Congratulations on your 70th birthday!
12/04/2016
In 1946, Paul Pietsch, Ernst Troeltsch and Josef Hummel founded Motorsport GmbH in Freiburg im Breisgau, which had been almost completely destroyed. The reason for this was the hope that they might be able to finance their hobby, motorsport, with their own car magazine. After protracted negotiations with the French military government in Baden-Baden, the 36-page magazine " Das Auto" was published for the first time in December 1946. From then on, the magazine, which cost 1.50 Reichsmark, was produced in Paul Pietsch's bedroom.
The actual "auto, motor und sport"was the further development and was created in 1951 in cooperation with Vogel-Verlag. Founder Paul Pietsch died in 2012 at the ripe old age of 100. However, his magazine lives on and is now celebrating its 70th birthday. The magazine is regarded as an automotive bible by the works and the general readership. Patricia Scholten when asked what annoyed her father the most: "When he found an article in the magazine that was poorly done."
This is precisely the reason for the magazine's success, because the editors keep surprising us with precisely these "lovingly" produced stories about cars.
It is not a matter of course to maintain a successful magazine at such a high level over seven decades; it takes the right people who are prepared to work day and night to achieve this.
Now a 290-page "auto, motor und sport - Edition - The best stories - 70 years of auto, motor und sport" is on newsstands. A summary of special stories from seven decades. The selection of stories is certainly subjective and not easy to choose from a wealth of thousands of stories. Unfortunately, the exciting 50s, 60s and 70s, which are less well-known to young readers, have been somewhat neglected. Perhaps an internal "making of" story was also forgotten. There really would be an infinite number of exciting and thrilling stories to tell. Stories, for example, that didn't turn out as planned; or stories that turned out much better than ever expected. It would also have been interesting to look back at the time before the Internet, for example how the analog film and text material was able to get from Australia to Germany as quickly as possible. How often were nights driven through, whether in rain or snow, just to be in Stuttgart in time with pictures and text ...
The one is missing, the other is all the more pleasing, such as Manfred Jantke's report on the visit to Autodelta, Fritz B. Busch's textual masterpiece on the Jaguar E-Type or the last three surviving starters at the first F1 GP in England at Silverstone on May 13, 1950, written half a century later.
The wealth of history, as well as its loving presentation, deserves great praise. EUR 11.90 or CHF 19.00 is the price of the two-centimeter-thick, paperback tome on 70 years of "auto, motor und sport". It is well worth it, as it brings a lot of entertainment into the living room.
We send our warmest congratulations to our colleagues in Stuttgart, wish them continued success and are already looking forward to the special edition "100 years of auto, motor und sport".
