ORIGINS OF HOLLINDA

The company was founded by Mr. R.O. van Gennep on September 1st, 1920 under the name A.A.M.IJ. which stands for Alkmaarsche Automobiel Maatschappij. The companies early activities were the sale, rental and servicing of cars and motorcycles. The economic conditions in the early days of the company however were not at all good, and sales of relative luxury items like cars and motorcycles were few. As a consequence the company started other activities such as bus-transport and taxi-services with the vehicles that they had anyway. Another area was found in trade of technical articles destined for the Ministries of the Navy and War. The first representations which the company obtained was from the French car-manufacturer Citroën, and the American motorcycle-manufacturer Indian. The sales price in those days of an Indian motorcycle plus sidecar amounted to Dfl. 1.450,–, whilst a Citroën car sold for Dfl. 1.600,–. One will understand that the sale of heavy motorcycles was minimal.

The aeronautical and military activities of the company start to be significant in 1923 when a representation is obtained from “Titanine Ltd.”, a British company, which produced varnish to be applied on aircraft cloth. During the first year an amount of 35000 liter was sold, yielding 1 Penny commission per liter. During 1923 a sale is also made of 6 aircraft engines to the Dutch Navy, and a representation contract is concluded with the aircraft manufacturer Dornier Metallbauten GmbH for both the Netherlands and its colonies. As a result of the Versailles treaty at the end of World War I, Dornier was not allowed to manufacture airplanes in Germany, and operated out of Pisa/Italy to circumvent this imposition.

The representation of Dornier resulted in December 1926 in an order for 18 WAL (Whale) flying boats for a total amount of Dfl. 2.733.000,–. These flying boats were bought by the Ministry of Colonies for use in the Dutch East Indies (presently Indonesia). The contract including the technical specification consisted of 9 pages. The delivery time of the contract ran from September 1927 thru September 1928 for all 18 aircraft. A penalty clause was included, with a grace period of 7 weeks and a penalty of Dfl. 400,– for each full week delay. The payment terms showed a down payment at contract signature of Dfl. 1.688.500,– (approx. 62 %) and two further payments which depended on approval of the Budget of the Ministry of the Colonies. Dornier had to put up a bankguarantee against the payments made, which decreased proportionally with deliveries made.

Early 1927, the company moved its offices from Alkmaar and Amsterdam to The Hague and divested the automobile-activities in order to concentrate itself fully on the aeronautical and defense agencies. In July of 1927, A.A.M.IJ. was appointed by S. Smith & Sons as its “Selling Agents” in the Netherlands for aircraft instruments.

Early 1930 it was concluded that the name A.A.M.IJ. did not properly reflect the business the company was in and it was decided to change the name into “HOLLINDA”. Hollinda being the acronym of HOLLand INDies Aviation. The objective of the company was stated as: “carry out trade in aircraft, instruments and parts thereoff”.

The first non-executive board of Hollinda consists of:

Dr. A. Plesman | President and founder of KLM
H.A. Burgerhout | President Aviolanda
P. Guilonard | Technical Director KLM
A. Dudok van Heel | Ret. Colonel Netherlands Army

Hollinda and Goliath, another well established company consulting for foreign manufacturers in the defense industry, decided to merge the activities in 2001. Goliath was founded in 1946, as a subsidiary company to Swedish Steel Netherlands in order to assist the Swedish state owned defense companies in their marketing activities. The new company name was chosen: GOLIATH-HOLLINDA B.V.