About Motor Klassik

Motor Klassik

Motor Klassik is Germany's leading classic-car magazine, published monthly by Motor Presse Stuttgart. Devoted to vintage and classic automobiles — from pre-war grand tourers to the youngtimers of the 1980s and 1990s — it combines the fascination of automotive history with the practical concerns of the classic-car owner: buying advice, market prices, restoration, technology and the great events of the oldtimer scene. Under editor-in-chief Hans-Jörg Götzl, the magazine is the journalistic home of Germany's classic-car culture, closely associated with the Paul Pietsch Classic rally organised by its publishing house. The standalone website could not be verified at research time, so no website is listed here.

Overview

Motor Klassik appears monthly and addresses everyone for whom the automobile is heritage as well as transport: the collector, the restorer, the rally participant, the investor and the dreamer. Each issue carries portraits of classic models and marques, buying guides with market-price assessments, restoration features, technology explainers on the engineering of earlier eras, and reports from the great classic events — the Concours d'Elegance, the historic rallies, the Techno-Classica fair in Essen.

The magazine's authority rests on expertise and passion in equal measure: its editors know the cars intimately, its market assessments are followed by the trade, and its tone celebrates the classic car without romanticising the costs and compromises of ownership. For Germany's large oldtimer community, Motor Klassik is the monthly ritual and the reference work.

History

Motor Klassik was launched in the 1980s by Motor Presse Stuttgart, as the classic-car movement grew from a niche hobby into a broad cultural and economic phenomenon. The timing captured the moment when the cars of the post-war decades — the Mercedes SLs, the Porsche 911s, the BMW 2002s, the everyday classics of the economic miracle — were becoming collectible, and when a generation of enthusiasts needed a magazine that treated the old car as a serious subject.

Published from Stuttgart — the city of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, the spiritual home of the German automobile — the magazine grew with the scene it covered. The launch of the Paul Pietsch Classic, the oldtimer rally named after the publishing house's founder and organised by Motor Presse Stuttgart, gave the magazine its own event: each June, more than a hundred classic vehicles from seven decades — from a 1932 Invicta S-Type to a 1988 Ferrari Testarossa — tour the Danube valley and the Swabian landscapes, with the magazine's editors and readers among the participants.

The rally's format embodies the magazine's philosophy: the Sanduhrklasse (hourglass class) rewards not speed and best times but consistency, precision and a fine feel for road and time — the classic driven as it was meant to be driven, on public roads, among fellow enthusiasts. The U35 prize for the best young team cultivates the next generation, addressing the scene's demographic challenge directly: the classic car's future depends on young enthusiasts, and the rally gives them their own competition within the event. For participants and spectators alike, the Paul Pietsch Classic is the magazine made tangible — the rolling embodiment of Motor Klassik's world.

Under editor-in-chief Hans-Jörg Götzl, Motor Klassik has navigated the classic market's booms — the price explosion of the 2010s, the youngtimer wave, the debates over electrification and the future of the combustion classic — maintaining its position as the scene's leading journal through every cycle.

Content

Model portraits are the heart of the magazine: in-depth features on the great classics — their history, their engineering, their variants, their strengths and weaknesses as ownership propositions — illustrated with the photography the subject deserves. Buying guides translate enthusiasm into advice: what to pay, what to inspect, which variants to seek and which to avoid, with market-price assessments that buyers and sellers actually use.

Restoration features follow projects from barn find to concours condition, with the technical detail — bodywork, paint, engines, interiors, electrics — that the restorer needs. Technology explainers revisit the engineering of earlier eras: carburettors, drum brakes, points ignition, the mechanical systems that modern readers encounter only in classics. Event reports cover the Techno-Classica, the Concours at Lake Como, the great rallies and the club scene, while the market pages track prices, auctions and the investment dimension of the hobby. The Techno-Classica in Essen — the world's largest fair for classic automobiles — is the scene's annual marketplace and the magazine's natural reporting ground: the price trends visible on the dealers' stands, the newly discovered barn finds, the auction results that set the market's temperature for the year.

The Paul Pietsch Classic — the publisher's own rally, held each year around the MOTORWORLD Region Stuttgart — receives extensive coverage, embodying the magazine's philosophy that classic cars are for driving: the rally's regularity format rewards consistency, precision and route feel over speed, and its U35 prize for the best young team cultivates the next generation.

Coverage & Audience

Motor Klassik is sold throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland at newsstands and by subscription, appearing monthly. Its readership is the classic-car community: owners, restorers, collectors, rally participants, club members and traders — an audience that is knowledgeable, affluent and deeply engaged, and that treats the magazine as both reading pleasure and reference work.

The magazine's market assessments influence the German classic trade, its buying guides are consulted before purchases, and its event coverage shapes the scene's calendar. For the German oldtimer world — one of the largest and most organised in Europe — Motor Klassik is the indispensable monthly.

Ownership

Motor Klassik is published by Motor Presse Stuttgart GmbH & Co. KG, the Stuttgart-based special-interest publisher founded in 1946 by Paul Pietsch, Ernst Troeltsch and Josef Hummel. The automotive division — auto motor und sport, sport auto, Motorrad, PS, Motor Klassik and the leisure titles — is the strongest enthusiast portfolio in European publishing, and the classic title benefits from the group's testing expertise, event organisation and editorial resources.

Since 2019 the company has been majority-owned by the descendants of founder Paul Pietsch — Peter-Paul Pietsch and Patricia Scholten hold 85 percent — with Hermann Dietrich-Troeltsch holding 15 percent. The Paul Pietsch Classic rally, named after the founder, embodies the continuity between the publishing house's history and the classic magazine's mission.

Digital Presence

Motor Klassik's digital presence runs through the Motor Presse automotive portals, where classic-car content — market news, buying guides, event reports and videos — appears alongside the group's wider automotive journalism. The magazine's event activities, above all the Paul Pietsch Classic, generate the video and social-media content that brings the classic world to digital audiences.

The monthly print magazine remains the format for the definitive model portrait, the comprehensive buying guide and the restoration feature — content that rewards the unhurried reading only print provides. For the classic-car enthusiast, Motor Klassik's combination of monthly depth, market authority and event presence makes it the complete medium of the scene.

The classic-car market provides the magazine's context: the auctions setting the prices, the restorations preserving the heritage, the young enthusiasts discovering the analogue automobile — the scene's economy and its culture, covered with the insider's knowledge. The restoration journalism is the practical core: the workshop features, the parts sources, the technique guides — the knowledge that keeps the old machines running. The buying guides serve the market's participants: the model histories, the weak points, the price assessments — the due diligence for the significant purchase. The event calendar structures the year: the Techno-Classica in Essen, the Concours, the rallies, the club meetings — the scene's gatherings, reported with the participant's eye. The Paul Pietsch Classic — the magazine's own rally, named for the publishing house's founder — embodies the editorial philosophy: the classics driven as they were meant to be driven, on public roads, among enthusiasts, with the Sanduhrklasse rewarding consistency over speed and the U35 prize cultivating the next generation. In the Motor Presse portfolio, Motor Klassik is the memory: the magazine that preserves the automobile's heritage with the seriousness it deserves and the love it inspires.