A Five-Series on the Very First Try

Roger Hofer laughs warmly. He has just walked into the Carrosserie & Spritzwerk Hallauer body shop in Wohlenschwil. Hofer, tanned, with gel in his dark hair, is trying to win over the owner Michael Hallauer for his idea. Hallauer sits at his desk with folded hands, glancing over at Roger, and after just a few minutes he seems surprised himself that he hasn’t already shown Hofer the door.

Judo goes Orient | Team #85
Roger Hofer, Andreas Schmid, Rafael Zimmermann, Benjamin Wey, Roland Briner and Fabian Koch are participants in the eleventh Allgäu-Orient-Rallye, which has set off every year since 2006 to race from southern Bavaria to the Orient. The rules are simple: only cars that are at least 20 years old or cost no more than 1’111 euros are allowed to compete. No more than 11.11 euros per night on average may be spent on accommodation. Toll roads and motorways are off-limits, and navigation is done exclusively with road maps and road signs. But it isn’t just the adventurous experiences that motivate Team Judo goes Orient | Team #85 to put themselves through these hardships. Equally important are the charitable projects to be carried out along the way to the Orient, as well as the human encounters and special moments of the journey.
In their preparations, the six judokas from the Judo and Aikido Club Wohlen are already well advanced. Now they want their long-acquired cars painted in a uniform look. That’s why Roger approached the Carrosserie & Spritzwerk Hallauer in Wohlenschwil.

Hofer is without question a good salesman. His weapon: laughter. He wields it the way carpenters use their hands and footballers use their legs. At times his grin is mischievous, then friendly, then reassuring, then matey. Hofer cracks jokes with everyone, switches straight to first-name terms, and even offers someone a coffee — despite not being the host at all. And Hallauer is the kind of person who, despite his scepticism, never closes himself off to anything. Hallauer lets himself get caught up in the rally team’s idea and sees the car repainting project as an opportunity to give his apprentices a chance to practise on real cars without major consequences. He promises to take on the job.

It is 7 December 2015. Michael Hallauer explains the task to his apprentices Edjon Ramaj and Granit Arifi for the days ahead. Hallauer may like cars, but he is also a businessman. So he wants to transform the three cars into eye-catching rally vehicles for this purpose with as little effort as possible. And the apprentices like cars too, though they’re not fanatics. And they see little point in repainting three old cars. They’d honestly rather be doing something else. But when the master craftsman has set his mind on something, there’s little to be said against it. The purpose and meaning of this project only gradually reveals itself to the apprentices — all the more so since their mental image of the three rally jalopies probably involved somewhat more horsepower. But the master craftsman is often the first and last person who can say something meaningful to a young man.

8 days of work for three cars
And so Ramaj and Arifi throw themselves into the task with plenty of enthusiasm nonetheless. They need around 22 hours per car for sanding down the old paint, masking the windows, trim strips and door folds, and then applying the new paint. To get the project finished as quickly as possible, the two BMWs are painted at the spray shop in Tägerig and the Passat at the spray shop in Wohlenschwil. And anyone who saw the looks on the faces of the trainee painters at the end of their work knew: they’re a little bit proud. Of themselves and of the boss. That they didn’t give up, and that the boss gave them this chance to practise. They probably won’t forget this project in a hurry. At least one of them won’t: it was the first time he had ever sprayed a car himself. It was a BMW Five-Series. And you hardly ever forget the first time.

A few days later, on 23 December 2015, Roger, Roli, Andi and Michael Hallauer are standing in the car park in front of the spray shop in Tägerig. It’s Wednesday — Christmas holidays, in fact, but an important day for Team Judo goes Orient. Until today they have never seen their freshly painted cars. Barely have they caught sight of them when Roger says it for the first time. You only need to hear his voice to know he’s beaming like a schoolboy. No, it just has to come out one more time: “This is outstanding work by the apprentices and an enormous gesture of goodwill from Hallauer towards Team Judo goes Orient. Thank you!”

The project by Hallauer and his apprentices was a success. But successes never tell the whole story — only the ending — and they’re not enough to understand why the master craftsman’s persistence can be so important: a boss who doesn’t teach his apprentices that success is the result of hard work doesn’t shape them fully enough. Success without hard work is just as rare as pride without dedication.