In memoriam Ben Heiltjes

Friday 27 September 2024
On 20 September Bernardus Theodorus Willibrordus Heiltjes, managing director of Autohulpdienst Ben Heiltjes, passed away in Cuijk. Ben Heiltjes was born in Cuijk in 1955. He grew up in a family with a car-based business: the Cuijkse Autoservice. From an early age, he was actively involved in the business and, in the 1970s, trained to be a car mechanic at the MTS in Apeldoorn. In 1982, in the showroom Ben Heiltjes met Monique Hilhorst, a customer who wanted a part-exchange deal on a red Citroën 2 CV. He sold her a Citroën LN, in the same shade of red. They were married in 1985.

Ben Heiltjes in 2015

In 1998, Ben and Monique decided to separate the recovery operations from the rest of the automotive business. Together, they established Autohulpdienst Ben Heiltjes. In the beginning, the business had a single employee and three recovery vehicles. Autohulpdienst Ben Heiltjes soon became one of the leading recovery operators in the Netherlands. The business currently has a team of 25 employees and a fleet of nearly 30 recovery vehicles.

On the afternoon of 2 April, Ben Heiltjes was returning from a breakdown removal on the N277 at Ravenstein. He suffered a heart attack, lost control of the steering and hit a tree. He was seriously injured. Ben was in hospital for over five months. There, he underwent many medical interventions. On 5 September, he returned home to the yard of the recovery business. He died there, fifteen days later.