Winfried Matter

Winfried Matter died in the night leading into 15 October 2026, aged 78, after a long illness. The place of death and the nature of the illness were not made public.

The Deutscher Sportfahrer Kreis announced his death on its website on 17 October 2026 under the headline Trauer um Winfried Matter. Motorsport XL published an obituary the same day, and SPEEDWEEK followed on 18 October. Paying tribute, DSK president Karl-Friedrich Ziegahn said that Matter had motivated him to become active in the DSK and had been a valuable adviser, even when they did not agree on how to proceed. Funeral arrangements were not announced.

Winfried Matter grew up in the Bruchsal area of Baden, in what is now Baden-Wurttemberg. He attended the Justus-Knecht-Gymnasium in Bruchsal. His exact date and place of birth were not given in the reports of his death, which said only that he was 78.

His family's business, the firm Kurt Matter in Karlsdorf-Neuthard near Bruchsal, had made breathing apparatus and diving equipment since 1952. Winfried was the junior in the company, and it was through this family firm that he found his way into motorsport, by way of safety rather than speed. In the 1970s he was also sporting director of the 1. Bruchsaler Automobilclub, whose chronicle records his reports on the club's rallies and slaloms.

In 1970 the FIA made roll bars and roll cages compulsory in motorsport, and Matter saw a gap in the market. He had bars built to FIA regulations and to calculations from the Staatliche Ingenieurschule in Karlsruhe. According to the DSK, Matter was the first manufacturer to supply roll bars and cages with an ONS certificate and TUV type approval, and almost every German car maker became a customer. Later came the red Matter safety belts, a belt made, as the company put it, from the experience of the sport driver for the sport driver. SPEEDWEEK wrote that whole one-make cups and racing series, up to the former DTM, were at times fitted with Matter safety equipment, and that the company sold units in the six-figure range. The firm's slogan, "ohne Matter platter", became a byword in the paddock.

The company also went racing. Under the name Team Matter Sicherheit, Gerd Behret competed in the German Rally Championship from 1971 and won the title in 1973. Matter expanded abroad, owning Safety Devices in Britain and Matter France, which still describes him as its founder.

Matter joined the Deutscher Sportfahrer Kreis in 1972. On 3 February 1985 the general meeting in Hanau elected him president in succession to Albrecht Krebs. Five days later he sent the board a seven-page paper titled DSK-Zukunft (DSK future), setting out most of what would occupy him for the next two decades: recruiting and involving members, improving the club's image, professional press work, a race service for private drivers, regular meetings at the circuits and early preparation for the coming debate on noise and the environment. The first DSK Stammtisch followed in June 1985. He brought 20 new supporters to his first board meeting and made it possible for young people under 18 to become full members.

Under his leadership the DSK grew into a large and influential association. He sought cooperation with the ADAC, AvD, DMV and the ONS, but argued firmly with the governing bodies, first the ONS and then the DMSB, when the interests of sport drivers were at stake. He handed over the presidency to Karl-Friedrich Ziegahn on 26 February 2005 at the Nurburgring in order to concentrate on his business.

According to his consultancy, Matter moved to China at the beginning of 2003, where he worked in a responsible role on the management concept for the Formula One circuit in Shanghai, the Shanghai International Circuit. He then founded Matter Motorsport Consulting (Shanghai) and, in 2003, Matter International Consulting in Hong Kong, aiming to pass on his experience of car safety to Chinese industry, organisations and government.

Matter was an enthusiastic driver as well as a manufacturer. One story he told to the end of his life concerned the night of 21 January 1973, when he was driving his Porsche 911 on the A3 near Cologne to travel with Achim Warmbold to the Monte Carlo Rally. On black ice another car collided with his. Everyone involved escaped unhurt, and Matter called the day his second birthday.

In later life he made China his adopted home and followed German motorsport closely from Shanghai. He remained a member of the DSK for more than 50 years. Details of his family were not made public in the reports of his death.

The DSK said that in Matter's twenty years as president a small, elite club became Europe's largest independent association of sport drivers and their friends, with more than 13,000 members today, built on the three pillars of safety, fairness and sustainability. It credited him with a large share of the fact that the voice of sport drivers was heard in those years, and said he had given the association its present face.

His guiding principle, quoted by the DSK and SPEEDWEEK, was that motorsport should be fun, affordable for everyone, and give every talent at least a fair chance. SPEEDWEEK added that no one had counted how many drivers were saved, or spared worse injuries, by his safety equipment.