Ben Pon, Sr.
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Ben Pon, Sr.
Bernardus Marinus "Ben" Pon, Sr. (April 27, 1904 – May 15, 1968) was a Dutch businessman. In 1947, ''Pon's Automobielhandel'' ("Pon's Car Dealership"), became the first dealer outside of Germany to sell vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen. Ben's father, Mijndert Pon, owned a shop (founded in 1898) that sold sewing machines, household articles and tobacco goods at ''Arnhemseweg'' (Arnhem Road) in Amersfoort. Later, he added Opel bicycles and motorized bicycles to his range of goods. Beginning in 1920, Pon sold Opel and Ford automobiles as well as Continental tires. Ben and his brother Wijnand took over the shop in 1931 and renamed it ''Pon's Automobielhandel''. On August 8, 1947, The Pons became Volkswagen's general importer for the Netherlands. During their first year they received 51 Volkswagen Beetles from Wolfsburg. The company also became an importer of Porsches in 1948. A sketch made by Pon inspired the engineers at Volkswagen to develop the VW Type 2 Transporter (a ...
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Volkswagen
Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-World War II by the British Army Officer Ivan Hirst, it is known for the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, Beetle and serves as the flagship brand of the Volkswagen Group, the largest automotive manufacturer by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's biggest market is in Automotive industry in China, China, which delivers 40 percent of its sales and profits. Its name is derived from the German-language terms and , translating to "people's car" when combined. History 1932–1940: People's Car project Volkswagen was established in 1937 by the German Labour Front (''Deutsche Arbeitsfront'') in Berlin. In the early 1930s, cars were a luxury – most Germans could afford nothing more elaborate than a motorcycle and only one ...
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Multimillionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scale number naming system, a billionaire is someone who has at least a thousand times a million dollars, euros or the currency of the given country. Many national currencies have, or have had at various times, a low unit value, in many cases due to past inflation. It is obviously much easier and less significant to be a millionaire in those currencies, thus a millionaire (in the local currency) in Hong Kong or Taiwan, for example, may be merely averagely wealthy, or perhaps less wealthy than average. A millionaire in Zimbabwe in 2007 could have been extremely poor. Because of this, the term 'millionaire' generally refers to those whose assets total at least one million units of a high-value currency, such as the United States dollar, Euro, o ...
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1968 Deaths
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat. * January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000. * January 21 ** Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8. ** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs. * ...
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1904 Births
Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music * 19 (band), a Japanese pop music duo Albums * ''19'' (Adele album), 2008 * ''19'', a 2003 album by Alsou * ''19'', a 2006 album by Evan Yo * ''19'', a 2018 album by MHD * ''19'', one half of the double album ''63/19'' by Kool A.D. * ''Number Nineteen'', a 1971 album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron * ''XIX'' (EP), a 2019 EP by 1the9 Songs * "19" (song), a 1985 song by British musician Paul Hardcastle. * "Nineteen", a song by Bad4Good from the 1992 album '' Refugee'' * "Nineteen", a song by Karma to Burn from the 2001 album ''Almost Heathen''. * "Nineteen" (song), a 2007 song by American singer Billy Ray Cyrus. * "Nineteen", a song by Tegan and Sara from the 2007 album '' The Con''. * "XIX" (song), a 2014 song by Slipk ...
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Dutch Language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans'' is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter languageAfrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , . Afrikaans was historically called Cape Dutch; see , , , , , . Afrikaans is rooted in 17th-century dialects of Dutch; see , , , . Afrikaans is variously described as a creole, a partially creolised language, or a deviant variety of Dutch; see . spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa. The dialects used in Belgium (including Flemish) and in Suriname, meanwhile, are all guided by the Dutch Language Union. In Europe, most of the population of the Netherlands (where it is the only official language spoken country ...
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Ben Pon
Bernardus Marinus "Ben" Pon (9 December 1936 – 30 September 2019) was a Dutch vintner and Olympian and motor racing driver. He competed in one Formula One race, the 1962 Dutch Grand Prix, but had a far longer career in sports car racing, before turning his back on the track to concentrate on the wine trade. He also represented the Netherlands in clay pigeon shooting at the 1972 Summer Olympics, finishing 31st in the skeet event. Life His father, Ben Pon, Sr., was an importer of Volkswagen Beetles into the United States, and is considered to be the "father" of the Volkswagen Type 2 due to his initial interest and input into the project. Ben Pon was a personal friend of Formula One driver Carel Godin de Beaufort. It was de Beaufort's own Ecurie Maarsbergen privateer team that provided a Porsche 787 for him to race at Zandvoort, in his home Grand Prix on 20 May 1962. He failed to finish the race due to an accident, which flipped his car over, throwing Pon out of the cockpit ...
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Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, which became the FIA Formula One World Championship in 1981, has been one of the premier forms of racing around the world since its inaugural season in 1950. The word ''formula'' in the name refers to the set of rules to which all participants' cars must conform. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as ''Grands Prix'', which take place worldwide on both purpose-built circuits and closed public roads. A points system is used at Grands Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for drivers, the other for constructors. Each driver must hold a valid Super Licence, the highest class of racing licence issued by the FIA. The races must run on tracks graded "1" (formerly "A"), the highest grade-rating issued ...
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Pon Holdings
Pon Holdings BV is a Dutch conglomerate in the transport sector. It was founded in 1980 by Ben Pon, Jr., a former racing car driver and son of Ben Pon, Sr., who became the importer of Volkswagen in the Netherlands in 1947. Activities Transport Pon Holdings operates in the automotive and transport sectors through many subsidiaries, involved in activities, such as: *Distribution of consumer automotive brands in the Netherlands: Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Škoda, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti and Porsche *Distribution of commercial vehicles in the Netherlands: MAN, Caterpillar and Motrac *Importer of Continental products *Operator of several garages *Owner of Reifen Gundlach, Summa Tyre and Euro-Tyre *Owner of Swapfiets Other activities *Car leasing, such as Dutchlease *Owner of Veloretti *Owner of Gazelle *Owner of Derby Cycle in Cloppenburg *Owner of Cervélo *Owner of Union *Owner of Santa Cruz Bicycles *Owner of Dorel Sports, parent company of Cannondale, GT Bicycles ...
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Audi
Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the company are complex, going back to the early 20th century and the initial enterprises ( Horch and the ''Audiwerke'') founded by engineer August Horch (1868–1951); and two other manufacturers ( DKW and Wanderer), leading to the foundation of Auto Union in 1932. The modern Audi era began in the 1960s, when Auto Union was acquired by Volkswagen from Daimler-Benz. After relaunching the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi F103 series, Volkswagen merged Auto Union with NSU Motorenwerke in 1969, thus creating the present-day form of the company. The company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. , meaning "listen", becomes in Latin. The four rings of the Audi lo ...
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Hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around the world. The word '' hippie'' came from '' hipster'' and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term ''hippie'' was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier. The origins of the terms ''hip'' and ''hep'' are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term ''hip'', and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation. Hippies created their own communit ...
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Amersfoort
Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second-largest of the province and fifteenth-largest of the country. Amersfoort is also one of the largest Dutch railway junctions with its three stations— Amersfoort Centraal, Schothorst and Vathorst—due to its location on two of the Netherlands' main east to west and north to south railway lines. The city was used during the 1928 Summer Olympics as a venue for the modern pentathlon events. Amersfoort marked its 750th anniversary as a city in 2009. Population centres The municipality of Amersfoort consists of the following cities, towns, villages and districts: Bergkwartier, Bosgebied, Binnenstad, Hoogland, Hoogland-West, Kattenbroek, Kruiskamp, de Koppel, Liendert, Rustenburg, Nieuwland, Randenbroek, Schuilenburg, Schothorst, Soesterkw ...
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