On specimens made of squeeze-cast piston alloy GP-AlSi 12 CuMgNi without reinforcement and Al2O3-fibre-reinforced, thermal fatigue was investigated. Several mechanical properties such as tensile and compressive yield strength, incremental-step-method based monotonic and cyclic stress-strain curves in the temperature range of 20 to 400-degrees-C were determined. Moreover, fatigue tests in the range of 5 . 10(4) and 2.5 . 10(7) were carried out for various stress ratios in the same temperature range on unnotched specimens and S-N-curves were designed. Haigh-diagramms show the mean stress sensitivity of the materials. Obviously the fibre reinforced material is superiour at all regarded temperatures. The considerable gain of material strength obtained by fibre-reinforcement entails even better conditions for the use of newly developed pistons under increased thermal load.