The Automobile History Society (AHG) is honoring the authors Hendrik Medrow and Halwart Schrader with valuable bronze busts at the Museum of Hamelin Automotive History.
Halwart Schrader receives the Maybach bust for his life's work, while Hendrik Medrow is awarded the Metternich bust for his book "Von Blendern, Siegern, Sechszylindern - das staatliche DDR-Rennkollektiv 1951 bis 1957".
This book deals in detail with the people and vehicles of the GDR's state car racing team, which was founded almost three quarters of a century ago and was initially based at the Berlin-Johannisthal airfield and later at EMW in Eisenach. Vehicles with the designations R1, R2 and R3 competed in the classes up to 1.5 and 2.0 liters displacement of the Formula 2 regulations. On a good 330 pages, Hendrik Medrow describes the origins, development and dissolution of the racing collective and its vehicles, for which he combed through archives with scientific depth. Comparisons with the international, and in particular West German, competition show that there was only one serious competitor in the mid-1950s: Porsche.
Halwart Schrader is regarded as the founder of German-language classic car journalism. Active as an author and translator, his specialist books and encyclopaedias include "Die große Automobil- Enzyklopädie - 100 Jahre Geschichte, 2500 Marken aus 65 Ländern", "Siegertypen bremsen nicht - die härtesten Autorennen der Jahre 1894 bis 1945" and the series "Schrader-Typen- Chronik", as well as (with co-author) "Alternativ mobil - die Geschichte der E-Mobilität von 1891 bis morgen". He is a member of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA), the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), the Guild of Motoring Writers and a founding member of the AHG. His brother Thomas Schrader accepted the Maybach bust on behalf of 90-year-old Halwart Schrader in Hamelin.
The bronze busts, which weigh around 2.4 kilograms and were created by Upper Bavarian sculptor Jeanette Nagel-Schmidt, are named after automotive historian and AHG founding member Michael Graf Wolff Metternich (1920 - 2018) and automotive pioneer Wilhelm Maybach (1846 - 1929). The busts are always awarded as part of the AHG spring meeting, known as the Metternich Days. In order to nominate authors for the Metternich bust, specimen copies can be sent to the AHG. The selection will be made by an expert jury of AHG members. The jury reserves the right to nominate and select possible winners of the Maybach Bust.
Further information is also available on the Automobilhistorische Gesellschaft e.V. website.
