Biography
Having grown up near the Neander Valley in village of Hochdahl, Anton was aiming to become a travel agent. A decent car was essential for visiting clients, wasn’t it? He didn’t have one, so he took over his brother’s last 2CV.
“Is that your 2CV over there in the car park?”
Et voilà, what a presentable car! Even the entire board of directors followed the chairman to take a look at Anton’s 2CV in the car park.
“As a student, I had…”
9/11 in Manhattan ruined all his professional ambitions.
The 2CV remained.
A series of stopovers followed until Anton became involved in local politics in Düsseldorf, most recently as district mayor of District 3 in Düsseldorf.
As a 2CV driver, Anton experienced a wide variety of 2CV meets, organised orientation drives for his club “Dat Dotterdebakel der Düssel Ducks”, day meets including the “duckomenta”, and multi-day meets in his beloved Eifel region.
Under his real name, Dietmar (Diddi) Wolf, the Düsseldorf native even conceived and launched the “First International German Meeting of Friends of the 2CV” in Gedern, Hesse, in 2004, which he planned and organised with his colleague Horst Dumele from the Citroën Club Rhein-Ruhr (CCRR).
Following a long hiatus caused by the pandemic and a run of bad luck, an attempt was made to revive the 2024 Germany Meet with the 10th International Germany Meet of Friends of the 2CV, also held in Gedern, Hesse, this time with Degenhardt Erbe from the CCRR.
Anton enjoyed writing colourful reports on meetings and trips for the relevant German 2CV media.
With his article “Der 2CV im Dienste der Deutschen Polizei - The 2CV in the Service of the German Police”, he was a guest author in the Citroën Yearbook No. 3 published by FGV-Verlag
While still working as a travel agent, he organised car train and ferry trips to the world rally in Skotina, Greece. Because he found all the fare details, timetables and much, much more to be extremely boring, he supplemented his travel information with Testudo Skotinas, the tyre-eating, dangerous tortoise modelled on the Caretta Caretta. The former editor Hobo from Entenschnabel magazine turned this into his April Fool’s joke and invented a pseudonym for the writer.
Anton Wolfpril was born.
Stories about a family man who drives a 2CV duckling
Anton Wolfpril is my pen name. It all began with an April Fool’s joke in the 2CV magazine Der Entenschnabel to mark the 1999 World Meet in Greece, featuring the tyre-munching, terrifying tortoise Testudo Skotinas. Then, with the Christmas story “Alle Jahre wieder”, the first tale by the unknown author Wolfpril appeared in the 2CV magazine “Der Entenschnabel”. During the “Eifel-Advent” 2CV outing in Kyllburg, I heard some nice comments about the story by the unknown author. In the evening by the fireside, I finally got to hear some honest criticism. “That’s never happened before,” they said, “but certainly, that’s lovely, a wonderful story, hard to believe, written far too shallowly…”
Far too shallow? How dare you!
Particularly lovely was an email in which a Der Entenschnabel reader later expressed great delight at a story. He even read “Every Year Again” aloud to his family on Christmas Eve. And it was a first for him, as this hopefully not-quite-so-stressed family man was doing this for the very first time.
However, the “far too shallow” comment really spurred me on. Even before New Year’s Eve of the same year, I wrote the nasty Christmas story “You Pig”. So please don’t read it to children!
The following January, Harald, editor at Entenschnabel, asked me for an Easter story. At first I couldn’t think of anything, then inspiration struck...
At some point, the phone rang again. Wasn’t there a nice summer story to be had? And so it went on, continuing steadily after a creative break. My publisher, Buch&Motor Edition Garage 2CV, selected seventeen stories from my archive, which culminated in a first volume of 160 pages in 2020.
Six years later, the second volume is being published, featuring the bizarre, fantasies, and tales of love, rust and tangible adventures with a touch of cosy crime.
Admittedly, the railwayman Anton is a fictional character, just like his wife Cordelia and their wonderful, lively children. A shame, isn’t it? I would certainly have liked to have met them.
Of course, one or two things actually happened just as described. And what didn’t, was embellished with a claim to poetic licence. The rest? Pure fiction. I hope you won’t hold it against me.
If you do indeed drive a 2CV, I strongly recommend a proper 2CV meet-up for you and your four-wheeled umbrella. The Easter, Whitsun and 2CV Germany meets, or the traditional André Citroën Club meet, are particularly good options. If you also happen to live in the Düsseldorf area, then do visit the fabulous 2CV-Club Düssel-Ducks. Here and there you’ll meet all sorts of people and see the most diverse 2CVs – as long as the 2CVs are still around and don’t just live on in photo albums or 2CV stories.
Yours, Anton Wolfpril
Translated with deepl.com
