Hesse's Prime Minister Boris Rhein and Frankfurt's Lord Mayor Mike Josef want to bring the IAA back to Frankfurt. All due respect, this is a full-throttle turnaround, as the previous head of the city had left no stone unturned to scare away the leading automotive trade fair. This is how she came to Munich twice. With all due respect, they play quite decent football in Bavaria, they brew fine beer, but the IAA belongs to the Main. Of course, the organizing association of the automotive industry VDA also knows this, but it seems trapped. It is also not true that Munich was the first choice at the time when the relocation was carried out. Cologne was the favourite as a substitute, but the Gamescom game fair is running there at the same time, there was simply no room for both.
As a result, Munich moved into pole position and did well. Nothing more than that. The dichotomy with stalls across the city centre and on the remote exhibition grounds is suboptimal, to put it kindly. The participation of foreign manufacturers in particular is sobering. And although the sun was shining over the magnificent backdrops of Munich's streets and squares, no more than 500,000 visitors came. However they are counted, many stroll en passant along the stalls. The fact that cars and accessories are moving closer to people in this way is a win. But you shouldn't have to walk flat feet to get close to the sheet metal. And, of course, the aim must be to win over crowd-pullers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini or Rolls-Royce again, instead of rejoicing in exhibiting a record number of cargo bikes. For bicycles, there is the Eurobike, which, by the way, has become a stunner after moving to Frankfurt. An IAA is an IAA, it belonged and still belongs to the most international place in Germany, Frankfurt.