Great (???) Commercials--Wartburg 1000
We have previously discussed in these pages the Trabant 601, East Germany's sorry excuse for a "People's Car." Homely, hapless, and mechanically helpless, yet somehow lovable in spite of it all, the "Trabi" has rightly come to symbolize the epic failure of communism in Eastern Europe.
What is generally not known is that the Trabant wasn't the only car built in East Germany. There was also an upscale make, the Wartburg. With steel body panels instead of the Trabi's pseudo-plastic, a bigger three-cylinder two-stroke engine instead of a two-banger, and seating for five instead of four, the Wartburg was by any measure a better car than the Trabi--not that that was a hard trick to pull off. It was also more expensive and even harder to get than the overpriced and under-produced Trabi, and tended to be owned only by Communist Party officials and other people with "connections."
Also, like with the Trabi, the government felt compelled to make commercials for the Wartburg--even though, in East Germany's centrally-planned command economy, neither car had any real competition. This clip advertises the 1966 Wartburg 1000 sedan. My comments are below the fold.
First off, while it's certainly no match for the works of the Raymond Loewy studio, the Exners, or Gorgetto Giugiaro, the '66 Wartburg is no warthog, either. Where the Trabant was awkward and dorky--albeit endearingly awkward and dorky--the Wartburg is crisp and well-proportioned, and projects an air of confidence. Beneath the Corvair-wanabee sheetmetal is the same inept East Bloc engineering that powered the Trabant, so the styling was making promises the platform couldn't fill. Even so, it's pretty cute for a commie-mobile.
0:01 - Where the Trabi commercial uses rinky-dink roller-rink organ music, the Wartburg gets a stylish Man From UNCLE/I Spy/James-Bond-meets-Peter-Gunn international jazz of mystery soundtrack. Seems appropriate for a car from behind the Iron Curtain.
0:05 - The Wartburg demonstrates its impressive performance by catching some air off a lump in one of East Germany's under-maintained roads.
0:07 - Here we have a dramatic shot of the Wartburg racing down an airport runway straight into the camera. Wait--what's that hand with the baton doing in front of the camera? Hey, Dummkopf, get that belästigung baton out of the frame, schnell! You're blocking the shot!
0:15 - Seats three across in the back. Another triumph for scientific socialism!
0:18 - The spacious trunk holds 75 regulation soccer balls, making the Wartburg the perfect car for the on-the-go Fußballmütter.
0:21 - Airplane buffs will appreciate the Antonov An-24 in the background.
0:23 - Note the cameo appearance by William Demerest in the role of Uncle Charlie from My Three Sons.
There were at least two different ads produced for the Wartburg in this period. The other one can be viewed and even downloaded, at the Internet Archive.
-- Cookie the Dog's Owner
jjd241 on December 08, 2009 at 02:41 AM
Yavhol herr comrade! Das is goot!
Chris Mallow on December 08, 2009 at 07:33 AM
All they needed was a shot of someone getting shot out via the passenger-side ejector seat.
A. Bunker on December 08, 2009 at 08:08 AM
Aw geez, I guess they ran out of red cameramen to do that braking shot and finally wised up and set the thing on a tripod. Only a meathead would trust his life to a set of Commie brakes.
Now get me a beer there, will ya Edith?
Chris Hafner on December 08, 2009 at 09:21 AM
That's a hilarious commercial, but is it wrong that I think the Wartburg is actually a decent-looking car? It has a hint of NSU about it ...
Chris Meirose on December 08, 2009 at 10:15 AM
It's the poor communist man's Mercedes. It honestly looks like an early 70's Mercedes and Toyota had an illegitimate bastard child...
Cookie the Dog's Owner on December 08, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Chris, you ask if it's wrong to think this isn't a bad looking car. As I said in my comments on the commercial, I think the basic design (a little Corvair, a little NSU) isn't bad. It has panel gaps that would make a Plymouth Volare weep bitter tears of shame, but the basic design is rather attractive.
David Colborne on December 08, 2009 at 10:04 PM
I love how the second commercial shows a Wartburg that apparently hasn't been warmed up all the way. At least, I hope that's what happened - I hate to think that they were so poor that they burned coolant right off the lot. Of course, just like the Trabant, the Wartburg only came with a two-stroke engine, so that might have something to do with the obvious exhaust coming out the back. I also love the end shot of the first commercial - nothing says class and luxury like parking in a grassy field next to a giant apartment block.
My suspicion is that East German car commercials were made to show East Germans that, yes, they were making cars, just like those petty bourgeois capitalist pigs on the other side of the wall. Of course, the reason they could produce Wartburgs at all was because BMW left a plant behind after Germany was split up, which probably explains the odd NSU-Corvair flair.
Steaming Pile on December 09, 2009 at 07:27 AM
Wikipedia has a decent article on the history of East German vehicle manufacturing. The earliest ones did, in fact, look a lot like pre-war BMWs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrieverband_Fahrzeugbau
Paul on December 10, 2009 at 05:57 PM
Having had the "honor" of actually seeing large numbers of Trabants and Wartburgs in action on the streets of East Berlin, and having had to inhale the result, I'd say they deserve every bit of scorn one can heap on them. There is an amusing dig at Trabants (in German) on youtube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4VKVnq-GOY
But I'd be a little hesitant of making so sweeping an indictment as to dump on all East bloc cars as representing "inept engineering". The Czech Tatra T603 with its rear mounted, air cooled V8 at least deserves some respect for being interesting, if deadly.
Matt on February 18, 2010 at 05:32 AM
There is actually a song about the Wartburg in Serbian by a 90s punk band called Atheist Rap. I am still learning the language so my wife translated for me, but the singer starts off talking about how he used to own a trabant but his pigs ate it one night, but that's OK because he now has a Wartburg Limousine. Its 4 metres of steel and 5 metres of smoke. Watch out pigs, because he's staying up all night in the barn to guard it...
brian on January 18, 2011 at 05:34 AM
I had one of these- and it was a very interesting car. The engine noise was beautiful- think mid 70s Kawasaki 2 stroke triple. WHAAAAAAHHHH brumm brumm brumm WHAAAAAAAH- it sounded way faster than it was.
The engine was basically the same one as in the 2 stroke Saab 93 of the '60s; both were derived from the DKW engine. Smoothest engine ever accelerating, but it did sound a bit embarrassing at idle- pop pop blub blub blub pthwwwt. The smoke isn't bad at all with modern 2 stroke scooter synthetic scooter oil.
The panel gaps were actually because all panels bolt on, ala Citroen DS. The bodywork on these was really strong steel, and they didn't rust hardly at all. It even had a separate frame, and felt like a tank.
Mine had disc brakes and they were very powerful. It was a wagon, with a fiberglass tailgate and rear fenders, and the cargo area was nearly as long as a volvo 240- the rear seat folded down in a really ingenious way- the seat base rotated 180 degrees, so it was totally flat up to the front seats. The seats were also very comfortable- probably better than most western cars. I drove it from Berlin to the UK and didn't have a backache. The ride was superb too- it really was designed for bad roads, and you can go over speedhumps without noticing them. Granted it made for rather wallowy handling, but no worse than anything American from the '70s or '80s.
Sadly, I got rid of it when I was rationalising my classics- shame really, as its one of the cars I miss. Aside from very poor electrical ancillaries and the stupid distributor thing with three points on the crankshaft flywheel, it was a good car. These things have a very good reputation in Europe, and the engine has been known to go on for 200K miles without a rebuild as long as you remember to put oil in the gas!
I've owned all Soviet block cars, from a Yugo, to 3 ladas, to a Skoda. The jokes were much more based on prejudice against communism than the cars themselves- having also owned American and European cars of the same era, the quality was about the same- we couldn't make plastics fit either back then!
The best description I can think of is absurdly overengineered materials poorly assembled. You get the feeling that when they got warranty claims about parts breaking, they didn't think 'hey, lets see why its not being built right' but instead just said- make it bigger.