About Sport Auto

Sport Auto

sport auto is a German monthly automobile magazine published by Motor Presse Stuttgart, devoted to sporty cars — from high-performance production models to tuned machines and racing machinery. Founded in 1969, it is one of the longest-running sports-car magazines in Europe. Its signature is the "Supertest": an exhaustive instrumented test of a sports car culminating in a timed lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, for decades conducted by the legendary test driver Horst von Saurma and since 2015 by Christian Gebhardt. sport auto speaks to drivers who care about lap times, chassis tuning and engineering detail, and its website sportauto.de extends the tests and features online.

Overview

sport auto appears monthly and occupies the enthusiast end of the German car-magazine market. Where general-interest car magazines address the car buyer and auto motor und sport the technically interested driver, sport auto addresses the performance enthusiast: readers who know what a limited-slip differential does, who argue about Nürburgring lap times and who read test data the way others read literature. New-car news, comparison tests, technology features and motorsport coverage fill the pages, but the heart of the magazine is the testing — above all the Supertest.

The Supertest is among the most demanding production-car tests in automotive journalism: acceleration, braking, handling, aerodynamics and everyday usability are measured and assessed, and the verdict lap on the Nordschleife — the 20.8-kilometre "Green Hell" in the Eifel mountains — provides the ultimate performance benchmark. The resulting lap-time ranking is one of the most cited performance references in the automotive world, watched closely by manufacturers and enthusiasts alike.

History

sport auto was founded in 1969, in the golden age of the German sports car — the era of the Porsche 911's ascendancy, the BMW 2002 and the Ford Capri. Published from the start within the Motor Presse Stuttgart orbit, the magazine gave the emerging performance-car culture its own journalistic home, distinct from the broader coverage of auto motor und sport. The monthly rhythm and the focus on driving dynamics, tuning and motorsport defined a formula that has endured for more than five decades.

The magazine's modern identity was shaped decisively by Horst von Saurma, whose Supertests — combining meticulous measurement with evocative driving impressions from the Nordschleife — became legendary among car enthusiasts. Until 2015 almost all Supertests were conducted by von Saurma; since then the lap-time duties have been taken over by Christian Gebhardt, maintaining the continuity of the benchmark. Marcus Schurig has been editor-in-chief since 1 March 2013, leading the title through the digital transformation of automotive media. Schurig's tenure has maintained the magazine's core identity — the instrumented test, the Nordschleife lap time, the engineering depth — while adapting the format for the digital age: the Supertest videos, the online data presentations and the social-media presence that bring the lap times to a new generation of enthusiasts.

Like all print car magazines, sport auto has faced the migration of car research and entertainment to digital platforms, but the Supertest — expensive, difficult and impossible to fake — remains a defensible franchise: it is journalism that YouTube cannot easily replicate, and manufacturers continue to treat a sport auto Supertest as a serious verdict on their cars. The test's continuity — the same circuit, the same methodology, the professional test driver — makes its results comparable across the decades, a unique longitudinal dataset of sports-car performance. When a new generation of sports car posts its Nordschleife time in the Supertest, the enthusiast world compares it against the archive: the benchmark is the conversation, and the conversation is sport auto's.

Content

The monthly issue leads with new sports cars: first drives, instrumented tests and comparison tests of performance models from the compact hot hatch to the supercar. The Supertest is the centrepiece — a multi-page examination of a single car covering design, interior, engine and drivetrain, chassis, brakes, tyres, measured performance data and the Nordschleife lap, with the data presented in the magazine's detailed tables and diagrams.

Tuning is a traditional pillar: the magazine covers the German tuning scene — from established houses to individual projects — with technical seriousness, testing modified cars and explaining the engineering behind the modifications. Motorsport coverage focuses on the disciplines closest to the readership's interests: the Nürburgring endurance series (VLN) and the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, in which the magazine's own journalists regularly compete in cooperation with manufacturers such as Honda and Aston Martin, as well as GT racing and rallying.

Technology features explain the engineering of performance — turbocharging, hybrid performance drivetrains, aerodynamics, tyre technology, chassis electronics — at a level that assumes an informed reader. The used-car market for sports cars, buying advice and the "sport auto" challenge for the fastest road-legal lap time driven with a TÜV-registered car on road-legal tyres round out the offering.

Coverage & Audience

sport auto is sold throughout Germany at newsstands and by subscription, appearing monthly, and sportauto.de carries the tests, news and videos online. The readership is the performance-car enthusiast: predominantly male, technically knowledgeable, interested in driving dynamics above all, and loyal to a magazine that takes their passion seriously. The Supertest lap times are followed internationally, giving the title an influence beyond the German-speaking market.

The magazine's journalists are practitioners as well as writers — their participation in VLN races and the Nürburgring 24 Hours gives the testing an authenticity that readers value. Within the German automotive press, sport auto occupies the specialist pole: less broad than auto motor und sport, less news-driven than Auto Bild, and more committed to the enthusiast's perspective than any of them.

Ownership

sport auto is published by Motor Presse Stuttgart GmbH & Co. KG, the Stuttgart-based special-interest publisher founded in 1946 by the racing driver Paul Pietsch together with Ernst Troeltsch and Josef Hummel. Motor Presse Stuttgart is one of Europe's leading publishers of automotive and leisure magazines, with around 80 titles published in Germany and abroad and licence editions and syndications in some 20 countries.

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 the remaining 15 percent; from 2005 to 2019 the majority had been held by Gruner + Jahr. Within the Motor Presse portfolio, sport auto sits alongside auto motor und sport, Motorrad, Motor Klassik, auto motor und sport's sister titles and the leisure brands, sharing testing infrastructure and editorial expertise while maintaining its distinct enthusiast identity.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, sportauto.de, publishes the Supertests and other tests with their full data, daily news from the performance-car world, videos — including on-board footage from the Nordschleife — and interactive features. The sport auto app and social media channels distribute test content, lap-time updates and motorsport coverage to a younger, digitally native enthusiast audience.

Video has become central to the brand's digital expression: the Supertest lap, filmed from multiple cameras with telemetry overlays, is made for the screen, and the magazine's YouTube presence brings the Nordschleife benchmark to viewers who may never buy the print issue. The monthly magazine remains the home of the complete test with its full data tables and analysis; the digital platforms provide the speed, the moving image and the community around it.

The Supertest is the franchise: the exhaustive instrumented test culminating in the Nordschleife lap — for decades by Horst von Saurma, since 2015 by Christian Gebhardt — the benchmark the industry respects and the enthusiasts debate. The 1969 founding makes the title one of Europe's longest-running sports-car magazines: the five-decade archive of performance data, the longitudinal record no competitor can match. Marcus Schurig's editorship since 2013 maintains the identity through the digital transformation: the instrumented test, the lap time, the engineering depth — adapted for the video and social age. The Motor Presse Stuttgart home provides the testing infrastructure: the measurement protocols, the test drivers, the racetrack access — the methodology the verdicts rest on. The monthly rhythm serves the definitive test: the space for the comprehensive examination, the data tables, the driving impressions. In the German car press, sport auto is the lap-time authority: the magazine for drivers who care about chassis tuning and engineering detail — the sports car, measured honestly, on the world's most demanding circuit.