Wartburg (car)

The Wartburg was a car marque manufactured in East Germany.

The name "Wartburg" derives from Wartburg Castle on one of the hills overlooking the town of Eisenach where the cars were manufactured.

From the 1950s, Wartburgs had a three-cylinder two-stroke engine with only seven major moving parts (three pistons, three connecting rods and one crankshaft).

The marque dates back to 1898 when a car made by Automobilwerk Eisenach was named the Wartburgwagen. It consisted of a two-seating cane chair, four mudgards, two headlamps, and a two-cylinder, 765-cc engine. Its top speed was 25 mph (40 km/h). The name was dropped in 1904 when the company changed hands but re-appeared briefly in the early 1930s on the BMW 3/15 DA-3 Wartburg, which was BMW's first sports car.

The name was revived in 1956 by VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach and given to an updated version of their IFA F9 car which had been in production since 1950. The new car had a more powerful version of the three-cylinder two-stroke engine driving the front wheels and a completely new body. By this time, Germany had been divided into two countries (the West and the East) and the Wartburg factory was in the communist East (GDR).

Exports to West Germany started in 1958, and by the early 1960s the car was exported to many other countries, including the United Kingdom and United States. Right hand drive models were first made in 1963 and exported to Cyprus, with British buyers being introduced to the car in 1964. However, just 550 examples (450 saloons and 100 estates) were sold in the UK. These were well equipped two-tone luxury models sold at the same price as a basic Austin Mini, appealing mostly to older people.

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