Since 2016 Sabine Honold has been looking after the SetraClassic area with the Kässbohrer Haus, the Kässbohrer building with the historic vehicle collection and the Setra brand archive. Her organisational talents are called on here just as much as her passion for the Setra brand.

The ceilings are low, the rooms full of nooks and the stairs steep in the Kässbohrer Haus. The half-timbered house built in 1480 in Ulm’s fishing district is the original house of company founder, Karl Kässbohrer – and now one of the sites where Sabine Honold works. For three years the 38-year-old industrial engineer has been looking after the SetraClassic area and organising tours with customers through the historic exhibition and internal conferences in the Kässbohrer Haus among other things. Her interest in history stands her in good stead here. “The history of the brand also influences how Setra is seen today,” stresses Honold. “It is therefore important to us to cultivate this history and make it visible.”

Cultivating the Setra brand history also includes documents from past times above all. These stretch out in folders and boxes on long shelves in the brand archive in Neu-Ulm. Not only old photos and brochures are stored there, but also original building specifications and numerous bus models in all possible sizes. This archive also belongs to Sabine Honold’s remit and is, she reveals with a laugh, more exciting than it appears at first sight. Because when looking for pieces of history, she repeatedly discovers something new, unexpected or surprising. She also gets to know interesting people. “Not just journalists, book authors and customers come to us with questions, but also individuals interested in buses.”

For Sabine Honold at SetraClassic, the brand archive currently holds another, none too easy challenge, however: the digitisation of umpteen thousand documents and the subsequent relocation to the Daimler company archive in Fellbach near Stuttgart. “The conditions there are ideal for preserving valuable, historic documents,” the archive officer knows. “Digitisation will help us to find documents faster and answer enquiries quicker in future,” says Honold.

Just a few hundred metres away, things are fully analogue in contrast. In the Kässbohrer Halle on the factory premises on Otto-Hahn-Strasse in Neu-Ulm, the historic collection of Setra vehicles is housed. Sabine Honold looks after the collection, coordinates visits and vintage vehicle events held by the communications department as well as any necessary repairs by the Setra service team. “The Setra classics are the ambassadors of the brand tradition. It is therefore a big deal for us to maintain these vehicles and show them to the public regularly.” The collection covers 25 vehicles, of which there are 17 coaches, two trailers, one car and five carriages – all of them, apart from the car, produced by Kässbohrer. Particularly close to Honold’s heart is the blue Setra S 8 with the chassis number 50 001. “This bus is the very first with a self-supporting body and therefore of major historic importance – and a genuine jewel in the collection.”

Honold appears to manage the balancing act between Kässbohrer Haus, historic vehicle collection and brand archive, digitisation, event management and sometimes unusual archive questions without effort. “Especially the variety and encounters with interesting people make up the charm of looking after SetraClassic,” says Sabine Honold, and anyone listening closely is able to hear her passion for the Setra brand.