CarBrandLogos archive · Wartburg · 1966

Wartburg353

Built almost unchanged for twenty-two years, and still worth a long wait.

Photo: High Contrast · CC BY 3.0 de

The story

A defining chapter in Wartburg history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Wartburg 353, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

When Eisenach replaced the curvaceous 311 in 1966, it kept the mechanical package — a 993cc two-stroke triple driving the front wheels through a four-speed gearbox — and wrapped it in a crisp, upright three-box body developed by Hans Fleischer with the industrial designers Clauss Dietel and Lutz Rudolph. It looked contemporary in 1966. It still had to look acceptable in 1988.

Wartburg 353-400 green vl TCE · Stahlkocher · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

That is the story of the car. East Germany's planners had neither the currency nor the political appetite to fund a genuinely new model, so the 353 stayed in production for twenty-two years with only detail changes: a facelift in the mid-1980s, a switch to a conventional gearchange, better brakes. Owners learned to mix oil into the petrol, to coast carefully because a two-stroke starved of oil on the overrun will seize, and to accept a blue haze as the price of a car at all.

Wartburg 353-400 Trans · Stefan Jensen · Public domain

In production

It was still a good car by the standards of the bloc. The engine was almost unburstable and simple enough to repair with hand tools, the ride was long-travel and comfortable, and the estate — the Tourist — was genuinely practical. It sold across Eastern Europe, and was exported west as the Wartburg Knight in Britain, where its price was the argument.

Wartburg 353 Jaslo · Pitak · CC BY-SA 3.0

Legacy

Waiting lists at home ran to a decade or more, which meant a used 353 could cost more than a new one on paper. The end came in 1988 when the 1.3 arrived with a four-stroke Volkswagen engine, and the whole enterprise collapsed with the country two and a half years later.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Engine

993&nbsp

Designer

Hans Fleischer

Body

4-door saloon

Technical specification

The 353, in detail.

Production: 1966–1988
Body style: 4-door saloon; 5-door estate; 2-door coupe utility (pickup)
Layout: FF layout
Engine: 993 cc two-stroke I3
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Designer: Hans Fleischer, in cooperation with Clauss Dietel and Lutz Rudolph
Assembly: East Germany: Eisenach
Manufacturer: VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE)