CarBrandLogos archive · Wartburg · 1988

Wartburg1.3

A Volkswagen engine, thirty years late, and only two and a half years to use it.

Photo: Torsten Maue · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Wartburg history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Wartburg 1.3, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

By the late 1980s the two-stroke Wartburg was indefensible on emissions and embarrassing to sell abroad, and East Germany had no capacity to design a modern engine. The solution was political as much as industrial: a licence agreement with Volkswagen, signed in 1984, to build a 1272cc four-stroke four-cylinder at Karl-Marx-Stadt for both Wartburg and Trabant. Eisenach engineered the 353 body to take it, revising the front structure, the suspension and the brakes, and put the result on sale in October 1988 as the Wartburg 1.3.

Wartburg 1.3 Motorraum · EMST · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The car was transformed in the ways that mattered — quieter, cleaner, no more mixing oil with petrol — but it was still a twenty-two-year-old design with a modern engine in the nose, and it cost far more than its predecessor. Saloon, Tourist estate and Trans pickup versions were offered.

Wartburg 1.3 krk · Pitak · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

Then the Wall came down. From mid-1990 East German buyers had access to used Western cars at prices the 1.3 could not touch, currency union destroyed the plant's cost base, and demand vanished almost overnight. Production ended in April 1991, and the Eisenach works closed as a Wartburg factory; the site was eventually redeveloped by Opel. Fewer than three years of production ended more than half a century of car building under the name.

Wartburg · Torsten Maue · CC BY 2.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Engine

1272&nbsp

Body

Sedan

Technical specification

The 1.3, in detail.

Production: October 1988 – April 1991
Body style: Sedan (automobile); Sedan (Limousine) ; station wagon (Tourist) ; Pickup truck; pickup (Trans)
Layout: FF
Engine: 1272 cc BM 860 four-stroke I4
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Assembly: East Germany: Eisenach (1988–1990); Germany: Eisenach (1990–1991)
Manufacturer: Automobilwerk Eisenach