Masters of the Road

Engines awaken, light flows across polished metal, and the road dissolves into streaks of colour. These photographs celebrate automotive history in motion: the beauty of machines shaped by engineering ingenuity and brought to life by the people behind the wheel.

From early racing cars to celebrated sports models, each carries the ambitions of its era. Their lines speak of craftsmanship and invention; their movement recalls the skill, instinct, and courage of drivers who explored the limits of both machine and self. At Solitude Revival, that spirit returns to the winding roads beneath Stuttgart’s trees.

This heritage also belongs to pioneering women such as Bertha Benz, whose remarkable journey demonstrated the automobile’s potential, and Clärenore Stinnes, whose expedition around the world challenged geographical and social boundaries.

Masters of the Road brings these stories together through light, detail, and motion—a photographic tribute to the imagination that built these machines and the determination that carried them forward.

Silver Echoes

The sculpted curves of a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR emerge from darkness, its silver body alive with reflections. Born from Formula One engineering and celebrated for its legendary Mille Miglia victory, this Silver Arrow embodies an era of extraordinary ambition and fearless racing. Here, speed rests in silence, preserved in the flowing lines of a motorsport icon.

The Spirit of Panamericana

Light glides across the silver and blue curves of this 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, recalling a remarkable chapter in racing history. Wearing the colours of Hermann Lang and Erwin Grupp’s second-place entry in Mexico’s Carrera Panamericana, it evokes the endurance and courage demanded by the open road. Its sculpted body preserves the quiet presence of a machine built for extraordinary journeys.

An Unfulfilled Dream

Light traces the riveted aluminium and sculpted vents of the Cisitalia Type 360, revealing the craftsmanship behind an extraordinary racing ambition. Developed by Porsche in 1947, its supercharged twelve-cylinder engine and selectable all-wheel drive promised a bold new chapter in Grand Prix engineering. Though it never raced, its silent cockpit preserves the fascination of a future that might have been.

Solitude Revival

SOLITUDE (1903), Every two years the silent woods close to the Solitude Palace in Stuttgart Germany, awake almost vanished memories. As time went by, this epic race track as old as motorcycle and automobile history became a mute road. But that weekend in summer, spirits gather and racing Solitude becomes an iconic moment, praising those women, men and bolides who wrote their name in the book of eternity.
Oil and gas scent everywhere, roaring engines and the devils of speed demanding more…

Karsten worked with ND filters to achieve long-exposure effects and blur the surrounding landscape out of the main object. The goal was to find the angle vs shutter speed where the passing car becomes sharp enough to see details and an extra sharp spot somewhere on the vehicle. The objects were passing with up to 130 km/h at no more than 10 m distance, so not much time for viewing every shot. In his lab the selection of several hundred images became a handful worth to share.