Wartburg

Wartburg was a marque of cars made by VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach in East Germany from 1956 to 1991, and the second best-selling car brand in the country after Trabant, with around 1.6 million vehicles built at Eisenach. The name goes back to 1898, when the Eisenach factory called its first car the Wartburgwagen after the castle above the town. It was dropped in 1904 when the company changed hands, came back briefly on the BMW 3/15 DA-3 Wartburg of the early 1930s, and was revived in 1956 for an updated version of the IFA F9. The range ran from the 311 through the 312, the 313 roadster and the long-lived 353 to the 1.3, the last fitted with a Volkswagen-designed four-stroke engine. Production ended on 10 April 1991 after German reunification and the plant passed to Opel.