the last thing many of them will do before leaving Germany is nip along the road to Niederkruchten, the nearest pin-neat village which feeds off the base, and do a deal with Chris, or Eddie or any of a dozen car dealers who have traditionally gathered like flies round a honey pot wherever the British military are based in Europe.

Why? Because for the rank-and-file in the regimented military life, a brand new car at a whopping price-saving is the biggest prize they can take home.

What most do, reveals Cathi Noon, who sells Toyotas from her pitch alongside Chris Smith's, is put down a deposit as soon as they arrive and arrange to pay it off over the same period as their tour of duty.

Those who have a bit of spare cash by the time they go home often trade up so they can return with the latest model, the success symbol of the made-good squaddie.

The EU single market is clearly defined in this quaint and fast-disappearing world where your status as a servant of the British Armed Forces can lop 30&percent; off the drive-away price of a motor car.

“I only sell right-hand drive Rovers,” explains Eddie, propping up his caravan office, quick to defend himself from charges of stealing trade from his German neighbours. “I don't poach on the ordinary local dealer's territory. If normal German punters come in looking for a new car, I send them down the road to the official showroom - and I get a commission for passing on the trade,” he says with a smile.

But Eddie insists he won't be badly hit when the base closes. “I've diversified,” he explains, pointing to a gravel forecourt strewn with those huge caravans with which the Dutch are particularly fond of blocking Europe's roads in the summer.

“I've gone into caravans because it's the kind of trade that doesn't depend on the military. So when my RAF clientele runs out, I should be all right.”

And what about the rest? The roadside is littered with dealers who have settled here over the years. The military are their only customers and their presence is tolerated on that very firm understanding.

“TAX FREE CARS! DIPLOMATIC SALES!” scream the posters atop bunting-bedecked forecourts packed with tantalisingly-priced Toyotas, Mitsubishis, Fords, you name it.

Chris is not too distressed by the knowledge that the RAF is about to shoot down an entire retail car industry, not to mention scuppering the restaurant and bar trade for miles around and costing 840 local landlords their off-base RAF tenants.

“The army is staying in Germany, so there's still trade to be had. But people will have to move closer to forces headquarters at Rheindalen. Me? I reckon there's a good few years yet before the RAF pulls out, and then I'll probably pull out too. It had to happen one day. Everything's changing.”

It certainly is.

The last time I drove across the Dutch border from Roermond to visit RAF Bruggen, passport control took 25 minutes. It then took at least another half an hour to get clearance to go on to the base, thanks to the ever-present threat of IRA terrorist attacks.

Now I am just waved through, unescorted, into a purpose-built world of terraced housing, Nissen huts and Nissan cars, tax-free ones, all on British plates.

Air Commodore Glenn Torpy, who runs the place, is the sort of square-jawed cool-under-fire type you would expect to be flipping a Spitfire just feet from the ground. A Triumph Spitfire that is, tax-free and ready for export.

He used to fly Jaguars, actually, one of the few makes I hadn't noticed represented along the main road outside, presumably because senior officers are only a tiny part of the target market for Eddie, Chris, Cathi and their ilk.

The Air Commodore admits the base's closure will hit the region hard. “We estimate that RAF Bruggen's annual contribution to the German economy, mainly to local traders, is in the region of 150 million German marks,” he says.

“The loss of this income will be a major blow and we very much regret the effect it will have on those traders and individuals who have supported us so well over the years. This is the unwanted side of the otherwise very welcome improved political and security state we are enjoying in Europe.”

Don't worry, I told Chris afterwards, there are still rich pickings for car traders amongst the Brits in the tax-free diplomatic demi-monde of Brussels.

He shook his head. “I wouldn't move there: from what I hear we're about to pull out of that lot too, aren't we?”