Fiats and more for a Dutch students' outing

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Often when we're sent a photograph from the dim and distant past, we have our work cut out trying to identify the cars concerned, never mind where the picture was taken or who the people in it might be. This one, however, sent to us by Gerard Brands, who found it at a street market in Utrecht, makes our job much easier, thanks to the presence of just two words: Sociëteit Phoenix.

For one thing, the word 'sociëteit' is Dutch, so we know we're in the Netherlands somewhere. Better still is the fact that the Sociëteit Phoenix is not some obscure relic of the past, but a prominent institution since 1847 and one which is still going strong today. It's the private society of the Delft Student Corps (established one year later, in 1848), which is the oldest students' association in Delft and catered for students of the Royal Academy for the Training of Civil Engineers or, as it became in 1905, the Delft University of Technology.

The original Sociëteit Phoenix building was destroyed in a fire, so it moved into a new building at Phoenixstraat 30 in 1878, a handsome redbrick structure with Classical influences, and it is that building which we see here sometime in the 1920s.

We just have to wonder at the occasion for the gathering on what looks to be a rather chilly winter's day. Did the students of Delft have their own motor club? If so, perhaps some of our readers are Delft alumni and have some memories of it (although obviously not extending back as far as the 1920s)?

Now that we come to identifying the cars, there are three with their radiators unobstructed and two of them are quite clearly Fiats. We wonder about the third, though - something American? As for the two which are obscured, we'll leave them for you to have a guess at...

Words: Zack Stiling
 

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