He celebrated with Pavarotti and tested sports cars with Schumacher: Fritz Neuser (89) will still "sell 100 cars"

Created: 04/02/2022, 19:29

By: Thomas Eldersch

Fritz Neuser is not only familiar with fast cars.

He was also allowed to call stars like Luciano Pavarotti and Michael Schumacher his friends.

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Nuremberg Fritz Neuser shone in two lives.

As a cyclist, he made it to the Olympic Games.

He became a cult car dealer and is still in business at the age of 89.

Nuremberg – Ferrari red as far as the eye can see.

One car more exclusive, rarer and more expensive than the other.

In the hallowed sales halls at Kleinreuther Weg 93 in Nuremberg, Ferraris cost over 200,000 euros each.

Also rare models from Alpha Romeo, Porsche and Lamborghini.

In total, Scuderia Auto-Neuser owns vehicles worth more than ten million euros.

But not only the speedsters with the horse on the hood can be found here.

Between them stands a living legend.

At almost 90 years old, Fritz Neuser (89), probably Germany's oldest car dealer, still pursues his passion every day - selling fast and rare cars.

Germany's oldest car dealer, Fritz Neuser, has already won races on two and four wheels

The likeable Franconian with the gold-framed aviator glasses and direct manner has been selling cars since the late 1950s.

Impressive, but not all that justifies its legendary status.

One could also describe the Nuremberg native as a speed junkie.

Not only that the finest and rarest sports cars have already wandered over his shop counter - recently he sold a Ferrari 250 GTO, for which prices in the double-digit million range have already been asked.

He himself also left a lot of rubber on the asphalt.

Neuser contested 68 mountain and circuit races – of which he won 52.

As the leader of a DTM team, he even clinched a European championship.

But his lifelong passion only moves on two wheels.

From Nuremberg to Melbourne: Neuser's tragic race at the 1956 Olympics

Although Fritz Neuser has achieved so much that it would be enough for three lives.

Although he once met Enzo Ferrari, could call Luciano Pavarotti a good friend and tested sports cars with Michael Schumacher.

He was denied a dream.

And this still drives him to this day.

You notice it immediately when you talk to him.

"No, I have no regrets," he says, still thinking back to the missed opportunity to win an Olympic medal at the 1956 Melbourne Games.

He had worked so hard, so intensively.

With discipline and perseverance, two qualities that he has retained throughout his life.

In the end, instead of gold, he got a stay in the hospital.

And it all started with just one wish.

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Neuser's big dream – owning his own bike

After the Second World War, in which Neuser lost his father, he and his mother literally found their existence in ruins.

The apartment was bombed and they found shelter in Wolkersdorf, south of Nuremberg - in their garden house.

"At the age of 15, two years after the war, I had a very big dream: I wanted to own a bicycle."

The solution: the RC Herpersdorf.

He registered with the cycling club as a youth rider, was loaned a bicycle frame and scrounged the remaining parts together.

At first he wasn't interested in compulsory training - he drove listlessly, but then his ambition was aroused.

"I've been a member for 73 years and the club has only been around for a good 100 years," Neuser looks back with a smile.

End of the Olympic dream: unfair action destroys the medal hope

At the end of his career he was able to claim 12 German cycling championship titles and 332 races won.

He can even call the silver laurel leaf – presented by Germany's first Federal President Theodor Heuss – his own.

The only thing missing from his impressive collection is the darn Olympic medal.

The 89-year-old was already in the quarter-finals with his tandem partner Günther Ziegler.

Then an unfair bump from the Russian opponents.

Fall at 70 km/h.

Hospitalization and automatic seventh place.

The Olympic dream shattered.

Olympic Games in Melbourne: Fritz Neuser (r.) got off the worst in the heavy fall after the Russian bump.

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Ferrari red arrives in Nuremberg: Neuser changes from wheel master to sales master

In 1957 the bicycle races came to an end.

Neuser didn't want to become a professional.

"You didn't earn enough money there," he jokes in retrospect.

But maybe the two fractured skulls and the uncertain future prospects have strengthened his decision.

He runs his business like a professional athlete.

Fritz Neuser's right hand in the business.

The 89-year-old switched from two to four wheels.

He began an apprenticeship as a car salesman.

Immediately became Germany's best Goggomobil dealer and started the Auto-Neuser company in 1962 right on the Maxtorgraben in the center of Nuremberg.

He sold Alpha Romeos for 40 years.

32 years of Ferraris.

In 2002 he stopped being an authorized dealer and specialized in rare special models and vintage cars.

"He runs his business like a professional athlete," says his right hand (does not want to be named, editor's note) about him.

Fritz Neuser needs work as a distraction and elixir of life

But what is it that keeps Fritz Neuser motivated to go to his shop every day after such a long time and deal in treasures made of metal and chrome?

Is it because he lost his wife of 56 years three years ago?

Is it because he has no children who can continue his life's work?

Or is it due to a spinal canal stenosis operation that went wrong almost five years ago - since which he has been suffering from pain?

"I didn't want to sit at home with painkillers, so I go to work every day.

That distracts me.”

Maybe it's a little bit of everything.

But it is certainly also due to the fact that Neuser is “a self-made man who, at the age of 89, still goes about his day-to-day business full of vigor every day”, as his right-hand man describes him.

Germany's oldest car dealer is a businessman through and through

And that Neuser is a real businessman, he proved more than once.

For years, the Nuremberg car dealer has been fasting 30 days a year.

There he met a son of the Al Thani ruling family from Qatar in 1982, who was looking for cars for falconry hunting.

Neuser smelled the business and quickly converted 36 Range Rovers for the ruling house.

Don't think about quitting yet: Fritz Neuser (89) is probably Germany's oldest car dealer.

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He also noticed that the older Ferrari models had no good seats.

He installed bucket seats and then sat on around 50 Testarossa seats.

Too bad to throw away.

So he looked for an office supplies manufacturer and screwed castors onto it.

The Ferrari office chairs went on sale for 1900 euros.

Neuser's life motto, "if you make an effort, you can achieve anything", he has fulfilled countless times himself.

Round birthday in Nuremberg: Neuser's guest list is impressive

In April the time has come.

The 90 is coming up.

A champagne reception with 90 guests is planned.

Friends and acquaintances of Nuremberg's car pope then cavort between the smart sports cars – there are currently around 80 of them in the showroom.

Big names are also on the guest list.

Nuremberg's Mayor Marcus König (CSU), ex-Prime Minister Günther Beckstein, pop singer and close friend Peter Kraus and ex-professional cyclist Erik Zabel have announced themselves.

Perhaps Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) will also pay a visit to his hometown and personally congratulate the jubilee.

With the Fritz Neuser Foundation, the Nuremberg legend wants to help those in need

How things will continue after that is already certain.

"He'll still be selling cars when he's 100," says one employee about his boss.

He, on the other hand, is proud that he has already arranged everything.

“I paid for everything I have.

I have no debt and have kept both feet on the ground.

I came from a poor background and I'm not ashamed of that."

What remains when he really is gone is also clear.

There will be a Fritz Neuser Foundation.

On the one hand, the foundation money is intended to promote youth cycling.

On the other hand, Neuser wants to help people who, through no fault of their own, have slipped into social marginalization and have to make ends meet with Hartz IV.