Every year since 2006 at the Bremen Classic Motorshow, the "Forum for Vehicle History", or F-kubik for short, has honored a personality for their special commitment to researching and documenting authentic vehicle history in all its diversity and presenting it to the public.
In 2015, Roger Gloor, who has spent 39 years as editor of the magazines Automobil Revue and auto exklusiv and, after retiring, as a freelance journalist, has prepared and published well-founded articles on topics from the automotive past, will receive the award, a certificate with a polished engine piston, for the tenth time.
A lifelong commitment to the car
Roger Gloor joined the Automobil Revue in 1963. Born in 1937, he had completed a commercial apprenticeship, including three years of further training to become a business graduate, and had worked in accounting and market research at a Swiss assembly plant. "Even as a child and teenager, I was obsessed with cars (and airplanes)," recalls the author, "I bought relevant literature and subscribed to the Automobil Revue." At this renowned weekly newspaper, he was initially responsible for topics such as traffic and road construction, then for the international automotive industry section. He also described new vehicle models and was a member of the test team. He was also deputy sports editor for a long time and later introduced the car design section.
At the suggestion of the editor-in-chief at the time, Robert Braunschweig, Gloor also found his way to automotive history. One of Gloor's outstanding works, which should not be missing from any collection of automotive literature, is the book series "Alle Autos der 50er/60er/70er/80er Jahre". He describes his best work as the volume "Future cars of the 80s" about all the concept cars of that decade. The volume "Alle Autos der 80er Jahre" was his most laborious project and only came onto the market in 2012 after he had redesigned the original layout of the 500-page main section.
Gloor developed another activity in 2008, when he launched the "Italiauto" event. This annual meeting with Concorso d'Eleganza for Italian classic cars takes account of the emotional connection to these vehicles. It takes place in Wangen an der Aare, a small historic town between Bern and Zurich. Back in the 1960s, Gloor began working on the juries of various Concours d'Elégance, initially for new vehicles and later for classic cars. He is involved four to five times a year, sometimes as jury president. Since 2010, he has also served on the jury of the "Retro Classics meets Baroque" in Ludwigsburg Palace Gardens. Incidentally, he owns classic cars himself, a convertible from 1962 and a coupé from 1963.
Golden piston
The Golden Piston is an award for special achievements in the documentation of vehicle history and its presentation to the public. Since 2006, personalities have been honored by F-kubik as part of the Bremen Classic Motorshow. The previous winners were
- 2006: Günther Krön for the revival and realization of the historic drive "2000 km through Germany".
- 2007: Karl-August Almstadt for journalistic achievements as a TV presenter and publicist for autobild Klassik.
- 2008: Winfried A. Seidel as initiator and operator of Veterama and the Benz Museum in Ladenburg.
- 2009: Prof. Dr. Peter Kirchberg for his many years of work at the University of Dresden and his documentation of the history of the Auto Union.
- 2010: Dipl.-Ing. Mag. phil. Wolfgang M. Buchta as publisher and editor-in-chief of Austro-Classic.
- 2011: Karl Reese as an expert and one of the first publicists of motorcycle history.
- 2012: Michael Graf Wolff Metternich as an interpreter of Maybach history and corresponding publications.
- 2013: Erika Kübler for her selfless commitment to preserving the life's work of the artist and designer Louis L. Lepoix.
- 2014: Ivan Mahy for his tireless efforts to make a unique vehicle collection as accessible to the public as possible.
