Wartburg was an automobile manufactured in East Germany. It had a two-stroke engine with three cylinders, which amazingly had only seven moving parts. It also had a gravity-flow fuel system and a manual choke.

The marque goes back to 1885, and continued in production until 1989, when unprofitability spelt its end. The two-stroke engine had been replaced by a four stroke Volkswagen engine in the last year of production, but time and technology had passed it by, and the car could not meet modern standards. The final nail in its coffin was the introduction of the Deutschmark (DM), as the cost of producing a car reached 20,000 DM. There are still cars in drivable condition, and one can still see happy Wartburg owners. Wartburgs were exported to many countries in Europe. There are also many Wartburg owners' clubs throughout Europe, and many Wartburgs are still used as rally racing cars.

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

The factory producing the Wartburg cars was acquired by Opel in 1989.

See also: Trabant

Links

• History of Wartburg — long intoduction
• Wartburgpage — acts and images

Wartburg, KwaZulu-Natal is a small town in South Africa