Auto, Motor und Sport

Auto motor und sport (ISSN 0005-0806), often abbreviated to AMS, is a leading German automobile magazine. It is published fortnightly by Motor Presse Netzwerk subsidiary Motor Presse Stuttgart, a specialist magazine publisher that is 59.9% owned by the publishing house Gruner + Jahr.

AMS, originally published in Freiburg, was the creation of three men, two of them racing drivers, named Paul Pietsch and Ernst Troeltsch, and the third a business man named Joeef Hummel.

The first edition, entitled simply "Das Auto" appeared in time for Christmas in 1946 with a cover price of RM 1.50. It was edited and in large part written by F.A.L.Martin who enriched the magazine with his report of automotive developments on the USA. A two-page feature highlighted the virtues of the "Jeep", a word that "appeared in no dictionary but nonetheless defined the ideal vehicle for agriculture and forestry". Two more pages were devoted to the future of nuclear power, incorporating four striking pictures of different nuclear explosions, but concluding that on cost grounds oil based fuels were likely to continue to power motor vehicles in the immediate future because of the high cost of "atomic fuel" (Atombetriebsstoff) applying currently known technologies.

The second edition appeared in January 1947, and was a double magazine also covering February 1947: this approach was enforced by paper rationing.

By 1950 the requirements of an expanding circulation had necessitated the relocation to larger premises in Stuttgart. During the 1960s demand for the magazine increased further from approximately 150,000 copies per issue to approximately 400,000. This reflected rapid growth in West German registrations, with 4.5 million cars registered in the country in 1960, rising to 12.5 million in 1969. The readership continued to increase, at a slower rate, during the next two decades: sales peaked in 1991 at an average level of 523,387 copies per issue: during the early years of the twenty-first century, they hovered between 470,000 and 480,000, but 2007 saw an increase to 495,683. Approximately 9% of sales were made outside Germany.

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