The Forum for Vehicle History, or F-kubik for short, is honoring a personality in 2025 for their many years of tireless and successful commitment to the documentation and public presentation of historical mobility in Germany: The "Golden Piston" award goes to Dipl.-Ing. Matthias Doht as co-founder of the "Automobile Museum Eisenach" association, initiator, private founder and managing director of the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation as well as long-standing director of the Eisenach Automobile Museum and publicist.
When the Eisenach car factory was to be liquidated after the political changes, the future of the Wartburg Pavilion as a Wartburg factory museum was also in doubt. In order to preserve the vehicle collection and prevent it from being sold by the liquidator, the Automobilbaumuseum Eisenach e. V. association was founded on July 3, 1992 with the support of the city during the dissolution of the Eisenach automobile factory. Doht was one of the initiators of the association. The Verein Automobilbaumuseum Eisenach e. V. then ran the museum on its own initiative with job creation measures until 1998.
After the city of Eisenach agreed to sponsor the automobile museum in 1998, the search was on for a new, larger exhibition space. On June 4, 2005, the museum was opened with a larger exhibition space as "automobile world eisenach" on the former site of the Eisenach automobile factory. It is located in the authentic industrial building O2, built by BMW in 1935, which once historically stood for "Ost 2". Following the transfer of the museum from the city of Eisenach to the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation in 2014, the building was extensively renovated and the exhibition space more than doubled to 2000 m². Matthias Doht played a decisive role in this consistent development.
On April 1, 2014, the sponsorship of the museum was transferred from the city of Eisenach to the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation under the management of Matthias Doht. Doht has been in charge of day-to-day administration since June 2014 and is the director of the Automobile World Eisenach (awe) automobile museum in Eisenach. It offers an overview of more than 125 years of local automotive history.
Doht is Managing Director of the Automobile Welt Eisenach Foundation and Director of the museum of the same name until the end of 2024. He also publishes on topics relating to automobile construction in Eisenach, including "Gustav Ehrhardt - the car pioneer from Eisenach: The history of motor cars".
Matthias Doht was born on July 3, 1958 in Eisenach into a typical third-generation automobile manufacturing family. In 1979, he began studying mechanical engineering and design technology at the Technical University of Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz University of Technology), which he completed in 1984 with a degree in engineering. He then returned to Eisenach and worked as a design engineer for special machines and rationalization projects at the Eisenach automotive plant until 1990. As a result of his significant activities during the reunification of Eisenach, Matthias Doht became a full-time alderman and head of the construction department of the Wartburg city in June 1990. As such, he was responsible for the planning and construction of the new Opel plant in Eisenach, but also for the demolition of the facilities of the liquidated Eisenach car plant. In his municipal function, he co-organized and chaired the founding meeting of the Automobilbau-Museum Eisenach e.V. association.
Doht was chairman of the SPD city council parliamentary group from 1999. In the 2006 local elections, Matthias Doht was elected Lord Mayor of the Wartburg town of Eisenach. In this role, he soon realized that the appropriate operation of the automobile museum was very limited by the cultural obligations of the city of Eisenach and that further expansion was not financially possible. He therefore privately initiated the establishment of the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation with the participation of the Wartburg-Sparkasse. When the foundation was established on June 4, 2009, BMW and Opel, as well as the Automobile Museum Association and the General Wartburg Drivers' Club Eisenach, joined the Board of Trustees alongside the town and the Sparkasse. An exhibition concept was then developed by the Board of Trustees with external scientific advice, while the Foundation Board developed an operator and exhibition concept and had to acquire funds. This created a new museum perspective.
After Doht was not re-elected as Lord Mayor in 2012, he consequently ended his involvement in local politics and his party membership.
In 2014, the Eisenach City Council decided to transfer the sponsorship of the automobile museum to the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation based on the operating and exhibition concept presented. Since then, Matthias Doht has been the managing director of the foundation, museum director of automobile welt eisenach and responsible for its operation and expansion.
Doht has also published on automotive history topics himself: These include essays and articles in daily newspapers (Thüringer Allgemeine, the Thüringer Landeszeitung) and in the club magazines of BMW, DIXI, IFA and Wartburg. (BMW-CN, DAVC-CM, Centaur-Post, IFA-Journal, Wartburg-Signale). In 2016, he published his first book "Gustav Ehrhardt - der Autopionier aus Eisenach: The History of Motor Cars". He also curated three special exhibitions at the Automobile Museum: "90 years of the Dixi DA 1 and BMW-Dixi", "Eisenach station wagons - the cars with the big mouth" and "BMW / EMW 340 - the first post-war design from Eisenach". He published his second book on the latter in 2020. He is currently working on a book project on the history of the Eisenach Dixi. Doht also made a valuable contribution at the 5th F-kubik Symposium entitled "Technology transfer: paths across borders - borders in the way"
Museum Director Matthias Doht, who is also Managing Director of the Automobile World Eisenach Foundation, will retire at the end of 2024. His succession has been arranged for the long term and will be based on two pillars in the future: managing and scientific museum management. At the same time, he has succeeded in significantly rejuvenating not only the museum management but also the Board of Trustees through personnel changes, thus ensuring the long-term future of the museum automobile welt eisenach.
About the Golden Piston and its award winners since 2006
The "Golden Piston" is awarded unanimously and independently to individuals and institutions by the F-kubik group. The award is intended to show the special significance of "vehicle history" to the public and to honor exceptional achievements and results. This award in the form of a polished engine piston with engraving and honorary pin has been presented annually at the Bremen Classic Motorshow since 2006.
- 2006: Günther Krön for reviving and organizing the historic "2000 km through Germany" tour.
- 2007: Karl-August Almstadt for early journalistic achievements in vehicle history as a TV presenter and publicist for the establishment and publication of the specialist magazine AutoBild Klassik.
- 2008: Winfried A. Seidel as initiator and operator of Veterama and the Dr. Carl Benz Automuseum in Ladenburg.
- 2009: Prof. Dr. Peter Kirchberg (+) for his many years of work at the University of Dresden and 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 magazine.
- 2011: Karl Reese (+) as an expert and one of the first publicists of motorcycle history in a previously unknown variety.
- 2012: Michael Graf Wolff Metternich (+) as an interpreter of Maybach history and corresponding documentation and publications.
- 2013: Erika Kübler for her commitment to preserving the life's work of the artist and designer Louis L. Lepoix from Baden-Baden.
- 2014: Ivan Mahy for his tireless efforts to preserve a unique vehicle collection in
- Belgium as accessible to the public as possible.
- 2015: Roger Gloor from Switzerland for his many years of in-depth coverage of the automobile
- past in the Automobil Revue and in the magazine auto exclusiv.
- 2016: Karl Ludvigsen as a manager in the automotive industry with the skills of systematic research, processing and worldwide publication of automotive history topics.
- 2017: Johannes Th. Hübner as an automotive expert, publicist and designer who can convincingly convey his knowledge of vehicle history to an interested public.
- 2018: Heiner Rössler for his outstanding commitment to a lively presentation and documentation of vehicle history to the public through the operation of the vehicle museum in Melle.
- 2019: Jürgen Book as the initiator of the Glasurit Classic Car Colors program, the world's largest paint database, an exemplary contribution to the preservation of historical monuments.
- 2020: Dieter Dressel for setting up the "Central Garage" museum in Bad Homburg v.d.H. with the organization and implementation of exemplary exhibitions on vehicle history.
- 2021: Matthias Kaluza for vivid, entertaining and exciting designs of automotive history exhibitions and specialist books.
- 2022: The team from the IFA Museum in Nordhausen for setting up a museum on the history of diesel developments and documenting the history of technology at the site.
- 2023: Bruno von Rotz as co-initiator and content provider of the internet platform "zwischengas" to digitally process and communicate up-to-date historical information on vehicle history.
- 2024: Peter Schneider for his selfless and idealistic commitment over decades to improving the legal and political framework conditions in Germany and at European level for the operation of historic motor vehicles on public roads.
About F-kubik
The "Forum for Vehicle History", or F-kubik for short, is a group of vehicle historians, motoring journalists and publishers that has been active since 2001 to strengthen the importance of vehicle history in the public eye. Its members include Eckhart Bartels, Lars Döhmann, Horst-Dieter Görg, Dr. Wolfgang Kaese, Ulrich Knaack, Christian Ludewig, 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 for 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 have been held at various locations and the contributions of renowned speakers have been published in a limited edition in the book series "Archiv zur Fahrzeuggeschichte".
Further information can be found on the F-kubik website.
