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@chandlerbing7570

4 ай бұрын

Yay another sponsored video. just what we want 🙄

@JayEmmOnCars

4 ай бұрын

@@chandlerbing7570 Your TV has sponsors. Your magazines have sponsors. Your sports teams have sponsors. It's the way of the world.

@16jan1986

4 ай бұрын

Just be sure that i have made a point of not buying from sponsors

@PJ-om2wq

4 ай бұрын

James. Your videos are brilliant. More entertaining than anything on the TV.

@youxkio

4 ай бұрын

Why does this remind me of the Renault 12?

A ‘real’ Wartburg is always a 2-stroke. This one, a late VW 1.3 4-stroke example, is what we called a Wartburghini 😅

@C.Fecteau-AU-MJ13

4 ай бұрын

Jesus commie jokes are just as depressing as their cars... Funny, but oh so very depressing.

@wacholder5690

4 ай бұрын

Or "Wolfsburg". Or "Golfburg". They even reworked the Trabant to use the 1.0 Liter Polo engine. Which were up-to-date engines by that time ... but the 40 year old running gear could not keep pace with that. The Wartburg undercarriage is largely derived from the DKW "Reichsklasse" of the 1930s - the Trabant was evenly simple and poor. My uncle Walther was an independent taxi owner in the GDR and he drove a 2-stroke 353. He lost his left arm shortly after the war and the original 353 had a column shifter. See him drive was a one-man-show of its own glory.

@EndeavorsDnB

4 ай бұрын

I believe u.

@bluegamer308

4 ай бұрын

That explains why the motor sounds so refined for an East German car

@philippehendrickx1109

4 ай бұрын

Indeed. My brother in law used to have one of those. It sounded like a moped. And you had to use 2 stroke moped fuel .

After 16 years(!) on the waiting list for a Lada my parents were "convinced" to get this then all new Wartburg 1.3. And so they handed over 31.000 Marks in April '89... y'all know what happened later that year. But I will never forget the first trip in the Wartburg with the "west engine" when my father turned to me in awe: "It's revving even uphill!" 😂

@stevecooper7883

4 ай бұрын

Were fuel pumps not pressurized in other eastern cars??

@hagenkleemann7309

4 ай бұрын

@@stevecooper7883 The Trabant for example had 26hp. It was constantly slowing down uphill.

@carlarthur4442

4 ай бұрын

Or was that the clutch sliping

@hagenkleemann7309

4 ай бұрын

@@carlarthur4442 😄

@mihaimihai9254

4 ай бұрын

Well, Wartburgs and Trabants haven't been perfect cars but during my childhood I've seen them for a lot of times climbing on Transfagarashan (The Romanian highest mountain road at that time), full of people and carring smal trailers without facing any kind of failures. On the other hand many Romanian drivers had to stop their old Dacias and wait for the engines to cool.

A dear departed friend of mine had an estate in the 90s. He won an award, from the Wartburg owners' club, for best modification. He'd modded the 3 cyl two stroke engine to run on a combination of petrol and diesel, with no loss of performance. Confused the heck out of fuel forecourts.

@florianlassnig9769

4 ай бұрын

I assume the Diesel was used for lubrication?

@marguskiis7711

4 ай бұрын

2 stroker works easily with mix of petrol and diesel, even with 70% diesel.

@davidblake1663

4 ай бұрын

It's a great idea!

@AntoniusTyas

21 күн бұрын

Wait what?

Sidefact: Wartburg is in Germany a very famous and beautiful middleage castle in my hometown Eisenach. The cars where also build in this city. Martin Luther took refuge from the roman church in this castle and translated the bible from latin to german in 1521.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

I intend to drive this car back to Eisenach, back to the museum at some point.. a long way from the north of the UK

Thanks for featuring my car James... glad you like it 😀

@adzy166

4 ай бұрын

I used to see these being imported at Sheerness Docks

@R-Tap

4 ай бұрын

There was a Skoda 100 or Rapid sold in Europe when I was young that doesn't look unlike this.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

@@R-Tap similar front lights yes, I have 2 Estelles as well as this Wartburg 😁

@peoplehavetherights

4 ай бұрын

This car reminds me of a BMW 1600 from 1965.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

@@peoplehavetherights there were ties between the 2 companies back then if I remember rightly

My mum had a Wartburg estate, bought new from a dealership in Aldershot in around 1972/3. It was a fabulous shade of 1970’s orange - reg # MOU222L. She used it as a daily driver, plus my dad used it at weekends to take us kids and our bikes to places, or half the under 8’s football team to an away match. A few times a year we would go down to Devon to meet up with my cousins. Often there would be 7 people in the car - a couple of us kids in the very spacious rear area of the estate hatch, legs outstretched waving through the big rear windscreen. Sure, it wasn’t fast, but managed to keep up with the traffic in 1970’s rural Devon as we criss-crossed Exmoor and Dartmoor. Mum kept in until about 1984/5 when she got a Panda. I’m pretty sure that it never let her down at all in more than a decade of ownership, and only had one minor scrape from a multi-storey car park (the Butts Centre in Reading?) on the front bumper corner, so compared to the average Ford or Leyland offering of the time, it was amazing, and had no rust (no sunroof in the estate). I remember the distinctive smell of the soft vinyl interior, plus the two-stroke fug, which dad had set up in such a way that there was minimal smoke and also no burnt odour. Very fond memories of that car - especially the huge engine bay with so much space around the compact engine!

@thatcheapguy525

4 ай бұрын

did your dad ever use castor oil/Castrol R? a exhaust aroma from the Gods 😁

@AnnatarTheMaia

4 ай бұрын

I'm blown away by your story; would have never dreamed that anyone in England would know what a Wartburg is, let alone own one, let alone knew about the station wagon! The 353 station wagon is the reason why I love station wagons to this day, although I've never owned a Wartburg myself.

@davidelliott5843

4 ай бұрын

My friend had a Wartburg. I should have bought one instead of the rusty (and smoky) MG Midget that I did find.

@MrDuncl

4 ай бұрын

@@AnnatarTheMaia All the East European cars started disappearing from the U.K. after about 1990. Before then they were quite heavily advertised, always as being bargains compared to anything else on the market. Probably 2/3rd of the price of the Mazdas that got mentioned.

@andyyu5973

4 ай бұрын

wow it looks like it survived until the 90s, tax expired in 1994

Take a look at the Skoda Estelle Rapid. It was a modern classic. That is to say a 1950s car that was still being made in 1990. It had a certain charm.

@tompettersson3814

4 ай бұрын

I want one, i have had 3.

@spavatch

4 ай бұрын

That’s a bit of a stretch really, there’s nothing 1950s in Estelle and Rapid. They are loosely based, especially mechanical wise, on 1964 Skoda 1000 MB which was a clean sheet design.

@Tourist1967

4 ай бұрын

@@spavatch Yeah. 50s.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

I have 2 Estelles as well as this Wartburg 😀

@jakekaywell5972

4 ай бұрын

@@Tourist1967 No, 1960s. From the Skoda 1000 MB which used no parts from the previous generation of sedan (Octavia).

I'd have to disconnect the air horn, the temptation to be silly with it would be too great!

My family had exactly this kind of Wartburg, the four stroke one. We got it after 5 years of waiting in 1989 if I remember correctly. It was a real family car back then.

That air horn is quite a hoot! 😂

@Corkoth55

4 ай бұрын

South Africans would agree

Eisenach was also the first site to resume building BMWs after WWII too, on what was formerly a BMW factory site. When BMW proper issued the 1950s equivalent of a cease and desist letter, they changed the name to EMW and used a red and white roundel instead of the classic blue and white.

You may remember that in the past, a lot of pop groups named themselves after trendy cars, like The Cortinas or the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In the 1980s I was in a band called The Wartburgs which, we felt, perfectly reflected our image and our capabilities. I've always had a soft spot for this lesser known Eastern Bloc product.

@MeYou-yz2yz

4 ай бұрын

I was in a heavy metal band call MZ250 ETZ deluxe but couldn't get anyone else to join because everyone said it was a stupid name for a band.

Never EVER heard a Brit pronounce “Ostalgie” with such an impeccable German accent. Impressive! Keep up the good work!

@Knaeckebrotsaege

4 ай бұрын

Have to say that caught me entirely off-guard... and that was only 15 secs into the video lol edit: the wartburg pronounciation a bit later on too. someone really did their homework 👍

@barbarusbloodshed6347

4 ай бұрын

Yeah. Curious he keeps saying "Porsch" :D

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

He even knew the brands of the four OOOO. Mad respect.

I'd like to make a correction, James, you said most of these were exportes to Soviet states, but what you probably meant was communist block countries. Hungary for example was such, but not a Soviet state. A soviet state would be something like Ukraine, or Kazahstan, which are now known as post Soviet states.

@mdbaewy

4 ай бұрын

There were also imported to Greece, which was neither Soviet or communist. But the country needed cheap transportation and Ladas, FSOs and Yugos sold very well and can still be seen, along with some rare Wartburgs.

@kallekas8551

4 ай бұрын

Also these travesties along with Ladas and Volga’s were sold in Democratic Capitalist Finland.😂

@tesznye6992

4 ай бұрын

@@mdbaewy Yeah, I've been to Greece many times, I've always found the cars there fascinating. There are old cars from Western Europe, Japan, Eastern Europe, and the US. Though I don't think I've seen any Wartburgs in particular. They used to be very common here in Hungary up to around the mid to late 2000's when I was a kid.

@Tourist1967

4 ай бұрын

That would be "bloc" not "block". And "Warsaw Pact" was the usual description for Soviet satellite states.

@AnnatarTheMaia

4 ай бұрын

@@mdbaewy you had Yugos in Greece? That surprises me.

As a graduate, I ended up working for the Former Quality Director and Plant Manager for Wartburg a certain Dr Wolfram Liedtke! He was here to help launch the LEVC electric taxi. I spent around a year working for him and slowly realised his history in the industry. Wartburg, GM , Opel and then JLR. He was a great man and so glad the show has a Wartburg on now!

Brilliant! I think that "musical" air horn is, in fact, an East German police horn/siren... What fun!

I think this is a good looking car. The front 3/4 view and rear view are particularly nice to the eyes. It goes to show you don't need a gazillion cc's or hp to be enjoyable.

@damirzanne

4 ай бұрын

It’s awesome car , way bigger than Ford Fiesta , I owned 353 Wartburgs and Fiesta , and in no way it’s Fiesta as big as Wartburg

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

The older ones with the chrome were even better looking imo.

The thing about combloc cars is that they were pretty decent at introduction - they just stayed in production for way too long without much changes.

@jakekaywell5972

4 ай бұрын

An actually reasonable comment about ComBloc cars? Refreshing! Your criticism of "[staying] in production for way too long without much changes" would also be applicable to Western cars you could still buy new in 1990 such as the VW Type 1 and the Citroen 2CV.

@NorceCodine

4 ай бұрын

Fun fact, Lamborghini in the 70-s and 80-s sourced the small parts from Fiat, for example rear lights, signal lights, or the circular air-intake on the dash, and when Fiat became Lada in the Soviet Union under license, Lada's had these same parts as the Lamborghinis of the era.

A neighbour had a Wartburg Knight, 2 stroke. The cabin had a flat floor and was very roomy compared to our Cortina mk2. The boot was massive. The engine had a great sound and was beautifully smooth. The ride was fantastically smooth and absorbent (though if I remember rightly, the AA's magazine warned to be careful with the handling due to the swing axle rear suspension). And they were cheap to buy. Not a bad combination! The Lada felt rugged but crude in comparison.

I don’t care for this new VW Wartburg , I owned several 2 stroke 353 models as a kid back in Yugoslavia , and had tons of fun with them , loud, stinky, clunky , but we still had lots of fun , and made lots of very dear memories with it … I owned many Mercedes and BMW’s throughout my life , matter of fact, I own S550 w222 , and GLK350 right now , but I’ll never forget all the fun and good times I had with my Wartburgs … if you go little further back in history , before DDR days, you’ll find out Wartburg goes way back before then , and they built some awesome vehicles … we didn’t need ABS or traction control, to have a ball and tons of fun rolling down the road in an old Wartburg 353 … most people miss the whole point of life , and think more of everything you have , happier you’ll be , I feel sorry for them , because they’ll never be fulfilled and happy , there will always be something else to buy, something more to own , which they think will make them finally complete and happy , sad truth is , it’s not , and they will never be happy … not even close as happy as I was in my old Wartburg

@BeesKneesBenjamin

4 ай бұрын

I can completely see where you're coming from hahaha. I still use a Trabant 601 for most of my commute nowadays except for in the winter or really long distances (except when its a sunny weekend of course and it's for leisure). People considered me an idiot for buying one and trading in luxury for a pain in the ass, but for as long as I had it, I can't sit behind the wheel and not have fun with a big smile on my face. There's something magic about a car that's nothing else except a car. It just wants to drive, it's you, an engine, and nothing else in-between :-). Cars like these are a bit uncomfortable at first, but you get used to everything and then it becomes a big joy to drive. I can confidently say this is one of the best things I've spent money on in my life, endless fun haha

My family and I went to visit East Germany in the summer of 1989, visiting several places around the country, but mainly staying in the wonderful Meissen, near Dresden. These four-stroke Wartburgs and the VW-engined Trabant just came out and provided quite the contrast to cars from the thirties, forties and fifties that were still used, due to the 15 years long waiting list for a car. It was still such a wonderful country. It was clean, comfortable, they’ve had a lot of high quality products and the historical, but beautifully maintained architecture in Germany was everywhere, apart from Dresden and the area of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, where they still kept certain buildings in the state they were left after the British bombed them.

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

Apart from Dresden? What do you mean. There were still a lot of old buildings restored in GDR times. And the Elbe river was a mess, it's better now.

@ComeJesusChrist

4 ай бұрын

@@GrandTheftChris I was referring to Frauenkirche, the Cathedral in Dresden that was intentionally left in ruins for fifty years, only recently renovated.

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

@@ComeJesusChrist I see. You are right about the church but other important buildings were reconstructed in GDR times. Like Semper opera and the Zwinger, which are at least as famous as the church.

James, let me tell you, late 80s, early 90s here in Hungary the roads were full of these and Trabants. When you got into a traffic jam with all of these 2 stroke engines puffing out smoke at alarming rates, the air literally turned grey and you had to concentrate hard not to throw up from all the gas poisoning :) Nice one!

Amazing car, brilliant review! Possibly your best ever. - I visited the old Wartbury factory in Eisenach, which is now a museum. Lovely stuff.

I had a late model 353 two stroke, on a separate chassis, free revving engine, freewheel on the gearbox, separate coil for each plug. Very reliable, it never broke down & if the petrol/oil mixture was correct, ran without smoking

@Kolcobrzuch

4 ай бұрын

I can smell yout comment:)

@arthurdardalis

4 ай бұрын

@@KolcobrzuchThank you for your comment

My late father bought a new Wartburg Knight saloon in 1972. I remember going with him to collect it. I was very excited because it had the new yellow rear number plate. Immediately, it was returned for a gearbox fault, then it started to rot everywhere, and the final straw, a spark plug blew out of the cylinder head. My dad traded it in for a new Marina, which was not a lot better.

It could be argued that Franconian Bratwurst are the original ones but Thuringer are very tasty. I'm quite partial to a Currywurst myself, especially the ones made by Volkswagen.

@HeavyMetalNerd

4 ай бұрын

Okay... Try other currywurst. Curry, Burger, Beer in Berlin has some nice currywurst.

I was in East Germany 87 and 89 and will never forget the aroma of the smoke of wartburg and trabants. A small village outside magdeburg, we in my great uncles princess 1700hl were looked upon smashed in a true sports car it was a joke to me, but fond memories orlf the place, cars sbd people. Still can't look at a princess in a serious light since

Back in the day we had a Lada 2102 Wagon. Neighbor had a Wartburg 353 wagon. Our Lada was indestructible, always ran! Neighbors was always under repair lol

Best advert for a musical air horn I’ve ever seen.

In the early 70’s (73) my then Maths Lecturer had a Wartburg then a Skoda Rapide. Bless him he’s 87 now and still going.

East German engineers played an absolutely crucial part in the development of flexible and high performance two stroke engines, made famous & commercial globally by Yamaha and Suzuki and to a degree, Kawasaki. You’d need to look it up, but an engineer and bike racer (can’t recall if one person or two) made a series of technical breakthroughs which changed low powered, horribly smoky two strokes into high powered, slightly less smoky sports bike motors, which I’m fortunate enough to enjoy to this day. Defecting to The West in those days was a one way trip which would land you in jail if caught in the attempt. Iirc, he slipped away from a bike Grand Prix in Scandinavia because his minders reasoned that no one leading the world championship would defect & throw the silverware away. He did exactly that. At the same time, back in the East, his wife and young child were being smuggled out using a range of transport types. They were not in touch during the execution of their respective defections. It really is a thing to contemplate. From East Germany to Hamamatsu and very quickly, the bikes coming out with the Suzuki “S” or the triple tuning forks of Yamaha became well designed objects of young men’s desire.

@jakekaywell5972

4 ай бұрын

Given how good East German motorcycles were (MZ, Simson, etc.), I believe it!

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

It's true. His name was Ernst Degner. He was a professional rider for the MZ team from East Germany. In 1961, when he was leading the world championship in his class, he escaped from GDR at a race in Sweden with help from team members of Suzuki. In return he handed over crucial engineering data from MZ. After that he was of course seen as a traitor in the GDR, because at the time MZ was very successful and they could have won the championship. Later the Japanese honored Degner at the Suzuka race track. The curves Degner 1 and Degner 2 are named after him and well known today.

I can still hear the Wartburg Knight in my mind. The only one I think I ever saw in the flesh, was when I was walking to school in the late 60's. I could hear the 2 stroke motor long before I saw the car. Someone a few years later at work called it a 'Knightburg Wart'. Funny, if a tad unkind. Thanks for reviewing this car, but I so wish it had been the 'stroker' engine.

2:58 i love the sticker that says "No Bratwurst or Sauerkraut left in this vehicle overnight" ... love to see, that there is an "IFA club uk" ... greets from saxony.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

The IFA club in the UK has been around a long time and a lot of interest in Eastern Bloc vehicles.. Not many in the uk in comparison but a good club with a lot of cool cars

I know the owner and car well. He’s got a few rather interesting Eastern Bloc beauties and the Wartburg is very appealing. Loved your reaction to the musical horn too!. The K-series engined Skoda Estelle he has is amazing! Love quirky cars like this. Great video James.

In the 1980s up in the West Highlands, my friend who lives in Onich near Fort William and I met some East Germans in a Trabant Estate that had come all the way from East Germany. So that was a long journey.

Point of order James, Soviet Union refers to the conglomerate of the Baltic states, the Stahns etc. East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria etc etc were part of the Warsaw Pact. Not really important but could irritate some people.

@jakekaywell5972

4 ай бұрын

Both a very important and a very annoying point of contention. Not making that distinction would be like referring to Wales as the United States because they're both in NATO.

My dad bought a 1988 MY Wartburg new. Brown with sunroof and 4 speed floor shifter. I remember walking to the garage complex in Feb. with my sister where he had/has a garage to take a look at it.

My father owned a Wartburg Estate in the 1970's/80's. Pillaried by the British road testers it has an incredible ride. Not good on corners but the most comfortable thing going. The 1 litre 2 stroke very torquey. That came before the 1.3. Separate chassis thicker steel made it last well. Freewheeling saved a bit of fuel and adjustable grille a boon in winter. Hoping to get my hands on a Marklin someday. Mid-engined with the 2 stroke engine and full winged doors. Dad saw an indicated 80 and I well remember occasions out-pulling 2-litre Ford Cortinas up the Ffestiniog pass in North Wales. The ride in the 2 stroke had a better ride than your 1.3.

@tileng.5186

4 ай бұрын

By Marklin...you mean the Melkus??

@GrandTheftChris

4 ай бұрын

You can still order a new RS1000 at Melkus in Dresden. If you have the spare money. ;)

Im from east germany! If u drove a Wartburg back then, u was a rich person! My mom told me about it. When i was a kid quite many of Trabants and Wartburgs where still driving around in my small city (2001 and later) Sadly they are now really rare

@philjameson292

4 ай бұрын

Yes the East German Mercedes

@AnnatarTheMaia

4 ай бұрын

@@philjameson292 that's it, the East German Mercedes. How the hell do you know that?

@erickimatu2082

4 ай бұрын

​@@philjameson292 exactly 😅

@stuvademakaroner9607

4 ай бұрын

Several years ago I stumbled upon a big parking lot of Trabants on a field road in Bulgaria near Slanchev Bryag, I think they were rental. It looked surreal in the middle of the night. I've seen several Wartburgs in Moscow, somehow there is still a small but very loyal community of fans of these weird cars.

@Ascania

4 ай бұрын

Not quite. If you were rich you drove a Lada. The Wartburg was a step below that.

My dad had one in Yugoslavia. It was a pick-up-truck version built for delivery tasks. A luxurious car back then.

I just love the colours on older cars, way snappier and endearing.

I think the HUB NUT and Late Brake Show are telling of the owners love of quirky barn find and et al autos. GDR is definitely the new nostalgia for us who didn’t live there! 🤣

Nice to see such a rare car being taken care of. Mick has some great videos on his channel. Though there were lots of Ladas, Skodas, & Polski Fiats over here, I only remember seeing a couple of Wartburgs. They were certainly the previous model. I well remember them being referenced in the Unipart advert… “spark plugs for me Wartburg”!

as a child in 1977 visiting family in East Berlin I remember the 353 Wartburg used as Police cars. if you happened to own a Wartburg in East Berlin, you were a cut above the rest. my dad had a 312 in 1973. it got down the road pretty well for a family car of its era and he was a big fan of the free-wheel feature. the Wartburg 300 series are possibly unique in that they link the surviving major German car manufacturers of Audi (formerly Auto Union) via the DKW F9/IFA F9/EMW 309, Benz via the post war ownership of Auto Union, VW via the aquisition of Auto Union, BMW the pre-war Wartburg factory owners and Opel who acquired same factory after the fall of the USSR.

My father's Wartburg in the early 70's was a 3 cylinder 2 stroke that spewed smoke out of the exhaust. Fun fact, discounting the ignition system the engine has 7 moving parts.

Shame we didn't get a drive by clip with the musical horn That was the most amusing part of the whole video, doppler effect would have only elevated it

Wow, you learn something every day , I didn`t know they existed past the mid 70s let alone in 4 stroke form and Moderned up ..

Funny thing about this car is that when in the 80s Polish rally team came in for a Wartburg Rally, they were surprised that a two stroke, totally obsolete (even for East Block standards) Wartuburgs were scoring much better stage times than FSO (which happened to make the most powerful rally cars in the whole of Warsaw Pact countries). So, our boys discovered that Wartburg team had a set of shortcuts on the stages, and put our service cars to stand across them, so all Wartburgs got stuck in a car jam on illegal rally stage shortcut.

Love it - very cool! That horn is like the ones you hear on the Tour de France race convoy vehicles!

I simply love the stickers on that car.

I think if I owned that car every time I left the house I have to shout something like "to the bat supermarket" and hit the horn... 8am in the morning "TO THE BAT OFFICE" Dli Dli Dli Dli Di Da

Fun fact. Wartburg was rebranded from EMW, which itself was rebranded from BMW. As the factory in which they were made was the original BMW factory for cars. BMW’s first car was a copy of the Austin 7, named BMW Dixie.

You need to check a Polonez next :D

Laughed at the "No Bratwurst or Sauerkraut left in this vehicle overnight" 😆🤣

Just brilliant, so refreshing to see something that doesn't light up the tires

I was waiting at a hot sausage van in east germany in 1990 the guy in front was ordering in dutch but the sausage man spoke east german, it was funny when they both then spoke english as a common language.

That goofy sounding airhorn is what is typically used in bike races in the continent, like the Tour de France, to clear the road of spectators so the peleton can ride through....

Now you have to drive the top of the tree Warsaw Pact (and I've chosen my words carefully there) motor, the Skoda Estelle. I had 3 in the days of my youth, loved them.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

I have 2 Estelles, a 120 and a 180.. 1.8 16V and modified but looks standard.. the Wartburg is a fairly standard one I can afford to drive 😂

Dear Jay, this is the coolest car you have ever driven on this channel, and that is no joke.

I grew up in West-Berlin, but we had plenty of friends and family that we would visit regularly in the East. The only Eastern cars that really ever fascinated me were the air-cooled rear-engine and drive flat eights from Tatra, which had the coolest gangster look of any car ever. The "Pappe" (Trabant) was interesting for a while, when we owned a Peugeot 404 familiale, which looked exactly like a vastly inflated Trabant estate: the advanced angles of a 504 evidently could not be replicated, so they stuck with that design for a few more decades. I remember riding in a Wartburg a few times, probably because they were frequently used as taxis all through the Eastern block countries. And I do remember that they accelerated rather smoothly, because essentially a two-stroke three cylinder fires a lot like an inline six. Of course that smoothness immediately disappears when you slow using the engine and the infamous two-stroke popping noises appear. DKW, Audi, BMW, Volvo, Saab, Goggomobil and plenty of other smaller cars in the 1960 still used two stroke engines even in the West, but by 1970 they were all gone. Even if I lived pretty close to The Wall most years, the two-stroke smell in the city streets thankfully didn't carry far. Apart from the general dirt and neglected state of pretty near everything in the East, that terribly depressing smell had me ever so glad every time we returned back through the border checkpoints with gards that were clearly rather enjoing the idea of shooting you, should you ever give them the slightest excuse. My last distinct memory of a Wartburg was shortly after The Wall came down, when I saw a guy with his legs folded into the remnants of a bright red Wartburg quite clearly in pain and in dire need of some cutting tools to separate tin, skin and bones shattered from having more structure than the chassis: that metal skin was designed to fend off air and some light rain, but clearly without any regard whatsoever to crash protection or passive security. When the 100km/h speed limit was lifted in the East, Easteners in new Western cars maimed and killed fellow Easterners still stuck in older Eastern cars in droves. When we were kids my father drove us through the "Zone" to see family in a 2CV with the rear seats removed and some blankets and toys put on the bags so we could curl up and sleep in a heap of five. Seatbelts made similar sense in both the 2CV and the Wartburg, but as you can see this one not only had them, but also the Volvo inspired head protectors, too, which might have helped keeping your corpse in place and upright after becoming one with the car after a crash. As a West German, I was never tempted by Ostalgie and when it comes to these cars, I'm inclined to shiver and very glad they are gone. Ladas, Zastavas, Skodas or Dacias might not actually have been much safer, but they sure didn't have that distinctive look of folded tin foil which the Wartburgs had. I remember East Germans going totally agape, when I stood on the fenders of my VW bug to get a better look and even jumped up and down on them, to show how solid they were on a car typically older than myself. Their comment was that you could dent fenders on a Wartburg with your fingers, but wouldn't dare show it on their most prized posession, much less solid than a can of herrings.

I always quite liked whenever I saw someone covering the Wartburg in a video. I am actually from the eastern part of Germany and they were actually built not that far away from where I live today. I may have not been alive yet when there were actually a thing but I did mostly hear quite nice things about it in comparison to the other cars of east Germany. Anyways, there quite sadly (at least outside of east Germany) always overshadowed by the way more famous Trabant, so I'm very happy to for once see the Wartburg covered as well

@PeaceyEasy

4 ай бұрын

Or to put it in my mothertounge: Endlich geht's bei Ost-Autos mal nicht nur um den Trabbi

@user-ts7vm7zn1w

4 ай бұрын

Klar doch 😊

Ooh! 86 numbers away from the "Mighty Dacia" Had an early Wartburg in our Kent village in the 70's

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

G ATL is a well known reg, anything 1990 registered or reregistered gets this at the moment.. Most Wartburgs are this.. few different and the odd H reg about

@PaddyWV

4 ай бұрын

@@Mickhanic-garage Rather like a lot of Citroen AX's ending up with .... FJH plates! 👍

That horn went straight from Lamborghini Countach mode to Indian truck or bus mode :D

My 84 years old neighbour, still drives it! A Yellow one - 1.3, 1990. It's his life!

@mirceapopa9947

4 ай бұрын

And my dad as 82 years old still drives a Daewoo Matiz same tipe, same colour at Mister HUB NUT. The car are not power steering, my dad used power muscle.

It’s a really nice car. I remember the Wartburg knight in estate and saloon, it definitely looks like a late 1980’s Skoda Estelle.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

I have 2 Estelles as well as this 😀

A Skoda Rapid/Estelle 130 135/6 Sport should be next! I love these wee cars!

I know this goes against everything we stand for, but I just want to see one of them on a hill climb, with a hayabusa under the bonnet 😂 Lovely little thing though....front end kinda remind me of the old shhhkoda rapid!

Hello James,there were quite a few iron curtain cars about in the 70s. Our neighbour had a hideous Moscovich? It was a sky blue colour and sounded like an old tractor!! Then after that,he had a Burgundy Wartburg.

That horn! I can't!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

We had family friends who had three cars I remember, 2 Wartburgs and a Polski Fiat. The Wartburg was part of a group holiday to France in about 1980, it did well over 2,000 miles with no issues, unlike my dad's Vauxhall Viva Estate which broke down in Dover, just 250 miles from home. A failed HT lead.

Had a Skoda 1000MB for a few years, well designed, comfortable, good suspension--but that engine at the back gave a lot of trouble

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

I also have 2 Skoda Estelles in the UK, one standard, one a 1.8 16V 140BHP sleeper, the Wartburg is my rare car for shows

Nicely done James. This was great fun and that air horn is a fantastic thing. I think I saw this car in one of the roundup videos for Rustival too so it's great to see it get the JayEmm treatment.

@Mickhanic-garage

4 ай бұрын

Yes I was at Rustival with it, one of 2 there

My grandparents had one basically just like that! "White", 1.3, took delivery like half a year before the fall of the wall after selling their used Lada for higher than MSRP because being immediately available meant used cars carried a hefty price premium and usually cost more than new cars, ended up driving it until the late '90s or so. Riding in the back of it to our family summer cabin (it sounds fancier than it was) as a young lad in the early '90s and always having those odd headrests in my field of view is basically my first car memory. FYI that horn is not stock or even optional and would've never been legal in Germany.

My mate had one in 1977, 2stroke banger.

We had a custard colour Wartburg Estate circa 1974. It was noisy, hot, slow and stank of two stroke. It pretty much turned to rust within a year of being new. A complete shocker of a vehicle, but strangely nostalgic seeing one again.

It is lovely to see the Hub Nut sticker in my favourite car channels ;)

My dad had a ‘farty hans’ back in the 70’s. Only kept it for 5 months as (as you pointed out) it was just exhausting to be in for any length of time. A riot at full chat, a clattering cacophony the rest of the time. Very difficult to keep in tune and timing as it had three sets of coils and points.

The air horn took me back to the 70's when I upgraded my Viva HB with just such an item (not that tune though which is a shame as I really loved the Batman TV series)

Didn't know the 4-stroke was a thing, but I travelled around a bit in an earlier 2-stroke. The ride was so soft it made a 2CV feel like it had rock solid suspension and the freewheel device just made the experience bizarre; every time you took your foot off the throttle it disengaged the transmission and the car just rolled along with the engine at idle. Progress was a series of 2-stroke engine noises with intervals of near complete silence. I was sort of horrified and impressed at the same time.

@robertmerkel8247

4 ай бұрын

That's...interesting. Would get a bit exciting if the brakes failed!

I've seen them for sale at around £5,000, so I think those sellers were a bit optimistic. Mind you, Trabants aren't the giveaway they once were, even scrappers are going for around £1,000. Got to love those DDR cars!

Fun fact! In Hungary back in 80s communist times (or in any communist state I guess), used cars were more expensive than new cars. The reason for this is that buying a used car was easier and you didn't have to wait for a long time to get it and also you knew what car you are getting and its color. My father bought a used one for these reasons and there were a lot of people doing the same. He had 2 trabants, one he bought and the other one he got by trading a tennis racket from the DDR and some east german currency for the car from his friend.

Ah, man..... I was getting excited, thought it was a real Wartburg. With the 1.3 two-stroke in it.... still cool as hell though, James! Get an old Skoda to review to!

The engine actually comes from a Golf Mk II, not a Polo (NZ motor code at VW), so much so you can actually put the engine in a golf if you change the mounts (they just bolted on the engine). When the Barkas Werke (the east german company who produced the engines for both the Trabant and Wartburg) bought the license of the engine, one of the ways they paid were built engines, which they then returned to VW, to there are golfs out there which have IFA logos on their engines.

Great video, really enjoyed it! You still see them in Hungary, but now they become rare here too. Most of this type (1.3) was exported to Hungary. I own one of the last ones built (1991) before the factory closed. Greetings from Hungary!

8:47 - these four piston disc brakes were made in Czechoslovakia and are identical to those that were used on the Skoda Rapid coupé and also some of the 13x Estelle two models. Before changing to the VW engine, in 1983, Wartburg and Trabant faced being banned from being imported even in East Bloc countries, so Wartburg converted their two stroke to work with the Jikov SEDR carburettor, also a Czechoslovak unit known from the Estelle models. Later, in 1984, Trabant was banned from being iported in Czechoslovakia on grounds of pollution and Wartburg a few years later anyway. If they wanted to sell outside the GDR, even in Eastern Bloc, they had to change the engine.

The exact car you drive in this video I found in an issue of practical classics on page 44, issue January 2024 lol. Same license plate and everything

@Mickhanic-garage

2 ай бұрын

Yes thats my car, also my Skoda Estelle was featured too, the Green 16V one 😀

@C.game0

2 ай бұрын

@@Mickhanic-garage nicee

My late friend jointly owned a Warburg dealership. He visited their factory in Germany which was J.S.Bach’s birthplace. Of course emissions killed it off but having previously owned a Vauxhall dealership and observing Vauxhall Cresta’s breaking their backs over railway level-crossings due to poor Belgian recycled scrap metal he considered them to be better built. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿✌️

There was a joke at the time: How does the VW engine feels in a Wartburg? - Like a pacemaker in a corpse!

The review we've all been waiting for.

I think you'd get used to a Trabant and find you could drive it long distances if you weren't in a hurry. In the 1960s I had a Lightburn Zeta, a little Mini sized car produced in Adelaide. The Zeta had a tubular steel chassis with a strong, light fibreglass body bonded to it. The engine was a 324 cc Villiers two cylinder two-stroke pumping out a mighty 16.5 hp. It had a good positive gearshift and kept up with city traffic quite well but I used to drive it back to my parents' farm 180 miles away. At its cruising speed 45 mph that drive took a while but I would stop for a snack on the way. Of course I was in my 20s then. That helped.

The original 353 was imported into the UK from the late sixties and badged "Knight". I was amazed at the performance of the three-cylinder twostroke (50 bhp, kerb weight 902 kg) and wrote a letter to Car magazine, which they printed with the title "Wowing the Wartburg". What did for it in the end was the clean air legislation, which the smoky twostroke couldn't comply with.

Wartburg, Hyabusa swapped, on BBS wheels. Im sold....

This is very reminiscent of the VW's early commercials of the 60's, particularly with all the plastic on the dash and the seats etc. In the early 1960's we had a teacher who had a Wartburg Knight (he was Polish - ex RAF) We all loved the sound it made from its 3cy. 2stroke. all most like a strangled Jag 6cy. It sat on tall narrow wheels that allowed it to go anywhere, especially in the snow! That was when we did get large falls overnight in Scotland! The Lada was built in Russia under licence from Fiat as it was originally a Fiat 124. Its larger brother the 125 was built in Poland as the Polskie Fiat. Both had home grown engines and gearboxes but everything else was standard Fiat. The bodies were made out of a thicker steel which made them considerably heavier! The original engine in the fiat 125 was a superb twin over head cam that rev'd way better than any Ford DBA. Another Fiat masterpiece of an engine was the 1300 in the Fiat128!

it's actually not bad ;;; no stupid electrics ,,,

1:31 I was driving between the West and Berlin not long after the wall fell. Traffic stopped on the Autobahn (for no reason I could determine) but I noticed several cars ahead of me, someone had scraped "DR" off their country decal (originally DDR) leaving just "D". lol

Growing up , a neighbour had an original 2stroke one of these. I have a lasting memory of the awful noise it made when he started it. Sounded like someone kicking metal dustbins around.

These were pretty popular back in the day, due mainly to their low price, well under a grand in the late sixties. A group of guys at a local factory made up the tooling to dismantle and reassemble pressed together crank assembly. Those air horns sound like downtown Karachi.....

I don't remember the name of the KZread channel, but I remember a young bloke driving one of these around Ireland. All the way around the north and northwest coast of Ireland, down to the Giant's Causeway. Certainly more, ummm, comfortable than a Trabi.

I had a 353 drove it right across Europe,it was dreadful on tarmac but really came into it's own on the unmade roads still common east of central Europe back in the seventies, Being a tourist model we slept in the back quite comfortably plenty of room. At one point in Yugoslavia the lights just gave up then came back on again and in Italy on the way back the starter blew up and. a dodgy condenser gave us trouble However it's speed off the line from traffic lights was a fantastic advantage in both Athens and Rome where everybody drives like lunatics there was little that could come close. I hear tell the rally versions did 0 to 60 in 5.5 seconds.not to shabby for a one litre engine. The million mile tyres supplied with the car when new were crap in the wet and were the first things in need of swapping out. some good quality commercial 14 inch tyres not only gave a little more ground clearance for those deeply rutted unmade roads but the extra strength warded off punctures. the handling was crap anyway so it made little difference. Some bastard stole it from outside my house in 1983 along with my tools and new fridge that were in the back.