Preface from the editorial team, on our own behalf so to speak:
Celebrating ourselves is not really our thing. But we are of course delighted to be able to announce, so close to Christmas, that the "Golden Piston" will recognize our work, which we love and do with great enthusiasm, and thus also honour the entire Zwischengas team.
In 2023, the Forum for Vehicle History will honor a personality with the "Golden Piston" for their competent commitment to digitally processing vehicle history, regularly publishing it and operating a platform for services relating to historic vehicles in an up-to-date and informative manner:
Bruno von Rotz receives the 2023 "Golden Piston" award from F-kubik.
Since 2006, the Forum for Vehicle History, better known as F-kubik, has honored a personality at the Bremen Classic Motorshow who has made a special contribution to providing clear, qualified and modern information on vehicle history: the "Golden Piston 2023" will be awarded to Bruno von Rotz from Zurich, founder of Zwischengas AG in 2010, editor-in-chief of the internet classic car portal zwischengas.com and, since 2014, responsible for the magazine SwissClassics Revue, which is published six times a year.
When the Bremen Classic Motorshow returns at the beginning of February 2023 after the coronavirus pandemic has subsided as an in-person trade fair and the start of the season, the "Golden Piston" of the year will once again be awarded in front of an audience. The18. The 18th award for this trophy, which is unique in terms of the importance of vehicle history in the public eye, will go to the initiator of the internet platform "zwischengas.com", Bruno von Rotz, in Switzerland in 2023.
Born in Kerns/Obwalden in central Switzerland on April 13, 1961, Bruno von Rotz studied computer science at the grammar school in Sarnen after graduating from high school (in Switzerland: Matura), and from 1981 in Zurich. He graduated in 1987 with a degree in computer science from the ETH and went on to work as a software and IT engineer at BTB GmbH and About AG. He combined the modern content of his work with classic mobility in a Fiat 850 Spider. He was not only enthusiastic about classic and vintage cars, but also about automobiles and their technology in general - beyond the digital world, he said he read enthusiastically about old and new cars in all available publications.
Professionally, von Rotz remained closely connected to IT, working as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, taking up management positions at Cambridge Technology Partners and Novell and setting up an open source system integrator for Optaros Europe. In addition to his role as administrative spine at Innoveo Solutions, he started working for AccelIT GmbH, which he still does today. Writing technical and sales-oriented articles has been part of BvR's ongoing activities since 1998, so the next step can only be seen as logical.
This led to the founding of Zwischengas AG in 2010 together with the well-known racing photographer Daniel Reinhard. The website zwischengas.com was to be a successful German-language classic car portal. This can now be considered a complete success, as zwischengas.com is probably the largest and most widely read classic car portal in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH), with over five million visitors a year.
Over 13,000 articles and hundreds of thousands of photos have been published on zwischengas.com since it was founded. The heart of zwischengas.com - IT experts would perhaps also call it the backbone - is the constantly growing magazine archive. Around 600,000 pages from specialist journals have now been digitized. In addition, there is an already impressive collection of historical photos from the history of the automobile since 1886.
Four years after founding zwischengas, Bruno von Rotz was able to take over the bimonthly magazine SwissClassics Revue, which was founded in 2004 by Swiss Classic Publishing and currently has a circulation of almost 7,000 copies. A total of 13,000 issues are printed. Von Rotz has been responsible as publisher and editor-in-chief since 2014. In addition, the Zwischengas annual magazine has been published every year in December since 2015. Of course, the extensive workload for the internet portal, printed magazines and archive collection cannot be completed on the side and as a hobby. The former hobby and part-time project has long since grown into a full-time company with around ten employees, some of whom are freelancers.
With Bruno von Rotz, the F-kubik group has added a recognized personality from the world of automobile and vehicle history to its circle of piston owners.
The individuals and institutions with this award have all contributed in their own way to the positive development and appreciation of the German-speaking classic car scene. Bruno von Rotz is the 18th award winner in this series.
The winners of the "Golden Piston" since 2006
The "Golden Piston" is awarded unanimously and independently by the F-Kubik group to people who have accompanied and promoted the topic of "motor vehicle history" in the public eye in an exemplary manner through their work.
Since 2006, this award has been presented annually to a personality or institution by F-kubik as part of the Bremen Classic Motorshow.
- 2006: Günther Krön from Wegberg for the revival and organization of the historic drive "2000 km through Germany".
- 2007: Karl-August Almstadt from Hamburg for journalistic achievements as a TV presenter and publicist for AutoBild Klassik.
- 2008: Winfried A. Seidel as initiator and operator of Veterama and the Dr. Carl Benz Automobile Museum in Ladenburg.
- 2009: Prof. Dr. Peter Kirchberg for his many years of work at the University of Dresden and his documentation on the history of the Auto Union.
- 2010: Dipl.-Ing. Mag. phil. Wolfgang M. Buchta as publisher and editor-in-chief of the Austro-Classic trade journal published in Vienna.
- 2011: Karl Reese (+) as an expert and one of the first publicists of motorcycle history in an unknown variety.
- 2012: Michael Graf Wolff Metternich (+) as an interpreter of Maybach history and corresponding documentation and publications.
- 2013: Erika Kübler for her selfless commitment to preserving the life's work of the artist and designer Louis L. Lepoix / Baden-Baden.
- 2014: Ivan Mahy for his tireless efforts to keep a unique vehicle collection in Leuze, Belgium, as accessible to the public as possible.
- 2015: Roger Gloor from Bern in Switzerland for his many years of in-depth coverage of the automotive past in Automobil Revue and auto exclusiv magazine.
- 2016: Karl Ludvigsen as a manager in the automotive industry with special skills in systematically researching, processing and publishing historical automotive topics.
- 2017: Johannes Th. Hübner as an automotive expert, publicist and designer who can communicate his knowledge of vehicle history to an interested public.
- 2018: Heiner Rössler for his outstanding commitment to the lively presentation and documentation of vehicle history to the public and the operation of the Melle vehicle museum.
- 2019: Jürgen Book as the initiator of the Glasurit Classic Car Colors program, the world's largest paint database in Münster, an important contribution to the preservation of historical monuments.
- 2020: Dieter Dressel for setting up the "Central Garage" museum in Bad Homburg v.d.H. and organizing and staging numerous exhibitions on vehicle history.
- 2021: Matthias Kaluza from Zwickau for his outstandingly vivid, entertaining and exciting design of automotive history exhibitions and specialist books.
- 2022: IFA-Museum Nordhausen for setting up a museum on the history of diesel developments and presenting production at the site
- 2023: Bruno von Rotz from Zurich as initiator and content provider of the internet platform "zwischengas.com" to digitally communicate available historical information on vehicle history.
About F-kubik
The "Forum for Vehicle History" is called F-kubik for short: a group of vehicle historians, motor journalists and publishers that has been active since 2001 to strengthen the importance of vehicle history in the public eye. The group includes Eckhart Bartels, Lars Döhmann, Horst-Dieter Görg, Björn Herrmann, Ulrich Knaack, Rainer Manthey, Gerhard Placke, Burkhard Schäfer, Halwart Schrader and Hans-Joachim Weise.
In addition to their own recognized publications or expert reports on historic vehicles, they pool their specialist knowledge of vehicle history by working on projects in industry, public institutions and private collections as well as at classic car events and trade fairs such as the Bremen Classic Motorshow. For the interested public, symposia on vehicle history are offered and held at various locations. The contributions of renowned speakers are published in the book series "Archiv zur Fahrzeuggeschichte" in limited editions.
Further information can be found on the f-kubik website.
